Hey so, a disclaimer before we read this next one. I could write a really good piece here with a shocking reveal halfway through, but I don’t think it’s the right choice to do so. This story deals with a situation that I want to navigate with caution, and respect. People have been forced out of their homes by a volcanic eruption. I write this to follow through with ✓ Project Bucket List. I do not want to treat this situation as if the homes of the affected are a tourist attraction, or a zoo.
Now that I’ve covered the content warning, let me set the scene. Kymberley and I are in Iceland, and it’s one calendar day after I proposed. The very same day that we explored a lava tunnel and ticked off Explore a Cave in the Dark, we headed back west.
Now, I have something to admit. Just before this trip, OpenAI came out with a feature called Deep Research, a method that allows ChatGPT to use reasoning on larger tasks, and search the internet for information. The idea is that it acts as a research assistant, and can parse through large amounts of information online.
Many people have discussed the fact that ChatGPT occasionally hallucinates information, making things up with no basis. I thought that by scraping the internet, it would happily find real information, and not have that problem. What I failed to think through, was how up to date that information might be.
I made a mistake. I used ChatGPT’s Deep Research model to help plan our Iceland trip, and on night 4 of the trip, we were told to head to a cute little fishing town called Grindavík. We drive through a mountainous region, it’s getting late, and there’s fewer and fewer cars on the road around us. This isn’t exactly rare in Iceland, so neither of us question anything.
We arrive in the town, and there’s a little road sign that says “dangerous area” – we assume roadworks or some gravel road. But, as we drive through, something doesn’t seem right. The cars have completely gone. It’s just us, and a strong wind. Around us, the houses, the roads, everything, is empty. Some places have lights on outside, some have Christmas decorations up on the doors (it’s March).
Look, I’m very specifically going to try not to show details of any of the houses. Some have cracks down them, some have parts missing, but at the end of the day, these were people’s homes. If you find that one of the pictures included in this article feature your home, please contact me directly to remove it.
We take a turn down a road, and see fencing, striking down the side of the road ahead of us, blocking off houses. Along the fence are signs, showing different messages, many of which hint at a disturbing story.
Kymberley and I are quiet, apart from pointing out the unfolding pictures in front of us. We are both figuring this out in our heads, before she finally pipes up. “What happened here?“
We park down a street and step out of the campervan. It feels like we shouldn’t be here. At any moment I feel like somebody is about to charge out of a house and have us explain ourselves.
At this point, we’ve both grabbed a camera, and are documenting the discovery. We still aren’t aware of what’s happening here, just that this place might be empty, and that this is something most people don’t get to experience. Keep in mind, we went into Grindavík believing that they’d have a chippy and a campsite.
We walk over to the main road that passes through the town. In front of us, the fencing is covered in orange bunting, and signs telling us that we are not in a safe place. In the distance, I see an N1, a chain of fuel stations in Iceland. The lights are all completely turned off. It’s the first one we’ve seen that isn’t open.
There’s a bad feeling in the air. Something feels wrong, so we decide to start making our way back to the campervan. Alongside another road, an entire section of the village is entirely fenced off. Through the metal bars we can see land formation that rises up, crusts of the ground jutting upwards and sideways.
I cannot emphasise enough how much it feels like we should not be here. There’s something unnatural about being in a town that should be full of life, but is utterly empty. Looking around you to see clear signs of an evacuation gives a feeling that I don’t wish to experience again.
We return to the campervan, and decide to bring up directions on our phone back the way we came. We have to get to another campsite, the nearest one that’s open in the winter is around an hour away.
We both open our phones and are presented with the following message.
We left soon after. On our exit, we saw more houses abandoned, roads broken, and fenced off areas of a town that I can imagine once bustled with friendly, small town life.
I’m going to give some context to what happened here. I didn’t know this information going in. In late 2023, Grindavík started to experience a fair bit of seismic activity. 22,000 earthquakes in the space between late October and the 10th of November 2023, when authorities decide that everybody must leave town. The inhabitants were relocated to nearby towns and emergency centres.
A month later, the eruptions started. In January 2024, lava breached defences surrounding the village and destroyed three homes. Throughout 2024, more and more eruptions took place. Residents were allowed brief visits to collect belongings. The Icelandic state did an amazing thing to support the Grindavík population and offered to buy residential property owned by the inhabitants.
In January 2025, just 2 months before we accidentally visited the town, the police issued a statement saying that people should flat out not visit. Had we been aware of this. Had I not trusted ChatGPT to plan our trip, we would not have visited Grindavík in the way that it is now.
We left Grindavík after only staying there for 15 or 20 minutes. In the drive back through the mountains, I remember speaking about how uneasy I felt about the whole thing, and it holds true even now. There’s a real sadness to this experience, and to an extent, an element of humble shame.
In my head, visiting an abandoned city was an exciting thing, driven by interesting stories of apocalypses and ends of civilisation and adventure. I had images in my head of exploring empty streets, previously lived in, finding clues as I walked around to what happened. When I actually experienced that very thing I’d imagined, I was overcome with a feeling of sorrow for the people who lost their homes.
I guess it’s a stark reminder that, these stories and imaginations I’d built up over the years are all often based on some horrific experience that characters had to live. Yearning for that sort of environment in real life comes with the understanding that real people had to experience something heart-breaking.
It’s also a clear reminder of the absolute incredible power that nature holds over us. I live in England, we get some bad rain sometimes, but we live in incredibly comfortable conditions. Visiting a country where volcanic warnings appear on your phone, and “seek shelter” is an important piece of advise the tourism board gives you is eye opening. Mother nature can, and will fuck you up, and it won’t care in the process.
Look, if you’re in Iceland, don’t go to Grindavík until they declare it’s safe. And if you go anywhere, ever, don’t get ChatGPT to write your itinerary. Can you imagine the bad publicity for OpenAI if we would’ve been trapped in an eruption there? Fact check anything that it spits out, and don’t trust AI.
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