Inishbofin, an island off the coast of County Galway, Ireland, is the kind of place you might visit in a dream.

Remote and inhabited by only 160 human beings, Inishbofin is where you should go to– excuse the cliche– escape from the tedium of everyday life. The vibrant greenery of the island serves as an oasis amid an enclosure of crashing blue water capped in white waves.

There is a quiet in the atmosphere that can best be explained by the size of the island, coupled with the fact that it is populated more heavily by sheep than it is by humans. You are more likely to hear the muffled “bah” of a lamb than the honking of a car horn or the shout of voices.

The group I traveled with spent one of our three days in Inishbofin hiking up to its highest point. The terrain was soft, covered in a bright green grass that had been treaded over primarily by sheep. Including the hour or so we spent having a picnic on a sloping beach hidden by a verdant cliffside, the journey took nearly the whole day.

When we reached the top at last, my legs were aching from hours of exertion, but my eyes were as open as they had ever been.

Never have I felt as pure a sensation of happiness and freedom as I did when I stood at the top of that cliff, on what felt like the edge of the world, the precipice of something ethereal.

Below me, angry waves collided with stationary black rocks, the tumult of the sea seemingly rejected by the solidity and composure of the island. The air was a kind of clear and crisp I wish I could breathe again; untouched by the vast majority of civilians, sacred somehow.

Up there on the cliff, I sat on a flat rock as close to the edge as I could get, and I pulled out my notebook and began to write. There was simply no other way to take in all that magic.

Inishbofin’s beauty is the kind that makes you wish you could bottle it up somehow, savor it again later, have it within arms reach for the rest of your life. It is the rawest, purest form of the world we live in, unblemished by the mistakes of mankind. A rarity nowadays, unfortunately.

When we came down, I was left with a lingering sense of how things were, of how simple things could be. We crossed through the small town, passing by the hotel/restaurant where I would later eat vegetable risotto and a toffee pudding unlike any other. Nothing had shifted, nothing had been visibly transformed by my personal revelation.

And yet, everything has changed.