At this one-bedroom floating cabin in East Greenland, the nearest person is a satellite phone call away. Is it the ultimate expression of our need to get away from it all?

"If a polar bear comes," says Nicco Segreto, "you couldn't be in a safer spot. Just get inside and lock the door."

It's easy for him to say. A local glacier guide, Segreto is also the founder of the Floating Glacier Hut, a cabin moored in an uninhabited glacial bay in wild and remote East Greenland… and he's about to take off by boat and leave me to it.

It's not polar bear season and he's not being reckless, but after a week in this part of the world, I've heard enough stories to know that that doesn't always matter. A few summers ago, one was seen swimming in the harbour of a local settlement – and at the tail end of summer now, I'm keeping my wits about me. I think I'm on my own, but you can never be too sure.

I'm staying in one of the world's wildest Airbnbs, a small green hexagonal hut tethered to land by two strong ropes and an anchor but otherwise floating in a bay facing the Greenland Sea. While Airbnb has been criticised for its impact on housing prices in urban areas, the platform has made it possible for entrepreneurs like Segreto to create hyper-remote stays that find an audience among the world's adventurous travellers.

Amid its eight million listings, Airbnb includes nomadic yurts in Mongolia, a community guest house in Papua New Guinea, a tree house in the Amazon River between Colombia, Peru and Brazil, and a cabin stay on the Blaeberry River in the Canadian Rockies where you're unlikely to see another soul.

And then there's this place: a perfectly insulated Finnish-made aurora hut with a glass ceiling for watching the stars and the northern lights. Its geometric shape reminds me of the re-entry capsule of a rocket, and there's something of the loneliness of space to this place too.

The Floating Glacier Hut

Cabin sleeping two people from 7,347 DKK (around £855/$1,145) per night inclusive of dinner and breakfast.

But loneliness is just par for the course out here. If you follow the Greenlandic coast north from this spot along its east coast, you'll reach the settlement of Sermiligaaq, population 209 – and then nothing for 800km (497 miles) before you hit Ittoqqortoormiit, population 345, known as one of the most remote settlements on the planet. Then there are icebergs, polar bears and narwhals all the way to the North Pole.

In the other direction, due south, keep going for 7,600km (4,722 miles), roughly twice the width of the United States – and you'll finally make land in Brazil after crossing nearly the entire North Atlantic Ocean. It's a dizzying thought – but I'm not completely alone. The regional metropolis of Tasiilaq, population 2,000, is 45 minutes away by boat along an inlet to the west, and........

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