Yea my first playthrough I heard you could get the icon by sailing relatively far from him, so I sailed around a neighboring island and got it easily
However I later found out it wasnt the norm. On my current seed, if I didn't use the Valheim map generator I'd have been looking for him for hours, the closest was in a random remote island and too far inland to be detected from the shoreline.
So when I start a new seed it's ridiculous: I check the seed on the map generator, check the trader icon and wrinkle my eyes as to not get spoiled of the landscape (cause that's part of the fun for me) but able to see enough just to get a clue of the bearings of its location...
I think a hint as to where he is could be nice. Like a compass or something