Iceland

In the past few years, Iceland has surged in popularity, possibly because of the country’s budget airlines. (Shout out to WOW air - I paid $260 for a round-trip ticket, including luggage). I stayed for 5 days, but could have easily extended it to a week because there was so much to see and do. If you are travelling from Europe, a weekend trip certainly wouldn’t be out of the question. We visited in November, so the days were just beginning to get shorter. The sun would rise by 10am and would set around 5pm. Winter had begun to settle in, so the roads were unsurprisingly icy. Even though visiting in winter may cause the odd anxiety attack while driving on the treacherous roads, I would highly recommend it.

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Accommodation:

• I stayed at the ION Adventure Hotel located inside the National Park. The hotel is an award winning design hotel, and best of all, reception will call to wake you in event of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights)!

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Activities:

• Dive Silfra, even if it's 28ºF and snowing.

• If you know me, you know I'm always cold, and I dread cold weather. So why Iceland? Because on the other side of things, I love being warm. There’s no greater feeling than bundling up in front of a fire knowing it’s frigid outside. So this was one of my favourite activities in Iceland. You could say I perfected the Icelandic concept of gluggaveður: appreciating outdoor weather from inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Food:

• Friðheimar is a tomato greenhouse not far from Skogafoss. Warm up from outdoor excursions with a big bowl of tomato soup and freshly baked cheesy bread.

• We also had a yummy meal at the harbour in Reykjavik. The staff were friendly and the ambiance was hygge.

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Tourist Attractions:

• Icelandic nature is all the sightseeing you need. I recommend Skogafoss and Kerið, though I would have liked to explore the Vatnajökull glacier further west. I hear you can kayak through ice caves when the summer sun melts the ice.

• The best thing we experienced was the Blue Lagoon. The reason for this? We showed up straight off our flight at opening time, 8am. This is a secret, I swear. At that time (in November), the sun won’t fully rise until close to 10am. We had an hour swimming in stillness, surrounded by snowy mountains watching the sky turn from black to pink to orange to blue. By 9am, busloads of visitors begin piling into the locker rooms spoiling what was a serene experience, so we wiped off our mud masks and moved on with our day.

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