Travel
From speeding over black sand beaches to walking behind waterfalls, descending into volcanoes, hiking on glaciers or driving across the wild Highlands: read about our Iceland travels within.
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Northern Lights In Raufarhöfn
Journalist and photographer, Èric Lluent, sent us these incredible photos of the Northern Lights he took two nights ago in Raufarhöfn. It’s just the beginning of the aurora borealis season, so keep your eyes open and your cameras ready while travelling around…
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Grímsey: Hanging Out On The Arctic Circle
“You’re spending five days on Grímsey?”, a Reykjavík friend asked me in astonishment. “But there’s nothing to do there.” ”Precisely why I’m going there,” I replied. For I’d rather go to a place where there’s “nothing to do” than to a place…
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Blue Ice: Svínafellsjökull, Veronica And Elves
Birta Jóhannesdóttir is helping my daughter Veronica strap crampons over her boots. Our minibus parks in a lot minutes from Svínafellsjökull’s glacier tongue. The lot was purpose-made for the ‘Batman Begins’ film crew, who shot at this stunning location in 2005. Svínafellsjökull…
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Hiking Fimmvörðuháls, South Iceland’s Greatest Hiking Trail
Fimmvörðuháls is an old hiking trail in Southern Iceland that’s flanked by two glaciers, Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull. The name means “five cairns pass,” and whilst the original cairns are no longer used, it’s a well-marked path popular with natives and visitors alike.…
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DIY Celebrity Walk
We know you all were pretty upset to learn that it wasn’t actually the real Ryan Gosling who made headlines a few weeks ago by getting his car crashed on Sæbraut. Don’t worry. There are plenty of celebrities that did come over…
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Eyjafjallajökull: Chasing Volcanoes With Veronica
I can’t believe I am in front of the silent, even beautiful, volcano Eyjafjallajökull. You’d never know the chaos it wrought three years ago. Today it’s a powder blue sky winter day. I’m here with my nine-year-old, Veronica. She remembers I was…
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Iceland Is Gloomy
I’m exploring Iceland with my daughter. Veronica is in her ninth winter, as age is measured in Egil’s Saga. While investigating climate change I treasure having a junior adventurer along for company and perspective. We’re in Reykjavik before sunrise. Veronica is crashed…
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A Breath Of Fresh Air In Þórsmörk
Tourists have been striking yoga poses in front of Icelandic scenery since time immemorial—or at least since time Instagram-memorial. Clearly, exquisite natural settings and yoga practice are a match made in New Age hiker heaven. This summer, entrepreneurial yoga instructors and massage…
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A Quick Journey Of Music And Hannes Hafstein
The stately building at Grundarstígur 10 in Þingholt, one of Reykjavík’s most charming neighbourhoods, was basically a palace at the time it was built in 1915. From its south facing windows one can see an older house by the next street, a…
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Grímsey: Island Of Chess Players
Willard is not your typical Icelandic name, but until a few decades ago it was a not an uncommon name on the island of Grímsey. Not Sigurður, Haukur, Hilmar, or Þorgeir, but Willard. The reason is as follows: the American writer, linguist,…
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Walk This Gay
A tremendous amount of care must be taken for an organisation to represent an entire community to international visitors. And a notoriously outspoken community, at that. But the members of Pink Iceland, a travel organisation serving the LGBT community in Iceland, execute…
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Tangling With Tupilaks
A kayaker friend who’d just returned from East Greenland told me a very strange story. He said that a tupilak had recently emerged from the sea and attacked the village of Igatek, causing it to be evacuated. Made by an angakok (shaman),…
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Top Tips for Driving Safely in Iceland
Visiting Iceland and renting a vehicle? Here are some tips to keep you and your travelling partners safe on the notorious Icelandic roadways. Stick To The Speed Limits Most rural mountain roads in Iceland are made up of loose gravel, which can…
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For The Hikers: Four Fine Summits
From the hundreds of mountain hikes and climbs (both equipped and un-equipped) Iceland has to offer, I have chosen to spotlight four mountains that should be suitable for most hikers. The hikes are intended for the late spring to early autumn months,…
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Verslunarmannahelgi Is Coming! What Shall I Do?
Verslunarmannahelgi (“Merchants‘ Weekend”) initially came about because the first Monday in August was designated a statutory holiday for merchants and anyone working in trade in Iceland. Nowadays, convenience stores, roadside shops and tourist shops pay their staff extra to be able to…
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Farmyard Frolics At Pólar Hestar
I don’t remember Bjartur of Summerhouses pulling wedged-in poo out of a lamb’s bottom whilst a nail perforated his welly-boots and lodged itself snugly into his foot. I know that dear old Bjartur faced many challenges on his small Icelandic farm, but…
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A Scavenger Hunt Via GPS: Geocaching In Skagafjörður
On Friday evening we set off toward Skagafjörður where we would spend the weekend exploring. It wouldn’t be like anything we had done before; Bragi Jónsson, an Icelander who certainly knows his way around the island, would be taking us geocaching. This…
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Exploring The Reykjanes Peninsula
You may have noticed while looking at a map of Iceland that the Reykjanes Peninsula, where the Keflavik International Airport is situated, has a familiar shape. It looks like a boot, like a miniature version of good old Italy. You might find…
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Iceland: The New Morocco?
When I started surfing in Iceland 11 years ago, people would ask me the same question over and over again: “Surfing in Iceland! Are there any waves here?” At first I would enthusiastically explain that, yes, being an island smack dab in…
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Mývatn (‘For You Americans’ And Other Tourists)
One of the first stories our tour guide Logi tells us as we leave the Akureyri airport is about the 1965 and 1967 NASA training missions at Mývatn. Located about an hour outside of Akureyri, Mývatn’s barren and rocky landscapes were thought…
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Yes We Can: Five Fancy Pools For Your Pickin’!
“One of this country’s best redeeming qualities are the pools of hot water found sprinkled all over it. Those pools somehow manage to make life on the edge of the inhabitable world somewhat bearable-to-goddamn awesome when all else fails, especially when temperatures…
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A Day In The Life: Lovísa Elísabet Sigrúnardóttir
What’s up, Lovísa? I just released a new album, ‘Brostinn strengur’, which I have been working on most of this year. These days I’m planning concerts around Iceland, practicing my management skills and trying to organise things well so that everything goes…
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Réttir: NO SHEEP LEFT BEHIND!
Come end of September, the days grow noticeably shorter, the grass turns yellow and it’s time to bring the sheep in for the winter. This is a two-part affair beginning with the act of rounding them up in the mountains—‘að smala’—and ending…