Iceland 2024

Going to Iceland? Here’s what we wish we had known. A tribute to Scandinavian design Hotels in Iceland don’t have the cheery-but-grubby floral carpeting and wallpaper of a US hotel. This is an improvement, but you better LOVE maximum-security gray and beige. Ifff you lose your rroom key, Olga villlll do a body cavity search… View full post

Reykjavik tourist shops are filled with T-shirts sporting variations on the I Visited Iceland theme, including one touting “Cats Of Reykjavik.” Where have they put them? During every trip we have taken, ever, there has always been a cat. Or many cats, as in our Algarve AirBnB. In our entire time in Iceland, we seen… View full post

The road from the eastern fjords to Lake Mvatyn in northern Iceland is like a high cold desert, devoid of vegetation, settlements or even sheep. On all sides are volcanic mountains, high enough for snow, but low enough for the rich black ash to soak up the sun’s heat and melt the snow into stunning… View full post

That title is a stretch, but Marida IS obsessed with geology and Terri WAS going to die if she Didn’t See Puffins. In the end, we both got our wish, and both outings had a touch of the metaphysical about them. On our glacier outing, we had gotten a great tip from one of the… View full post

There is actually only one key rule for driving in Iceland: Don’t. Look Over. The Edge. If you do happen to glance down as you are hurtling at 60 miles per hour along a winding clifftop, something will flash before your eyes. If you see a sheer drop into a river far below, your life… View full post

The sunny days we spent in Reykjavik turned out to be an anomaly for early May, and the weather reverted to rainy, windy type for the next few days. This seemed a good time to either seek dry shelter or just embrace the wet. We did both, getting drenched under some waterfalls then heading up… View full post

As people at home in the US comfortably strolled outside to see the northern lights, extraordinarily bright and visible as far south as Texas, we in Iceland continued to travel under a thick blanket of gray cloud. But we still checked off a bucket list item by finally hiking a glacier. Vatnajokull Glacier looked huge… View full post

We had originally thought to bypass this heavily-touristed route, but our interest in geology and a recent Zoom class on Vikings convinced us to at least visit Þingvellir. Not only is this an excellent place to view the fault where the North American and European tectonic plates split, it is also the traditional home of… View full post

Iceland’s capital city requires a mental shift to be appreciated. Coming from the airport, you traverse miles of old lava fields now covered in bristling tufts of straw colored grass. There are a few small hamlets with utilitarian buildings reminiscent of an Alaskan gold-rush town. Entering Reykjavik, you find more of the same, except bigger.… View full post