Favourite Places: Why You Should Visit Iceland Right Now

We’re not planning to go to Iceland during the Scandinavian part of our trip, because we’re focusing on places we haven’t been. But talking about it recently reminded us why we love it there, and we’re sure to return. We encourage you to drop everything and visit Iceland. Here’s why:

Ease of Transport

• The flight is a short one: under six hours from most of the east coast of the US, just over three from Heathrow. (Though, to Europeans, that doesn’t seem short…)
• Icelandair offers free seven-day stopovers if you are headed across the Atlantic (British website here; US here). That’s right, if you are already going from North America to Europe or vice versa, you can fly through Iceland and stop for up to seven days for no additional charge. That is a good enough deal to make us ignore our obsession with frequent flyer miles.

Everything is Hassle-Free

• As is the case throughout Scandinavia, everyone really does speak English, better than we do.
• The country is small enough to stay in Reykjavik and see on day trips – yay for not unpacking!
• The tourist infrastructure beats any we’ve seen anywhere: minivans pick you up at your lodging and take you to a central transport hub where you pile onto the larger busses that take you to the sights.
• Or, you can rent a car and drive around the Golden Circle, which will take you to all kinds of amazing places including the site of the very first parliamentary democracy and an enormous waterfall.
• Buses to and from the airport stop at the Blue Lagoon so you can have a soak before or after your flight. Or both. Now that’s hospitality!

Natural Beauty/Adventures

• Geysers and waterfalls, dozens of ’em all over the place. You can look at them, you can get in them.
• Volcanoes: they don’t call it the land of fire and ice for nothin’!
• Fjords to the west of you, fjords to the east of you – with over a hundred of them, you can’t miss seeing one. Laurel climbed a glacier!
• Puffins: Iceland is home to the largest puffin community in the world (about ten million during breeding season). Puffins are super-cute and you will love them.
• The purest water we have ever tasted. In fact, it almost doesn’t taste like anything, because it’s not chemically treated.
• Horses: one of the purest breeds in the world, with a special gait unknown to other horses, called the tölt. It is allegedly very smooth. (That was not our experience, though we’re willing to concede that it could have been us and not the horse.)
• Extraordinarily long days in the summer, which allows you to go see all this great stuff.

People

• Everyone is extraordinarily friendly. It’s a small country, so even the mayor is readily accessible.
• Icelanders care deeply about the world, and about the environment. Nearly all of the energy they use is renewable, and we kept finding small but important ways they use less and waste less.
• Icelanders have a wacky sense of humour. Exhibit A: Björk. Exhibit B: This video, featuring typing horses.
• Everyone you meet is an artist or a musician or both.
• Iceland is also the most sparsely populated country in Europe, so if you want to get away from people it is astonishingly easy to do so.

Culture

• Great food (especially lamb and fish and dairy), which tastes sort of familiar while being new. And, very often, is smoked or pickled or salted.
• Excellent museums, including the Saga museum for your Viking fix AND a museum about the processing of herring.

So please, don’t take our word for it: go visit Iceland for yourself! (Or, if you have been there, write a comment about your experiences)