Modern Day Viking - My Iceland Adventures

My 2024 New Year’s resolution had one bullet point on it: travel to Europe. Sadly, I went 0/1 in my resolutions, finishing the year still craving that sweet, sweet inhale of European air. However, when my parents asked me and my girlfriend to go with them on a January 2025 trip to Iceland, I took the opportunity to pencil in my checkmark a month too late. Is Iceland mainland Europe? Nope. But is it technically Europe? You bet. And in my resolutions, technicalities matter if they are in my favor.

I realize I’m lucky to have the chance to visit Iceland, as not many people in America have the chance to travel that far to such an isolated country. And I’m also lucky to conveniently have my own blog, so let’s talk about the itinerary and experiences on our 4+ day voyage. To add a bit of Icelandic flavor (and because I’m numb from tour guides spouting out knowledge at me), I’ll sprinkle in fun facts about the country to get you prepared for your next foreign countries trivia night.

(Disclaimer: to save me the torture and you the confusion, I will be abstaining from using accents and symbols appearing over words, because dear God, they're everywhere in this language.)

Travel Day: Flying international is for the birds. Literally. This was my first time doing so since 1997, when I was 10-months old. I don’t remember much about that trip (and I also don’t know why I went in the first place), but I quickly learned here that it is pure torture. We had a 6-hour layover in Boston, followed by an overnight flight to Iceland, where we landed at 6am Iceland time (which is midnight Central Time). Because of this, we had to get our night’s sleep while we were over the Atlantic Ocean. Since sleeping on a plane while sitting upright is impossible, we stepped off the plane in Keflavik, Iceland sleep-deprived. Nonetheless, time to make the most of our trip.

Day 1: We stepped foot in our hotel in the capital city Reykjavik and hit the town. With strolls to staples such as Hallgrimskirkja church, the Viking ship statue Sun Voyager, the mesmerizing and reflecting Harpa concert hall, and the smothering (in size, graffiti, and rebellion) Punk Rock Museum, we fit about all you can into a couple hours. We finished with a trip to the wonder-world Café Burgala, accompanied with house cats that are way fatter than they should be, and then went to our first excursion: a tour to see the famous northern lights.

This was the main reason we came to Iceland in the most frigid time literally possible. We’ve all seen the pictures of the glowing green-and-purple lights, but now it was time to see the spectacle with my own eyes! Well, we learned rather quick that those northern lights photos are truly camera tricks made to deceive from the naked-eye reality, which is that the northern lights aren’t very awe-inspiring without camera assistance. Looking up at the night sky, you could see a faint discoloration, maybe a hint of a glow that makes you think “hmm, there might be something going on” if you squint and tilt your head. But with a tripod and your exposure time turned up, you can catch some great photos that unlock what you were expecting. The sky was cloudy when we went, but we still managed to have a good time…

…until the tour guide made us stay two hours extra in hopes that the clouds would clear. The clouds did not clear. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 2am. Grand total, our Travel Day + Day 1 gave us four hours of sleep over 40 hours. Brutal.

Fun fact: The northern lights, also referred to as the aurora borealis, hover around the North Pole. The South Pole also has its version, known fittingly as the southern lights, or the aurora australis.

Day 2: The cool thing about Iceland is you can reach most of the inhabited areas by driving the Ring Road, which circles the entire island. However, the Ring Road route would be a little over 17 hours to drive yourself. So instead, let’s do a bus tour of the south-western coast, which covers about 2 of those 17 hours.

Here, we visited tremendous waterfalls such as Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss (by using context clues, you might guess "foss" = "waterfall". You'd be correct). We made a visit to the city of Vik, where their black sand beaches are iconic, picturesque, and definitely not actually sand. Imagine millions of tiny, smooth, black rocks that are much more fun to walk through than actual sand. For my Game of Thrones fans out there, this is the same black sand that Jon Snow himself conquered. Iceland is the home of several iconic science-fiction and fantasy filming spots, and seeing the uniqueness of the landscape, it's easy to see why.

Fun fact: Iceland’s surplus of waterfalls comes from their surplus of melting glaciers. However, the surplus is surplussing too much, and if the glaciers continue to melt at their current rate, they are looking to be gone within 50 years. This would effect and/or eradicate over 90% of marine life in Iceland, as well as turn off the faucet to the waterfalls. Those are not good things.

Day 3: Enough of these tour buses. Let’s do our own thing. We rented a car and took ourselves to the Golden Circle, a must-see drive through some of Iceland’s best scenery. Conveniently located close to where we were staying in Reykjavik, there are three must-see gems on the Golden Circle, and we crossed them all off:

·      Geysir – Iceland is blanketed with water and geothermal energy caked up underneath its surface. This leads to geysers appearing in abundance, especially around the legendary geyser, The Great Geysir. The Great Geysir was busy hundreds of years ago, but he’s been sleeping a lot as of late, and now has multi-year gaps between eruption. Instead, his neighbor, Strokkur, throws a hundred feet of boiling water in the air every 6-10 minutes.

Strokkur geyser is much more popular than it's "great" brother

·      Gullfoss – known as “gold waterfall,” Gullfoss is two large waterfalls formed from a fissure long ago. The hundreds of gallons of freezing water flowing every second causes a rising mist hovering above it that, when combined with the sun’s rays, reflects a gold aura to it.

Gold aura was auraing at Gullfoss

·      Thingvellir National Park – one of Iceland’s three National Parks, Thingvellir also served as the meeting of the first Parliament in the world, back in the 900’s. We unfortunately couldn’t find the notes from that meeting, but we did walk the Almannagja gorge to Oxararfoss. That’s got to be a solid consolation prize.

Almannagja gorge, leading straight to Oxararfoss

After circling the Golden Circle, we made our way to the Blue Lagoon that night, perhaps one of Iceland’s best stops. Referred to by Icelanders as their “wonder of the world” and by me as “the Taj Mahal of hot tubs,” the lagoon is heated by geothermal saltwater filled with silica, algae, and minerals that heal and nourishes skin unlike anything else. It was amazing, but I do have one complaint: lagoon way too damn big. I got in the lagoon by myself, and went to find my parents and girlfriend. What was first a fun adventure quickly turned into hopelessness after 30 minutes. Rising steam and dark skies prevented me from seeing more than five feet in front of me, so the scene and scenario had me feeling like I was in a zombie apocalypse movie. But hey, at least I was going to be a zombie with tremendously moisturized skin.

Fun fact: If you combine all Icelandic people to ever exist – both dead and alive – you would not reach one million people. Because of this, many single Icelandic people face trouble in finding another single partner that they are not related to. In other words, a lot of incest goes on in Iceland. Not like Game of Thrones incest, but like distant-but-not-so-distant-cousins incest. Idk what to do with that information but I had to give it to someone else. Sorry.

Day 4: Our last full day was an eventful one. Back to the tour bus we go, and this time, we’re venturing into the vast Highlands territory, which is inaccessible by 4x4 vehicles. We make our way up to Langjokull, which is the second-largest glacier in both Iceland and Europe, and get our snowmobile helmet and snowmobile suits on because we’re going to – you guessed it – snowmobile. Snowmobiling across a glacier, at first, was a bit intimidating, as our drive started off as a foggy blizzard. However, on the second half of our drive, the sun made its way out and stretched across the glacier, bringing a serenity over our drive that made the experience one that's unforgettable.

That night, my girlfriend, Tyler, and I ventured to perhaps the most secretive speakeasy I’ve found to date. With no mention of the speakeasy's name (other than one Reddit comment with zero likes), we approached an unmarked door with spray paint art on it, buzzed in with no real direction, and were allowed access. Through an empty hallway and down a flight of stairs, we made our way to a 1960’s living room, with only a singular bartender accompanying us. Tyler and I were the only guests, and the bartender welcomed us in and made our drinks. Funny enough, our Icelandic bartender – who, let me remind you, lives in Iceland and works in an Iceland speakeasy – is from Montgomery, AL, and moved to Snellville, GA before then moving to Iceland. An Alabama to Georgia to Iceland residence chain is wild. And with me already having accomplished the first two, I have no choice but to follow in our bartender’s footsteps and move to the Land of Ice.

Fun fact: The Highlands landscape where Langjokull is located is the center of Iceland and makes up 80% of the island. However, this section is completely uninhabitable, which means so is a vast majority of Iceland.

Another fun fact, just for gigs: Iceland democratically elected the first female president in the world in 1995. Their second female president, Halla Tomasdottis, was elected last year. Where did she get her bachelor’s degree? Must be Iceland University, right? Nope, none other than Auburn University at Montgomery. I dropped this bit of knowledge on our Montgomery-born bartender and felt like a Jeopardy champion.

A third fun fact! The gigs keep on rolling: the only native mammal to Iceland is the Arctic fox. Other mammals, such as the reindeer and Icelandic horse, were all brought over years ago. Interesting bit about the Icelandic horse, it is the only breed of horse able to withstand and thrive in the harsh Icelandic climate. However, they cannot survive in other, more survivable climates. They’re both extremely Alpha and extremely Beta, which in itself is extremely Alpha.

And now we're home in the U S of A, glad to be back but grateful to have had the experiences we did in Iceland. Whether it's the terrain, weather, nature, or people, there truly isn't anywhere else that I've seen that is remotely close to what Iceland has to offer. An overall amazing experience that I would highly recommend to anyone!