Iceland – the land of fire and ice.  A geological wonderland that is truly one of nature’s masterpieces.  It’s a literal hotspot just south of the arctic circle made up of volcanoes, lava fields covered in spongy moss, hot springs and glaciers, which certainly makes it one of the most unique and stunning places I’ve ever been. What other country can be defined by waterfalls, rainbows, tiny ponies and sheep?  I mean, how precious is that?  Just the kind of pure therapy I needed from the city.

I went this October with my good friend from Sweden, Linnea. Our trip started off a little rocky when on the first day we got stuck in the snow on the top of a mountain for three hours.  There were no other people, cars, tire tracks, buildings etc, for miles.  Soon after we realized we could actually be screwed for real, Linnea walked out of sight over the mountain to find help while I tried to dig the car out of the snow with my bare hands, feet and tripod.  She returned with no luck, so together with as much determination and grit that we could muster, we finally freed our car hours later.  Pro tip: For God’s sake avoid roads with three numbers and an F in the name. This was road “F550”, which essentially means it’s not well maintained and help will not be close by if at all.

Every corner we turned, a brand new landscape and weather pattern awaited us.  There’s a saying in Iceland, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes”.  Every day, you’re guaranteed to experience rain, sun, intense wind, moody fog and rainbows.   There was so much sky that we could see multiple weather patterns happen simultaneously on the horizon. With all of the changing weather, there was incredible light everywhere.  It falls around you like soft cinematic lighting with the purest and softest colors imaginable.  

We covered about half of Iceland’s coastline from the Snæfellsnes Peninsula all the way past Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon to Höfn, a quaint fishing town known for its tasty Langoustine.  Along the way, we saw many familiar sights that we realized were locations from Game of Thrones. Some highlights for me were Reynisfjara Beach, Skogafoss waterfall, Svartifoss waterfall and one of our Airbnbs on a farm with an adorable sheep dog, nice family and horses. One thing I love is that you really have to hike to get to a lot of these locations, so you have to earn it.  Not many lazy convenient parking lots.  I also really loved the Blue Lagoon Spa, which despite it possibly being a tourist trap, it was pretty epic. The water is pumped from over a mile below the earth’s surface, where it’s a piping 443 degrees, until it reaches the surface at just over 100 degrees. The water is amazing for your skin, but not your hair!

I feel purified after being in this gorgeous place. Definitely hope to make it back some day and check out ice caves and whale watching!