Jenn and I spent a week in Iceland for her birthday. Since we haven’t gone on any major trips in the past two years, we were a bit out of practice even in the planning stage. We booked a guided tour from nordic visitor. The tour was decent but the weather didn’t fully cooperate.

We arrived in Reykjavik and did the FlyOver iceland experience. This was great! It’s an indoor movie/ride similar to something we’ve done at Europa Park. It’s sort of like a roller coaster in an IMAX theater but the seats move in 3 dimensions rather than riding on a track. The movie that plays for the ride was spectacular and showed off different environs in Iceland. Naturally, we checked out the grocery store. Prices are a little higher than Switzerland (particularly for anything imported).

The next morning our planned whale watching trip was cancelled so we wandered the streets of Reykjavik and met the yule cat. Apparently, if you do not receive any clothing for Christmas the cat eats you. We headed to the towering Lutheran church for a view over the city.

All morning, Jenn was putting in calls to get us on an afternoon whale watching trip. She managed to get us seats an a 3 hour tour. The weather started getting rough…. and they gave us sea sickness tablets. In any case, we saw some sea life and I managed to get a few pictures.

The following day our guided tour began and we drove a few hours to a black sand beach in southern Iceland. Iceland is an island composed of lava fields so vegetation is primarily mosses. The basalt columns on the beach were neat. There were warning signs for strong currents and unexpected waves around the beach. Several people distracted by personal videography got wet.

We were supposed to hike a glacier and an ice cave the next day but high winds caused road closures. I was pretty bummed as the ice cave was one of the major highlights for me. Instead, we visited several lovely but forgettable waterfalls. That evening we stayed at Magma Hotel out in the country and had a fairly clear night for viewing the northern lights. The forecast was weak for lights but we did spot a green glow in the sky. The following few nights had stronger lights but were cloudy, so this was the only night we actually spotted anything. The rainbow clouds really looked that way.

We also went to a glacier lagoon and diamond beach. The glacier lagoon is filled with icebergs sheared from the glacier. They float out to sea and some get beached nearby. The clear ice glistens, reminiscent of diamonds.

We left Magma and headed back to Reykjavik. On the way, we stopped by Geysir (the original geyser) and a few more waterfalls. We also saw the North Atlantic ridge and walked between the continental plates.

On our last day we went to Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa. The spa/pool is rather large, and water is piped from deep in the earth. The water is a seawater/freshwater mix that is cloudy with mineral deposits. And it’s quite warm!

Overall, I enjoyed our trip to Iceland. We booked a 5 day tour and I think there was enough to do that we could have used two more days- or a day or two free to make up for bad weather. I hadn’t anticipated losing important parts of the itinerary due to weather and that was me being uninformed. Still, I’m disappointed to not have had a better aurora viewing and missing the glacier and ice cave was sad, too. It’s a small country so a trip much longer than a week might be hard to fill without a great deal of driving time. I think we’ll try a different country (and timing) for our next northern lights trips. (hello finland 2025)