What Iceland does best is natural experiences you’ll not encounter anywhere else in the world. And here are eight of the most extraordinary.
Snorkel the Silfra Fissure
Once you’re in the water – and its temperature is only a smidge above freezing point – you don’t care about how cold it is. The visibility is extraordinary, with the ever-deeper blues unfolding beneath and the chunky basalt rocks forming a crystal clear canyon either side.
Dry suits are required to take on the Silfra Fissure, the gap between two continental plates which has filled with water that has made its painstaking way down from the Langjökull glacier. There are no fish and no coral, but the clarity and location in the earth’s crack makes it a snorkel like no other.
Go inside the Þríhnúkagígur volcano
The hike across the stark, mossy lava fields of the Reykjanes Peninsula is just the start of it. Once finally at the top of Þríhnúkagígur, the only way is down. Straight down, for 120 metres into a volcano’s magma chamber. In a lift that looks suspiciously like the ones window cleaners use while cleaning skyscrapers.
It’s a hollowed-out vision of colour and enormity. Ash on the walls crumbles under touch and droplets of water drip through the rock.
Awe-inspiring can be a term used a little too often, but here it’s appropriate. It’s a place to feel very, very small.
- Book it! Inside the Volcano.
Walk through the tunnels of the Langjökull glacier
It should be the colours. The ice is backlit in blues and pinks, with a wedding chapel carved out. But it’s not. It’s the sounds. All around are the noises of gurgling pipes. Water is running through the Langjökull glacier, and finally the idea of an ever-shifting ice mass makes sense.
Getting there involves bobbling along the ice in a giant monster truck, until a little hatch leads to the man-made tunnels dug into the ice. This is igloo-making on an epic scale, with the fantasy ice palace carved out in one of the most treacherous locations on earth.
- Book it! Into the Glacier.
Walk through a vast lava tube
Vidgelmir is what happens when a volcano erupts, and sends lava shooting down mountainsides. This is no ordinary cave – it was cut out by the lava flows, leading to walls that look like weirdly smooth melting chocolate.
Big rock chunks on the floor of the mile-long cave are where the lava cooled and cracked. And, astonishingly, over 1,000 years since the eruption, the tunnel walls are still cooling. Heading inside provides an eye-opening lesson on how volcanoes work.
- Book it! Lava tube tours.
Dodge icebergs on the way to the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier
“We’re on our way to the most beautiful iceberg in the world,” says the man in charge of the Zodiac boat. Well, this week’s most beautiful iceberg, anyway. They don’t last long after breaking off the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier.
But this makes every outing on Jökulsárlón, the iceberg-packed lake formed by the glacier’s retreat, different. Some bergs are tall and mighty, others blue having just flipped and revealed their underside. And sidling up close to the glacier wall is a proper Game Of Thrones moment.
- Book it! Glacier lagoon boat tours.
Swim in the Blue Lagoon
Geothermal power plants have rarely been so cool. The water processed by the Swartsengi Power Station has turned into an eerie man-made lake, where the water takes on a milky blue colour as if the fairies have been at it.
Handily located between Reykjavik and Keflavik Airport, the Blue Lagoon has become one of Iceland’s top draw cards. 700,000 people a year dropping by to splash in the thermally-heated waters and watch the vapour rise from the surface like giant steam clouds. It’s 37–39 °C in there, the minerals supposedly have healing properties, and it all feels brilliantly silly.
- Book it! A soothing session in the Blue Lagoon.
Go whale and puffin-watching from Husavik
Whales swan about all around Iceland’s coast, but Husavik in the north is justifiably regarded as the hotspot. Here, minkes have been joined in recent years by humpbacks, and that sort of cetacean variety is mirrored by the options provided by tour operators.
North Sailing has expanded from its traditional whale-watching tour to offer one that is conducted on a gorgeous traditional sailing ship. There’s also one that mixes things up by going to see the dolphins and puffins as well.
- Book it! Go sailing with whales.
Kayak along Seyðisfjörður
If it’s fjords you want, then paddling along them in a kayak gives a duck’s eye view and sense of being humbled by what rises around you. Borea Adventures runs day-long kayaking tours along the whole length of Seyðisfjörður fjord in the east of the country, around the Folafótur peninsula and into the neighbouring Hestfjörður fjord. On the way, paddling under the steep cliffs, there’s a strong chance of spotting seals and dolphins. And seabirds? You’ll hardly be able to move for ‘em.
- Book it! Fjord-kayaking tours.
More Iceland travel
Other Iceland travel articles on Planet Whitley include:
