Iceland is a brooding, moving, ever-changing natural phenomenon that continues to be forged from the same basic elemental forces that have burned, bubbled, cracked and carved its rugged surface for the past millennia. It’s a land where soaring volcanic calderas crown steaming valleys of hot springs, where sprawling forests run haphazardly across the tundra and arctic gales swish past gigantic icecaps, many a fortuitous time against the magnificent backdrop of the aurora borealis.
Most visitors come here with an insatiable thirst for the wonderful outdoors that run way up into the high fringes of the Arctic Circle. Hiking, biking, fishing, volcanism, wild swimming and geyser spotting are among just some of the activities on offer, while there’s always plenty more for the budding ecotourist in this country’s vast and unchartered hinterland.
For centuries Iceland has also been something of a natural muse for wandering poets and bards, and is now a nation shrouded in the legends and myth of Scandinavian sagas to boot. Today though, your Iceland tour guide will tell you that the capital at Reykjavik is perhaps fabled more as the party capital and one of the seafood kingpins of the planet; the benefactor of the country’s remote maritime culture and home to a warm friendly people that perfectly counterbalance its freezing environs!