Global Treks: Iceland is Nice

Trip Highlights

The first question we are always asked is about the weather. In a word, it’s unpredictable, even in late May. We landed in the midst of a major storm where rain and wind gusts of up to 40 mph (or 65 km per hour) meant a major itinerary change for our first day in country. But we also enjoyed beautiful sunny skies and temperatures of up to 60°F (or about 15°C). We were glad we packed layers, including our winter jackets that allowed us to be comfortable in a range of weather conditions.

We spent most of our days chasing waterfalls along what’s called the Golden Circle as well as the southwest coast of Iceland. “Foss” is the Icelandic word for “waterfall” and there are an estimated 10,000+ waterfalls sprinkled throughout the island.

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Iceland is also known as the land of fire and ice because of its volcanoes and glaciers. We enjoyed hiking around the top and bottom of Kerið Crater, a 3,000-year-old volcanic crater as well as watching the geysers and visiting the black sand beaches of Reynisfjara. We also got to see whales, dolphins, puffins and seagulls up close. There is so much to see and do and we barely scratched the surface despite having 20 hours of daylight to explore!

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There are constant reminders that Iceland is one of today’s most active volcanic regions on Earth. Volcanic rocks and lava fields pepper the countryside, including on the Reykjanes Peninsula, which is where we visited the Bridge Between Continents (Brú Milli Heimsálfa). Our boys enjoyed running back and forth on Miðlína or Leif the Lucky Bridge, which is a walkway linking the North American & Eurasian tectonic plates and our two continents – and this was the day before the one of the latest volcanic eruptions briefly closed the tourist attraction (no, we didn’t see the eruption up close). In addition to the natural phenomena, there are also many interesting human-made items of interest to explore.

Cultural Considerations

Besides doing a lot of research about what sights to see during our trip, we did our cultural due diligence by looking into the language and culture of Iceland. The most obvious (or “tip of the cultural iceberg”) differences would include language and food. One of the values of Icelandic culture highlighted by the Cultural Detective’s online guide is “Íslenska” which means Icelandic (language):

For many Icelanders, the importance of preserving and maintaining their language is critical, both because of its special history and because it gives access to very unusual literature. Icelandic is a Nordic language, but has many words of Celtic origin. Most of the Old Icelandic vocabulary and inflections have been preserved in the modern language, so it is relatively easy for contemporary Icelanders to read ancient texts.

We tried to learn a couple of Iceland phrases before traveling: “takk” or thanks was usually returned with a “takk fyir komuna” or thanks for coming. Tried is the operative word, so we are also very thankful that pretty much everyone we encountered also spoke English.

Bibliophiles

The Icelandic language is one of the cornerstones of its culture because of the country’s strong literary heritage. In fact, gifting a book for Christmas is one of the traditional customs, and we saw lots of bookstores while walking around Reykjavik. There were two instances, one at a local bakery to pick up coffee and pastries for breakfast and another at a neighborhood convenience store, where we walked in and the employee was reading a book in between serving the customers. This was a refreshing change from seeing people glued to their phone screens.

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Cuisine

Speaking of food, we enjoyed the skyr, which is a thick and creamy Icelandic yogurt. While there are Icelandic dishes you can try such as fermented shark and puffin, we have two young boys and stuck with a more American-like diet of burgers, fries, pizza, hot dogs, and ice cream – and all of it was delicious! Food is Iceland is typically more expensive than it is in the U.S., so we took several trips to the local grocery stores to stock up on quick meals and delicious snacks.

By nature, Icelanders are laid-back and open-minded, and the variable weather keeps them highly flexible. To outsiders, Icelanders come across as high-energy, ‘nature people,’ and eternal optimists.”
– Cultural Detective Online

Everyone we encountered, from the immigration officer upon our arrival to our AirBnB hosts, etc., was very friendly and hospitable. Many of them took the time to help us with our attempts at pronouncing Icelandic names, words and phrases but were also quick to point out that we could just converse in English instead. We appreciated the honesty and cultural value of “hreinskilni” or direct and open communication since that is a common one we share in the U.S.

Recommendations

Given the popularity of tourism to Iceland in recent years, there are tons of blogs and videos on social media with lots of great tips about what to do if you plan to visit. Here is a short list of great restaurants and must-see destinations that our family thoroughly enjoyed.