This Is Why Iceland Is the Ultimate Stopover Location

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Don’t go chasing waterfalls. They are everywhere in Iceland. This is Skógafoss, one of the largest in the country. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

“Just to Reykjavík?” asked the Icelandair ticket agent at JFK Airport on a recent Friday evening after she saw that I was set to return from there the following Monday afternoon. Yes, I said, with a smile, pleased that I appeared to be someone who books multiple stops on an international trip. This sheen of self-satisfaction abruptly vanished when, shortly thereafter, I got my bootstraps tangled and did a violent nosedive leaving the VIP security line.

It turned out the question had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Iceland.

Reykjavík is located a mere five hours by air from New York City — that’s closer than Los Angeles — and Icelandair has a nifty program that allows customers booking any international flight on their airline to stop over in Reykjavík for up to seven days at no extra charge. I am on my way to Iceland to see how much can be packed into 58 waking hours in the country. The answer is a lot.

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After a surprisingly timely takeoff from JFK, I landed at Keflavík International Airport at 5:45 a.m. (Iceland is four hours ahead). The “red-eye” flight is really just long enough to allow for dinner and a nap, and it seemed a bit strange that after such a short trip, I could already have arrived in a world so thoroughly different from the one I had just left behind in New York.

Keflavík is small by New York airport standards and quiet. Outside, it is dark and cold. Vidar, a tall, charismatic, ruggedly handsome tour guide who works with Icelandic Mountain Guides and appeared to have been summoned straight from Nordic central casting (which, as it turned out, was not that far from the truth), met me downstairs. Shortly thereafter, having been given just enough time to purchase two very-much-needed coffees, I found myself zooming through the Icelandic countryside in a Jeep with wheels so big they wouldn’t be out of place at a monster truck rally.

Before long, Vidar had caught me up on Iceland politics, Iceland Viking history, and the Icelandic philosophy of Þetta reddast, which roughly translates to “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.” I would hear this phrase numerous times over the next few days, most frequently in response to worried questions from me — often posited as we drove across rushing rivers or on slippery mountain roads, or peered into glacial crevasses.

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“I sometimes feel as though this country is a beast. It’s very much alive here,” Vidar said to me as we left the lava fields of the Reykjanes Peninsula and entered the near-whiteout conditions on the hilly roads to Thingvellir National Park, where the first Viking parliament was held. (Me: Where is the road? Vidar, shrugging: Oh, it’s there somewhere.)

This seems an apt description of a land that appears to be bursting and shifting, steaming and bubbling, at every turn. It makes sense when you consider that Iceland basically sits atop a volcano and is powered entirely by geothermal energy, making it the world’s largest green-energy producer. Practical translation? The country has more hot water than it knows what to do with. For instance, in the winter, the sidewalks of Reykjavík are heated, farmers are encouraged to build their own mini power stations, and it is possible to bake bread in the beach. No, really. At our first stop at the Fontana geothermal baths, we were treated to steaming slices of sweet rye that the owner dug out of the sand for us shortly after we arrived. (The dough is placed in a covered pot and left overnight, its location marked with a small flag.)

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The hot springs are so warm that it is possible to bake bread by burying it overnight in the sands of the beach. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

If there is a better cure for jet lag than freshly baked bread slathered in homemade Icelandic butter (Vidar swears by the butter in his country; the dairy is purer here, he tells me, thanks to the clean glacial waters that the animals drink), followed by a dip in a hot-spring pool and a few minutes in a sauna that is heated by steam that comes up through vents from the hot waters below, I have yet to find it.

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The rest of the day was spent on what is commonly known as the Golden Circle tour. After the spa, we visited the famous Gullfoss waterfall, the first of many I would see and the largest, and then moved on to the Great Geysir.

Imagine an exploding fire hydrant, except 10 times bigger, spewing boiling-hot water directly from a hole in the Earth. The Geysir erupts every 10 minutes or so, shooting water up to 200 feet in the air. Onlookers are alerted to the coming explosion when the waters of the geyser pool begin to rock back and forth as if there is someone or something below stirring it up. It is intense to witness the Earth so alive and so unpredictable, and goes a long way toward explaining Icelanders’ willingness just to roll with things as they come.

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This is Gunnuhver, or Gunner’s Geyser, named after Gunna, a vengeful female spirit. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

Much of the country feels as though it’s at the mercy of a beast below. It’s not unusual to gaze out the car window while driving around Iceland and see streams of steam rising from the Earth. It can at times feel as though one is touring Mordor, which as it turns out might actually be the case. While J.R.R. Tolkien never actually visited Iceland, his specialty in college was Old Icelandic, and he was later heavily influenced by William Morris’s Journals of Travel in Iceland (1871-73). Even casual fans can’t help but note that some of the lava fields located in the area surrounding Reykjavík resemble nothing so much as the stone trolls that Bilbo encounters early on in The Hobbit.

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After the geyser, a large bowl of homemade lamb soup, a large bar of chocolate (Vidar: Icelandic chocolate is the best), and what must have been my fifth or sixth cup of hot chocolate, we headed over to an obscure corner of the Hvítá river for a Riverjet ride. At least it felt obscure to me, since the only sign of humanity was a small hut near the river’s edge, which I could barely make out through a steady rain that had begun to turn into sleet. Vidar assured me the boat would be back to pick us up shortly (I had suggested somewhat hopefully that we might have missed it), and sure enough, a few minutes later a jet boat came barreling down the river, making a fast 180-degree turn at top speed. Before too long, and with the help of Vidar, who zipped me up as though I was a small child, I was bundled into a thick snowsuit, snapped into a helmet, given what appeared to be hockey gloves, and led to the jet boat, where I was directed by Vidar to take the middle seat (the least bumpy, I was promised).

A Riverjet ride, it turns out, is a bit like being strapped to an actual jet, except it goes over water instead of in the air. For the next 40 minutes, we careened through the canyon at what felt like 100 miles an hour, aiming for walls and barely missing them. Every once in a while, our captain raised his hand and yelled. We would spin into a 360 at top speed, flattened against our seats by the intense force of the turn, our ribs crushed together, our arms nearly pulled out of their sockets as we held on for dear life.

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After hotel check-in, and just enough time to shower and change, we enjoyed a lengthy multicourse meal at Kopar. The man at the table next to us, who looked as if he could have been an extra in The Sopranos but was in fact a local bounty hunter, waved at us genially as course after course was served. Vidar, who every time we passed a flock of sheep that afternoon had made of point of telling me how delicious Icelandic lamb is, was correct; the lamb in Iceland is extraordinary, as are the bread and the butter and everything else we were served over the next four hours.

Sometime after midnight, we left the restaurant in a state that is the peculiar result of so much good food and 36 hours of no sleep. In this confused condition, we somehow convinced ourselves that since it was Saturday night and we were in Reykjavík, dancing was in order. (The key to this conviction, by the way, is to continuously move in a direction away from your hotel bed.)

Iceland’s nightlife is nearly as famous as its natural wonders, and for good reason. As we slowly made our way down Hverfisgata Street, it was clear that the evening was just getting rolling. The street was lined with bars and restaurants, and every single one of them was packed. Crowds moved up and down the sidewalks, bottles in hand (drinking outside in Iceland is legal), swaying to the the sounds of the music that poured from open doorways and created a cacophony in the street. Eventually we ended up on the second floor of the Kiki bar, amid a diverse crowd who were fashionably enough dressed that they could give New Yorkers a run for their money. We danced until 3 a.m.

Eight the next morning came very quickly and was heralded by a phone call from Vidar, who was in the lobby. (Vidar: Are you ready to go? Me, still under the covers: Just walking out the door!)

We would be heading on a 12-hour tour that included an hours-long glacier hike.

Notwithstanding the geysers and hot springs and lava fields, one of the most fascinating things about Iceland is the lack of rules. All the major tourist attractions are accessible to anyone, for free, with few restrictions. Pretty much anyone can go anywhere, a freedom I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

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Wild Icelandic horses’ bloodlines go back hundreds of years. Their lines are so pure and free of disease that horses that leave the country for competition are not allowed to return. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

Throughout our day of adventure — which included a trip to the south Icelandic shore, where the sands of the Reynisfjara beach are black; a stop at the side of the highway to pet a group of Iceland’s famous wild horses (they are surprisingly friendly, having no natural enemies); a waterfall that we could walk underneath; and a drive through the Húsadalur Valley below Mount Eyjafjallajökull, a trip that required us to plow through streams that looked more like rivers (Me: What happens if the Jeep gets washed away by the water? Vidar: Þetta reddast.) — I found myself asking Vidar over and over whether we were just allowed to be there, or whether people, like the people who have built their homes against a mountainside that appears ready to crash down on them at any moment, are allowed to live there. The answer was always yes (as in, yes obviously). Icelanders, I quickly learned, are at the same time laid back and independent, prepared to handle the worst and completely unconcerned that it may happen. Þetta reddast!

Once we reached the glacier, we were required to don our crampons, and Vidar instructed us to take wide steps so that we wouldn’t catch the inside of our legs with the spikes.

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Our tour guide, Vidar, atop the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. The glacier covers a volcano, and Vidar told us that it shifts so much and so frequently that paths disappear in less than three weeks. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

Vidar wore a backpack with straps and hooks, which, according to him, held the sorts of tools he would need to rescue us, should one of us fall through a crevasse. Once we got down on the glacier, Vidar strolled across the ice as if he were walking across his living room to adjust the television; the rest of us straggled along behind. At one point, I knelt down and drank from a stream of pure glacier water (what’s good enough for the animals is good enough for me). Above us, the green of the mountain rose up to the turquoise sky; to the south, visible through a gap in the mountain, was the ocean; ahead of us, a gray storm cloud rose up, creating a double rainbow. And even though by this point I was starting to grow accustomed to the jaw-dropping scenery, the full effect was stunning and strangely summed up Iceland: a country that manages to hold all the most extreme elements of nature together on one tiny island.

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What do you find at the end of the rainbow? Iceland! Rainbows are everywhere here. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

After saying goodbye to Vidar (all good things, even time with handsome Icelandic tour guides, must come to an end), we were reunited with other members of our group. We dined at Hverfisgata 12, a restaurant that served a selection of delicious but strangely topped pizzas (the design of the menu itself is worth the trip) and was so spookily decorated that it could easily pass for a set from American Horror Story (in fact, we were told that it was furnished entirely with items found at American yard sales).

On our way home, full of pizza, wine, soda, and some sort of chocolate dessert, having slept a total of four hours out of the last 62 or so, we looked up to see the northern lights. They were faint — later in the season and farther north, they can be spectacular — and obscured by the glow of the city, but there was no mistaking them as they weaved and danced across the sky for a full 10 minutes.

The next morning, after a quick trip to the bubbling fields of Gunnuhver (the landscape was familiar to some Game of Thrones watchers in our group, as some scenes were apparently filmed there), we went to The Blue Lagoon.

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The Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s most famous geothermal spa, is located in a lava field. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)

Iceland’s most famous spa is the Disney World of hot springs, which is not to say it is not extraordinary. It is. Unlike many of the country’s other hot springs, the Blue Lagoon is manmade and well set up to deal with the onslaught of tourists who usually arrive on their way to the airport. The naturally hot waters are full of minerals, and guests are able to scoop silicon mud off the walls of the spring to make face masks. Our bus driver, a Japanese immigrant who is fluent in Icelandic, told us that the spa waters would take “decades” off our faces. She’s also an opera singer, by the way, and treated us to an aria en route to the spa. It is not uncommon in Iceland for the folks who run the tourist industry to have other, seemingly divergent careers; Vidar is head of the minority political party in his district.

After an hour swim, two face masks, a steam room, and lunch, all of which took at least three days off my face, if not decades, we arrived at the airport just in time to board the flight back to New York City. I landed at 7 p.m. and made a run for the A train to Brooklyn, hoping that the worst of the rush hour was over. Þetta reddast, as they say.

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Watch: Stunning Aerial Footage of Iceland’s Lava Fields