TRAVELIN' TIM
Seeing the world, one week at a time.
WHY ICELAND?
That's an easy question. The answer: because I could.
Iceland was always on my list of places to get to eventually, but the fact that they were letting vaccinated outsiders in during the spring of 2021 shot it right to the top of the list. I'd already had trips to the Republic of Georgia (May 2020), India (November 2020) and Malta (February 2021) canceled during the COVID pandemic, so just the chance to go SOMEWHERE was enough; the fact that it was a country packed with natural scenery and one that handled the pandemic with relative success made it an easy choice.
I decided to go on Nordic Visitor's guided 'Natural Wonders' tour that basically circled the country. It was pricey, but well worth it. The accommodations and food were both top notch, and the guide was friendly and knowledgable, and was able to add some Icelandic folksiness to the proceedings as well (ask me about 'the raisin at the end of the hot dog' metaphor sometime). As promised in the title, the tour was packed with natural wonders from waterfalls to dormant volcanoes to glaciers to black sand beaches.
I did have two disappointments on this trip: first my original Icelandic Air flight into the country was cancelled, causing me to miss the first day of the tour which included the Golden Circle, and the weather around Reykjavik at the end of the tour was too rough to allow me to book a hike to see the currently erupting Geldingadalir volcano. Despite that, the trip was fantastic, and it just whetted my appetite to go back sometime in the winter to see the Northern Lights.