I went to Iceland around New Year to hunt the Northern Lights. For roughly ten days, my plans depended on an alert on my phone and what the sky might do next.
An alert could come in the middle of the night. Then began the twenty-minute operation of getting dressed: layers, more layers, shoes, gloves, everything. Outside, the temperature on some nights dropped to around −25°C. I’d finally be ready to step out and wonder whether the lights would still be there.
But I would do it again.
Iceland in winter is the most beautiful and remote place I have seen. Snowstorms could turn the view white. On long drives, I sometimes felt as though I had the road to myself: mountains in the distance, snow on every side, and dark lava fields cutting through the landscape. Parts of it looked less like Earth than Mars.
The island was shaped by volcanoes, and you can feel that history as you travel through it. One stretch looks raw and black; the next opens onto a lake, a waterfall or a glacier. I kept stopping to look. There was no need for someone to build an attraction around the view. Nature had already done the work.
Then came the ice. At Jökulsárlón, icebergs floated across the glacier lagoon. Nearby, pieces of ice lay scattered over the black sand of Diamond Beach. Walking inside a glacier cave was something else again. I had seen photographs, but being surrounded by that blue ice was an experience a photograph couldn’t quite give back to me.
What I loved most was the space. So many of the places I remember were simply there: a waterfall beside the route, a mountain beyond the road, ice meeting the sea. In winter, with so few people around, I could stand still and take it in.
I know Iceland looks completely different in summer, when the days are long and the landscape turns green. I’d like to see that version too. But the Iceland I met was white, black, blue and wonderfully wild.
If you like a journey that makes you pull over just to stare, put Iceland on your list. Take warm clothes. And if you go looking for the Northern Lights, keep your phone charged.