Iceland: Introduction: Overview

Iceland, the 40,000-square-mile island located about midway between North America and Europe (surrounded by the Atlantic in the south and the Greenland Sea in the north), is a country of contradictions. The capital of Reykjavík, where some two thirds of the population (a whopping 304,000) lives, is a sophisticated, worldly city whose residents wear designer clothes, sport hipster haircuts that would blend right into Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and typically speak at least three languages (Icelandic, English and one of the Scandinavian tongues).

But the real Iceland lies beyond the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses and Prada coats found in the capital’s high-fashion shopping scene. A short half-hour drive east out of the city, which is located on the southwest coast, brings you to the expansive countryside, a place that has captured the imagination of such visitors as William Morris, W. G. Collingwood and W. H. Auden. Auden, who traveled to the island in 1936, wrote: “In my childhood dreams, Iceland was holy ground; when, at the age twenty-nine, I saw it for the first time, the reality verified my dream; at fifty-seven it was holy ground still, with the most magical light of anywhere on earth.”

Auden’s “holy ground”—from the country’s sweeping icy glaciers and rugged mountain ranges to black sand beaches and rocky fields resembling lunar surfaces—should be explored with a good guide company, like Luxury Adventures. Situated on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Iceland is one of the world’s most geologically active places and a terrific destination for anyone interested in the great outdoors and/or adventure travel. Standing on the viewing platform watching Gullfoss, one of Europe’s largest waterfalls, crashing into the depths, or seeing the majestic Hekla, an active volcano that scientists expect to erupt again soon, you can’t help but be awed and humbled by this place, a landscape as sparse and haunting as a Björk song.