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I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

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Category: Wellness

My idea of wellness is hot water, saunas, steam baths and lazy days. You won’t find anything about food or medicine around here but plenty of spas.

The Icelandic Guidebook: The Blue Lagoon | iamapolarbear.com

The Icelandic Guidebook: The Blue Lagoon

August 27, 2020

Part one of a new series: I know a bit about Iceland and it’s time to turn that into something useful. I’m going to start with the Blue Lagoon, since it’s Iceland’s biggest tourist attraction. First, whether you consider yourself a tourist, a traveller or something in between, and regardless of your feelings around “tourist … More The Icelandic Guidebook: The Blue Lagoon

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The A-Z of Iceland: F for Fontana | iamapolarbear.com

The A-Z of Iceland: F for Fontana

March 21, 2019

In today’s A-Z of Iceland, we’re off to the spa. F is for Fontana. Considering its position on the edge of the Golden Circle and the fact that it’s used by tour companies on their “Northern Lights and…” nights and also the fact that it’s amazing, Laugarvatn Fontana is surprisingly little-known. It’s the smallest of … More The A-Z of Iceland: F for Fontana

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How do the lockers work at the Blue Lagoon? | iamapolarbear.com

How do the lockers work at the Blue Lagoon?

December 6, 2018

All visitors to Iceland go to the Blue Lagoon. It’s amazing, entirely worth the hype and it’s now so, so expensive. I’ve been several times and I now bring you a short “how to…” blog because apparently I know the answer to a great and mythical secret: How do the lockers at the Blue Lagoon … More How do the lockers work at the Blue Lagoon?

3 Comments How do the lockers work at the Blue Lagoon?
Myvatn Nature Baths title pic

I love Myvatn Nature Baths

November 8, 2018

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve tried and failed to write this post. How hard can it be to tell you about Myvatn Nature Baths, my favourite (one of my favourite?) spa in Iceland? Myvatn Nature Baths is a geothermal spa up in the north east of Iceland. It’s a major tourist hotspot for … More I love Myvatn Nature Baths

3 Comments I love Myvatn Nature Baths

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Who am I?
I'm Julie, a travel, adventure and wellness blogger. I love Iceland, I love jumping into hot water and I do love a bit of snow.

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Most popular posts

  • Zedwell Capsule Hotel review: what's it like to sleep in a coffin?
  • Which is the best geothermal lagoon to visit in Iceland while the Blue Lagoon is closed?
  • A night bath at Rudas
  • The Guide Camp Kit List part two: the camp blanket
  • What is the best solid conditioner bar?
It’s not that 2026 has been so bad but it seems to have been busy and harder than normal. One of my Brownies gave me the cold from hell and that dragged on for *thirty-five days*, culminating in pulled back muscles and such incredible pain for ten days that at one point I was stranded upside down like a turtle who can’t physically turn over. I’ve also done three weeks with someone else’s Brownies as well as my own and my Rangers and I’ve got one more week of a Norwegian course that’s taken out my Wednesday evenings since late January, which feels like just one too many nights on. And work hasn’t helped - certain bits of research have been either difficult or hellish in certain countries but my boss and I have agreed a timeline for the current stuff that seems realistic to me and acceptable to him! A few pictures from Suomenlinna on a very cold February day. Helsinki was very cold, averaging about -10°C during the day but it’s also very beautiful. Today’s blog post is about my icy trip over Helsinki’s harbour to Suomenlinna and meant I had to figure out whether or not the ferry is an icebreaker. I have learned a lot about ice classes and propulsion and protection along the way, realised that the answer depends on your definition of icebreaker, picked up @horatiowrites’s Icebreaker again for bath reading and even (accidentally! I didn’t ask!) learned the word in Norwegian during my lesson yesterday. Why, yes, jeg går på nurskkurs. More on that later in the month! I didn’t have a lot booked or planned for my trip to Helsinki but I did book a sunrise swim at Allas Sea Pool, a geothermal pool floating in the harbour. Or, as I discovered when I got there, frozen into eighteen or so inches of solid ice. Did getting up at 7am to walk 1.5km at minus several degrees feel offputting? Yes! Did the run from the showers to the pool in nothing but a thin towel feel offputting? Yes! Did I then discover that my lungs attempted to close up after swimming a few lengths in the relatively warm water? Yes! I’ve spent the last nearly a week in Helsinki, where it’s averaged about -10°C during the day. I’ve tried out four different saunas & pools, discovered aqua jogging, had cloudberry juice with my breakfast, had a successful train adventure to Finland’s old capital and right now I’m in the longest queue for passport control that I’ve ever seen (taking back control, yay! /s) with a bag of korvapuusti, Finnish cinnamon rolls, in my carry on. Blogs will be coming next week - I think I’ve got four or five planned at the moment. Time to talk about The Bath Book, which is the book I’m really struggling to write about hot water, baths, steam, bathing culture and all that good stuff (and the excuse for a few trips I’ve done over the last 18 months). It tends to slide down my priority list but if it’s here on Instagram every month, I have to have an update every month, so I have to sit down and write occasionally. I started this because so many people went skiing in January and now we’re finishing off with my attempts at snowboarding. I started far too old - if I can’t manage one plank, how am I meant to manage two? Luckily, there’s a whole world of other fun you can have in the snow. This week, a storm basically washed away Reynisfjara, one of Iceland’s most popular tourist attractions and most beautiful beaches. It’s like a giant hand reached out and just clawed away the beach, leaving a miniature cliff up by the path. Such is coastal erosion. But does it solve the problem of it being one of Iceland’s most dangerous places or make it worse?

About Julie

I’m a blogger, adventurer, lover of hot water, amateur paddler and polar bear who wilts in hot weather.

Time (by day, I’m a researcher) and funds keep me within Europe and I make regular trips up to the north, especially to Iceland. I like the occasional adventure across Europe by train and I’m starting to make use of my weekends for 48-hour adventures.

This isn’t my only creative outlet – I’ve written two travelogues with a third and fourth being (not to much) written simultaneously right now.

Blog at WordPress.com.
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