I love Iceland with all my heart and soul but there’s no way to say this without sounding like a hipster: I loved it before it was popular. Not because I wanted it all to myself (although I do!) but because Iceland is too small and too fragile to cope with the volumes of visitors, … More It’s now official: tourism is killing Iceland
Ice-climbing is the most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done. Harder even than extracting myself from the semi-vertical dog-leg squeeze I got wedged in at the bottom of Lionel’s Hole in the Mendips a few years ago. I was in Iceland, I was in Reykjavik and the bit of ice I was going to climb … More Ice-climbing: harder than it looks
At eight o’clock in the morning, having packed up my tent and hauled it across the campsite, I was on a bus. By one o’clock, with an hour’s detour to walk up a canyon formed in Iceland’s most productive eruption in history, I was at Landmannalaugar, an oasis and campsite in the Highlands. The plan … More Landmannalaugar circular walk
I’m not a horse rider. I know which end bites and which end kicks and that’s about the limit of my horse knowledge. But horse riding is one of the most popular activities you can in Iceland, so I thought I’d give it a go. And having given it a go, I gave it three … More Riding an Icelandic horse
I wanted to do this as a video but I just can’t talk to a camera. I pressed the button and sat and stared at it and pulled faces and couldn’t speak. I’m a writer, not a talker, so I’m writing it instead. Let me add that I am in no way qualified to discuss whether … More What is Katla doing and should I be worried?
Camping is great but sometimes a hipster apartment in Hveragerði is better. During the latter half of my trip to Iceland this summer, I found myself homeless. I’d been in a tent for two nights – the campsite at Selfoss is great, with a duckpond and free hot pots (although I didn’t find that out … More The hipster apartment in Hveragerði
Outside Iceland, Dettifoss is best known as the big waterfall from the opening scenes of Prometheus. Within Iceland, it’s best known as being the most powerful waterfall in Europe, although that fact is now being prefaced with words like “possibly” and “among”. But it’s quite the sight to behold and you should make the effort … More How to visit Dettifoss
If you’re short on time, if you’ve only got a weekend, just 48 hours in Reykjavik, what’s a good way to see and do everything important? Day Zero My favourite flight to Iceland is Icelandair’s FI455, LHR 21:10 – KEF 23:10 direct. You can do pretty much a full day at work and then fly … More 48 Hours in Reykjavik
Snæfellsnes, a peninsula sticking out of Iceland’s west coast, is well worth a visit, and indeed a blog post and I’ll write one at some point. It’s an escape from the often-frenetic pace of activities in Iceland, where you rush or are rushed from Blue Lagoon to Golden Circle to horse-riding to glaciers to scurries … More Rauðfeldsgjá: one of Iceland’s better-kept secrets
I like to climb a mountain when I’m in Iceland in the summer and although, technically, that didn’t really happen this year (I was kind of slightly really ill the whole time and just didn’t have the energy; plus, there aren’t that many handy climbable mountains in the east), I did find Hengifoss, a nice … More Hengifoss
I Am A Polar Bear 