Warm in Iceland 🇮🇸
Finding home at the edge of the World
What happens when you say yes to adventure and life rewards you with rainbows?
This is my story of Iceland
0 1 — ARRIVAL
The Island that Is.
Arrival in Iceland feels like stepping into a living myth — crisp air that tastes of sea and mineral, skies stretched wide and impossibly clean, and a hush that makes every breath feel like an invitation. The kind of place that humbles you into silence. But it would be incorrect to mistake that hush as quiet. Iceland is not quiet - it roars. Lava fields roll away under a quilt of moss; the glittering glaciers invite you for a hike; and distant mountains stand as quiet, patient sentinels. There’s an immediacy here: the sudden heat of a geothermal pool, the steam that rises from roadside vents, the unexpected chorus of seabirds over black-sand beaches. Even the towns are composed with a pared-back elegance — adorable houses, cozy cafés, and streets that lead you toward the wild. Arrival in Iceland is both a quieting and a wake-up: life feels pared to essentials, senses sharpened, and the ordinary becomes a rediscovery of wonder.
It is in the most profound way I’ve ever experienced, a place that simply lets you be. The landscape doesn't ask you to perform or produce or impress. It just breathes, and suddenly you realize, you start to breathe with it. What I didn't anticipate was how much warmth lives inside all that ice. Warmth in the earth itself. Warmth in the humor of every Icelander we encountered. And, most unexpectedly, warmth in ourselves — the kind you rediscover when you make space for it.
Wellness isn’t a destination. It’s something you create - and Iceland gave us the space to do that for ourselves!
On finding home while traveling
0 2 —SELJALANDSFOSS
Walking Behind the Waterfall
There is a word I keep coming back to: euphoric. Not happiness, not joy — euphoric. The specific kind of altered state that comes from standing close enough to Seljalandsfoss that the spray soaks through your jacket and the roar fills every crevice of your mind until there is simply no room left for worry. As we walked the path behind the falls, the mist caught the gorgeous sunlight and scattered it into raibows. The were so plentiful that in my deliriously giddy state of euphoria I said to my sister, “I have rainbows in my eyes!” The ozone-clean air arrived in waves. There is actual science behind why waterfalls make us feel high: negative ions released by crashing water are believed to increase serotonin levels. I believe it completely. I felt it in my bones. But more than the chemistry, it was the scale of it — the reminder that you are small and the world is magnificent and neither of those things is a problem
Tip: Visiting early in the morning may offer thinner crowds. However, our guide timed our afternoon visit perfectly so that the golden sunlight gave us rainbow upon rainbow to play in!
03 - Genuinely Kind & Funny!
Every travel article prepares you for the majestic landscapes - the waterfalls, the lava fields, the Northern Lights. But they don’t tell how sweetly charming and funny the Icelanders are.
It's a dry humor that sneaks up on you. Our guide delivered information about volcanic eruptions with the casual cadence of someone describing a mildly inconvenient commute. When asked if the weather was always this unpredictable, he simply said: "No. Sometimes it's worse”, smiling with quiet confidence in his joke.
On our last day there we stopped into a crowded bakery in Reykjavik for coffee and pastries (which were insanely delicious!). In a small shop, standing shoulder to shoulder with others waiting their turn, I stepped up to order. The delightful barista, in his newspaper boy cap, already had a twinkle in his eye when I asked, “Could I order two lattes, please?” As though he were singing the chorus of a song he replied, “You couuuullddd. And I could make them for you.”
There's a term in Icelandic culture — þ etta reddast — roughly translated as "it'll all work out." It's not naïveté. It's a deeply woven blend of optimism and resilience, a philosophy that emerged from centuries of living beside volcanoes, in perpetual wind, on the edge of the Arctic. When your island regularly reminds you that you are not in control, you develop a certain lightness about the things that aren't.
That lightness is contagious. By day three, we had caught it entirely.
0 4 — Sky Lagoon
Where the Geothermal Earth Meets the Icy Atlantic
The Sky Lagoon sits at the edge of Reykjavík, where the geothermal waters end and the open ocean begins. From inside the infinity pool, the water appears to dissolve directly into the sea — no horizon, no boundary, just a continuous steel-blue expanse meeting stormy clouds.
On a sensory level each transition, from ritual to ritual, carries you deeper into dimensions of yourself I didn’t know were waiting to be experienced. Wading in warm water so toasty you feel comforted into relaxation while snow steadily falls on your eyelashes and cold winds lap refreshingly at your cheeks is the exact elemental contrast that I found to be a through line during our stay. This combination of cold air and warm waters offered something medicinal - not in a clinical way but in the oldest sense of the word. Healing. Restoring and welcoming something back to it’s original state.
After emerging from the cold plunge pool, a moss covered doorway opens the way into the hillside retreat. Your mind has just been opened, your body relaxed and now it’s time to repair. Inside the sauna, floor-to-ceiling glass frames the Atlantic like a painting that never stops moving. Flowing in each step from ritual to ritual gives a murmuring cognition of the peace and health you’re participating in so you easily feel your way through the experience and later digest it again and again - each time with a renewed sense of “ahhhhh”. Exfoliate with lava salt. Allow it to melt like butter into your skin. Steam. Rinse. Refresh yourself under over hanging rocks spraying cold mist. These are instructions I enjoy!
The energized yet relaxed calm from Sky Lagoon lasted beyond this visit — muscles unwound, thoughts clearer, and a renewed spark for the days ahead.
0 5 — H A L L G R Í M S K I R K J A
A Symphony We Didn't Plan For
We walked into Hallgrímskirkja — Iceland's iconic cathedral in Reykjavík, its concrete tower rising like a basalt column above the city — expecting a brief look and a few photos. What we experienced was so much more!
It caught my attention from the entrance that there were many young people here at the famous church on a Saturday, which is a standing part of the community and not just a monumental architectural delight. I went on to tour the tower and experience the ringing church bells taking photos and learning as much as possible about the history of this 50 year project. Then, to my complete surprise, walking into the congregational hall I discovered the reason for the filled church. The young people, who I guess to be between the ages of 13-18 began to play. A symphony of instruments filled the building with incredible music leaving everyone in awe.
Without announcement, without fanfare. The musicians simply began to play, and the sound filled that vast white nave the way water fills a vessel — completely, finding every corner. The acoustics were extraordinary. The music rose into the vaulted ceiling and hung there. We didn’t plan this excursion but were gifted to excellence of these young musicians. That's the part I keep thinking about. The bestmoments of the trip were never on the itinerary.
The Icelanders seemed to understand this intuitively — that life is improved by showing up and allowing things to happen.
View from Hallgrímskirkja
How We Did It
Creating a Sense of Home While Traveling
Four things that turned a trip into something more.
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Morning coffee made a certain way. An evening journal entry. A skincare routine.
Your rituals are anchors. They tell your nervous system: you are home. Pack the small things that signal comfort, no matter how silly they seem in a carry-on.
*plus I am more human-like when good coffee supply is never in question!
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We found a grocery store on day one. Fresh Icelandic skyr with muesli for breakfast, dark rye bread, a giant block of Icelandic butter I didn’t know I needed…getting groceries right away helped towards being a little more cost efficient as well as feel at home - like we actually lived there, briefly.
The grocery stores we shopped in Reykjavík were Bónus and Krónan.
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Ironically, we packed SO much into this travel time but it in no way felt rushed. Every step of the journey felt exactly on time with all the time needed and utilized! We planned one major activity for each day and allowed the rest to reveal itself in it’s time. The balance here is having a sense of adventure yet knowing speed is the enemy of wonder.
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We had the morning to check out a few of the amazing vintage stores on our last day in Reykjavík. And doing so worked up quite the appetite! While in one store I hesitated to ask the store owner for a food recommendation as he looked seriously engrossed in his work. Finally, the hunger overtook that logic and I asked! What followed was a lovely conversation and a recommendation for what is my favorite pizza in the world to date: https://www.reykjavikpizzeria.is/.
