Love letters to Iceland: affair started in challenging times

Sometimes, you don’t know quite what to do with good things that come to you. My friends and partners at Sleipnir Tours offered me to promote their fabulous Sleipnir necklace created by the Icelandic artist Óttar Gauti Guðmundsson. Sleipnir Tours gave me two necklaces, one for myself and one for my readers* Generously, they are giving you, my readers, a promo code that gives you 20% off the price of the necklace when you buy it online. Just subscribe to my newsletter to receive the code.

How to accidentally have a wildly successful online competition

I wondered how to engage my readers with the necklace and thought maybe I have a little competition in my newsletter. I would ask my newsletter subscribers why they loved Iceland. Perhaps one or two would respond, and the ‘better answer’ would earn the necklace. Well, now my inbox is full of heartfelt messages from my subscribers where they describe eloquently why they love my country so much. So much for an easy choice for the winner of the Sleipnir necklace!  When I was reading these messages, I thought they would inspire my readers. And to my surprise, all the people who sent in those messages were happy for me to publish them. Thank you all for putting in the time share your affinity for my country. So here is the first love letter to Iceland from my wonderful subscribers.

The first love letter Iceland is from Jo, and here it goes:

Edit: Jo won the competition to win the Sleipnir necklace and here she is 🙂

I’m in love with Iceland as a destination, but why, I hear you ask?

It had been on my bucket list for several years while my other half, and I saved our pennies for an all-singing, all-dancing guided tour of Southern Iceland. We finally saved enough to book, and our dream trip was scheduled for January 2021. Sadly, this wasn’t to be due to covid, so we re-scheduled to January 2022 and tried not to dwell on the disappointment too much 😪

Jaw-droppingly beautiful Iceland

Unfortunately, the omicron variant started taking hold at the end of 2022. Although we wanted our long-awaited trip to advance, the prospect of traveling anywhere was terrifying. We also didn’t want our journey ruined by all the increasing rules and restrictions. A lot of money would been lost if we would have canceled at such a late stage.

We were sad that our dream trip wouldn’t be all we had imagined and went on the holiday with lots of trepidation and so many worries and concerns.

While things would never be what we had hoped for, we still had a fabulous trip and experienced so much. Ohh, the things we saw, all out of this world, jaw-droppingly beautiful and awe-inspiring.

Unforgettable experiences

From waterfalls to geysers, black sand beaches to diamond beaches, tops of glaciers to lava tubes, and inside a glacier. Huge ancient lava fields to volcano craters, frozen waterfalls to tectonic plate ravines, blue lagoons to sky lagoons. All unbelievable sights and experiences. We were so glad to have seen them all, and we will never forget any of it as long as we live!

We also loved Reykjavik and had two days to experience it before our guided tour started. Sadly, when we returned to the city for our last couple of days, restrictions had been tightened further, so all the bars were closed. This meant we could no longer visit the rest of the lovely craft beer bars on our list that we didn’t get around to when we first arrived ☹️

Returning to the Iceland I love

However, Iceland now holds an extraordinary place in our hearts, and we vowed to visit again when things had returned to normal so we could experience what we missed out on the first time.

So…….our love affair with Iceland continues, and we are returning at the end of October to celebrate my birthday in style! We have so much planned in a few short days. Whale Watching, Fly Over Iceland, The Lava Show, Perlan, Sky Lagoon (again), Whales of Iceland, Phallological Museum, a fancy Birthday dinner at Apotek, and as many craft beer bars as we can squeeze in 🙂

Do I love Iceland……… YES, I DO!