An Unforgettable Journey Through the Winter Wonderland: Iceland

Good day, everyone. Thought about writing a piece about programming, but today I feel like talking about my trip to Iceland. Without using any filters, my partner and I took the photo you see in Iceland on March 24, 2023, at 00:10 near Vìk. I am aware that it appears too perfect to be true, yet it is 😁 .

The experience we had was simply incredible, and I wanted to write a few lines to express my happiness to you. My first visit to Iceland was on a guided tour in January when there were limited daylight hours; although spectacular, the first trip was nothing compared to the second.

Even though it's in the middle of winter, going to Iceland in late March seems like a bit of a crazy idea, but the daylight hours are reasonable (up until 9 p.m., I remember there always being a bit of light). The weather is quite terrible. We learned about the impending snowstorm and the closed roads on the vedur.is website before we departed. Imagine our delight, lol.

We were fortunate in that the storm had not yet reached the area we were interested in seeing when we landed and rented a car (the first day was limited to the drive from Keflavik to Reykjavik). Without wasting any more time, let me just say that Iceland is beautiful, wonderful, and magnificent. The first and second days were great, but the third day was unlike anything we had expected.

Although none of the four days off were supposed to experience the Northern Lights, nothing to worry about. The Northern Lights are merely the icing on the cake; one shouldn't travel to Iceland just to see them. We traveled a lot and saw a lot on the third day. The unpronounceable canyon, also known as the Justin Bieber canyon, was our first destination. We next visited Skogafoss, Seljalandsfoss, and Kvernufoss, which my girlfriend and I both thought was the most stunning. As we were making our way back to the hotel, we learned that Iceland was expected to have an Aurora Borealis of kp8 strength. 😵 Given that the entire Icelandic sky was shrouded in clouds, we found this hard to believe.

Thanks to vedur.is (bless them), we found the only potentially clear patch in Iceland, which was outside Vik on the way to the canyon (again!). It was 8pm, we mustered up some courage, drove for an hour and a half, stopped at Vik, had a quick dinner, and continued to drive... until the sky ripped open. One of the most powerful Auroras of the last six years, for us.

We were awestruck and I feel extremely grateful. Visit Iceland, for as unpredictable as a vacation it might be, it will be the most beautiful vacation of your life.