Eat, sleep, breathe Iceland.

Iceland, it’s the land of warlocks, smoke and mystery.

It’s where volcanic eruptions fly in the face of the modern world and ground airplanes all over the northern hemisphere. Just because it can.

Iceland, it’s where the northern lights burn so bright that they ignite your dreams and set your heart aflame with passion.

It’s crisp, it’s clean, it’s peace, it’s green, it’s white and all the colours you can imagine.

Iceland, it’s an island country in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and I can’t think of any other place i’d rather go.

It’s rare that Lauren and I write about a place before we’ve actually been there and yet when it comes to Iceland it feels so natural.

So why are we writing about it?

I think it boils down to just wanting to share this incredible destination with others. I’ve written about Iceland once before and because of that post – it was more of a gallery actually – one of our friends decided to book a trip in December last year.

When they got back they honestly couldnt stop talking about how incredible their experience was and to be honest, that’s the real payoff for us as travel bloggers.

We were so stoked to have helped inspire someone to have an incredible travel experience.

Sure, we usually experience a destination first and then love hearing about how others enjoyed our tips / suggestions but this time we’re doing it backwards – we want you to go, and then to share your experience with us before we go. And we will go. I’m still holding thumbs for 2016.

I think the real title of this post should be “Iceland – why the hell haven’t we been yet?”

But until then we’ll be eating, sleeping and breathing all things Iceland 🙂

…

Here are just a few of the things that i’m looking forward to doing when we do get there.

1) Taking my clothes off and jumping into the Blue Lagoon hot spring.

2) Hanging out with Icelandic horses. Supposedly these guys are only the size of ponies but they seem super chilled and really cute.

3) The Northern Lights. Obviously!

4) Finding old churches and checking out the unique nordic architecture.

5) Visiting the black pebble beaches!

6) Taking it all in with Lauren. So often we rush through trips because of time constraints but this year one of our goals is to slow down on our travels, do less and soak it all up.

7) Going on a mega road trip. Road tripping is definitely one of our favourite ways to explore a country and I’ve already check out the car rental packages in Iceland and they seem pretty decent.

8) Feeling the cold. Iceland – the name of the country says it all really. When we go to Iceland i’m definitely going to want to plough into all that snow. And then into a bath.

9) Waterfalls and rainbows. Is it just me or is every image of a waterfall in Iceland accompanied by a rainbow? Either a rainbow or snow. It’s amazing.

10) Learning some of the language. Whenever we visit other countries we love learning some of the language. It’s one of the cheapest yet most effective ways to really feel as though you’ve taken a part of that country with you.

11) Visiting a volcano. Ok, it doesn’t have to be erupting, but some magma would be nice. 🙂

Finally, here’s a video made by Nordic Visitor, and it truly sums up why heading to Iceland (and all the nordic countries) is so high up on our priority list. You should definitely visit their website if you’re planning a Nordic holiday.

I hope that this post has in some way inspired you to visit Iceland as badly as we want to.

Alternatively, if you’ve actually been to Iceland, please can you help add to our list of “things to do”. I’d love to know where you went and where you recommend going, your help would be awesome.

Image credits: most of the images have been taken from unsplash.com and the ones from flickr are creative commons and have a direct link to the photographers profile.

This post was written in collaboration with Nordic Visitor – their goal of helping travellers experience the best of Iceland is directly in line with our goals.