Vikings and Volcanoes: Gay Iceland Adventure Tour

The small island of Iceland offers enormous contrasts and variety: unspoiled landscapes, uncrowded parks, and unique geology. Iceland has a small, friendly gay and lesbian community in the capital, but you’ll find few signs of gay life outside Reykjavik. In true Scandinavian tradition, people don’t feel it’s any big deal whether you’re gay or straight.

If you have a little extra time, consider adding a day or two BEFORE your trip to join Reykjavik’s gay pride celebrations. These begin with opening ceremonies Thursday evening and conclude in the early hours on Sunday. The Pride parade is usually on Saturday, around 2 PM, followed by an outdoor festival and midnight dance parties.

Day 1: Volcanic Craters and Welcome Dinner

If you are arriving on the first tour day, plan for an early morning arrival in Iceland so that you can join our pre-tour, two-hour guided walk of Reykjavik’s main sights.

And we can’t miss one of Iceland’s most unique hot spots, the much-famed Blue Lagoon! Enjoy this sprawling outdoor pool on the Reykjanes Peninsula with a long soak and a therapeutic swim. Immerse yourself in the geothermally-heated waters, which are naturally blue from heavy mineral content, as steam fills the air.

In fact, it would be hard to find a water heater anywhere in Iceland. Enjoy taking a long shower every morning — the hot water is piped right from the earth, and there’s plenty more where it came from. We will return to our hotel in the afternoon and have our welcome dinner this evening.

Day 2: Where the Continents Divide, Geysers Erupt, and Mighty Waters Fall

Today we’re off to explore some amazing geology:

• See where the North American tectonic plate is pulling away from the European tectonic plate, creating rifts in the earth’s crust – sheer cliffs pulling from each other, creating gorges and canyons that get wider each year. We’ll hike in between the continents.
• Visit “Geysir,” the original spouter, whose name is now used around the world as a generic term for all, well, geysers. Next to it, at “Strokkur”, we’ll see the pool rise and fall, as if panting hard. Then the surface swells like a giant blue egg emerging from the earth, and finally, it spews, bursts, and jets into the sky.
• Marvel at waterfalls galore this week, beginning today with huge Gullfoss, a huge double-decker that entices us into its misty veil.

And we’ll learn a bit about politics, too:

• High up in the hills along the shores of the Oxara River we find Iceland’s most historic spot: Thingvellir (Parliament Plains). This is where the rowdy Vikings formed the world’s oldest true parliament, in A.D. 930.

After an exhilarating day, we head for two nights to a lovely country guesthouse sitting in a steaming valley, with multiple hot pools to relax and soak in while enjoying the late-setting sun.

Day 3: Fire and Ice

Before our big hike today, we’re off for a unique walk through one of Iceland’s longest and most colorful lava tubes, a tunnel that was created by swift running lava that flowed during the Leitahraun eruption, which occurred east of the Bláfjöll mountains about 5200 years ago.

Day 4: Puffins, Glacier Hike and Pompeii of the North on the Westman Islands

This morning we have a  30-minute ferry ride to Heimaey, the main town of the Westman Islands. We will offer a variety of things to see and do in the Westman Islands, depending on time, weather, and ability. These include:

• Tour of the various natural sites around the island and the amazing effects of the Eldfell volcanic eruption that buried half the town of Heimaey in 1973.
• Visit the buried section of town and their excellent museum “Pompeii of the North”
• Hike up the Eldfell cinder cone to its still-warm summit.
• Look for puffins nesting at Storhofdi and hear about puffin traditions: puffin hunting; and the egg hunting tradition is known at Sprangan (collectors would dangle themselves from long ropes over cliffs, swinging from side to side as they gathered eggs). And also the annual Puffin Patrol, usually mid-August, when baby puffins wander aimlessly into town, following the night lights, instead of heading to sea. The locals collect, weigh, and feed the babies, then release them the next morning, into the sea.

Next, we return to the mainland and journey underneath the great volcano that disrupted so much of Europe’s air traffic in 2010, Eyjafjallajökull.  Nearby is the glacier Sólheimajökull.

There we meet our mighty Viking glacier guide who outfit us in our glacier gear and then instruct us how to walk on ice before taking us to explore both the smooth and the rough and tumble terrain of a constantly moving and eroding glacier.  The cerulean blue of the dense ice is revealed in its crevasses, ice caves, and towering seracs.

After our glacier hike, surprise, we visit more waterfalls, hopefully with the evening sun perfectly angled to allow for fantastic views and pictures.  The main waterfall, Seljalandsfoss, is special because you can actually walk behind it and revel in its mist.  Afterward, we continue to our next country lodge.

Day 5: Exploring Colorful Landmannalaugar

After breakfast, we will have a magnificent drive across at first barren lands  — all white with pumice, then suddenly brittle black rock strewn everywhere by the might volcano Hekla nearby.  It’s a scene out of the film Prometheus, filmed here a few years ago.

But things brighten and begin to green as we approach the beautifully-sited national reserve known as Landmannalaugar, mysterious land of multi-hued mountains of yellow, white, red, green, gray, and black.  These two, of course, have their own volcanic creation but are much different from anything we’ve seen this week.  And we’ll delight in a day of hiking in the area.  Half hell, half Garden of Eden, it’s an amazing land with an eerie mystical bent, made even more so by multiple steam vents and the occasional whiff of sulfur coming from deep within the Earth.

We’ll have hikes of varying lengths and reward ourselves with a wonderful soak in one of Iceland’s best natural hot springs, with fantastic views, before venturing on to our more casual, but well-suited, wilderness lodge for the night.

Day 6: Wonderfalls, Ruins, and the Central Highlands

Today we explore more of the pristine secrets of the Highlands region, with hikes through native Icelandic forests and farm ruins, and a bevy of amazing waterfalls in the Thorsa river valley.

We’ll enjoy a beautiful, towering set of twin falls, 400+ feet high, in a side tributary before working our way downriver to the idyllic naturescape of Gjain, with its series of springs and waterfalls sprouting from all sides, before wandering down to the Viking farm ruins Stöng, which was pummeled by the Hekkla volcano in 1103.

And soon afterward, we visit the modern replica of that 11th century Viking long-house, called Pjodveldisbear (you may have seen it in a few scenes of the Game of Thrones).

Afterward, we’ll enjoy another double waterfall before we work our way back to the bright lights and energy of Reykjavik, where we’ll stay for two nights.

Day 7: Free Day in Reykjavik

Explore Reykjavik, the northernmost capital city of Europe, and perhaps the most eclectic. It’s a working harbor and a cultural center; you can fish for salmon right here in town, or dine on salmon at a fine restaurant. (Likewise, and perhaps more discomfiting to some: you can see puffins at the zoo, from a boat – or eat them at a fine restaurant.)

It’s easy to fill a whole day strolling the streets, plazas, and waterfront of Reykjavik. While many imported items are expensive, travelers with a yen for shopping can find several bargains, most notably the strikingly-patterned wool sweaters. You can rent a bike to explore on your own or join a two-to-three-hour city tour or a longer mountain biking tour just outside the city.

Reykjavik has several outdoor, naturally-heated pool complexes that are a mainstay of Icelandic social life, which provide a tempting way to relax. More impressive yet, they have a warm-water beach where they’ve pumped the geothermal water in to warm the cooler North Atlantic waters in a crescent-shaped, golden sand beach. Whale-watching trips are another option as is returning to the countryside to scuba dive in one of the tectonic rifts or try for a horseback ride. Hop onto a handsome palomino, a purebred descendant of the horses that arrived with the Vikings. This is the only horse in the world able to achieve the remarkably smooth, yet fast, 5th gait known as the tolt.

Tonight, our last evening together, a wonderful dinner awaits our whole group. As always, there are alternatives for vegetarians and those with special dietary requirements. Then, Reykjavik’s gay disco awaits those who still have some energy!

Day 8: Departure

The hardest thing about our trips is saying goodbye to a wonderful group of new friends, and the magic of Iceland. But you’ve seen parts of Iceland that most travelers miss; you’ve interacted with the country and its people in ways that give you an extra appreciation for it.

We’ll bet you’ve made some new friends. Thank you for joining us — and we hope to see you again!