It's In Our Nature
You first notice them when you're checking into your flight. While those who are flying to cities such as London, Madrid, or Rome have feet secured comfortably and fashionably in shoes featuring names of designers or Greek goddesses, travelers to Iceland wear something different. In the line for Iceland Air at JFK, feet are laced up in heavy hiking books, many still dusted with dried remnants of mud and silt in earth-toned striations; the by-products of recent excursions into nature. Hiking boots are a necessity in Iceland. As are winter hats in the middle of summer, sunglasses, and rain-proof jackets capable of holding out the ever-present mists of the North Atlantic and the wind that swirls and caterwauls through the barren volcanic landscape.
A trip to Iceland is not a normal trip. Just as Iceland itself is not a normal place. It is a land of juxtapositions. Fire and ice exist in close proximity, battling for supremacy in a torrent of geological wonders. Mountains appear to overhang the long thin grooves of canyons cut into the rugged face of the land. Black sea stacks reach up through the roiling sea like the weathered hand of a submerged giant reaching for one last moment of air. The island is both new and ancient: pulling apart at its center to separate millions of years of rock with rapidly cooling lava ready to fill the void. It's as if by pressing your ear against the ground, you can hear the gears of Earth grinding thunderously a few feet below the surface.
It is terrifying and beautiful, and it is a place where a good pair of hiking shoes will serve you well.
Kids and middle age have a way of tempering your adventures. Not that I ever, truly, had adventure-based vacations beyond skiing, diving, and "light" camping. But whatever "extreme" elements those adventures possessed have now been replaced with reclining lounge chairs, tropical drinks in branded plastic cups, and iPads on tray tables beaming Disney's latest offerings into the skulls of my children. Part of this is laziness. Part of this is out of necessity. Anyone who has ever traveled with children will tell you: make it as easy and comfortable as possible. As such, now our pre-vacation packing involves determining just how many sandals are too many sandals for the trip.
This same sort of forced vacation comfort occurred when I was a child, too. Throughout the 80s, my parents took us to beaches and resorts. With two rambunctious twin boys in tow, it was simply easier and more relaxing for my parents to just watch the tide roll in without concerns such as: where will we sleep tonight, what sort of gastrointestinal issues will eating this dish cause, and will a fall from this height kill us or simply result in a few broken bones? But this shifted somewhere around 1990. Perhaps as a response to the rampant commercialization of the 80s, the by-product of a mid-life crisis, or the ever-softening of their children, my parents decided that from now on, our vacations would be intense.
We tumbled over whitewater rapids, backcountry skied in Tuckerman's Ravine, and camped in desolate locations away from the world. At the time, I hated it. At such a young age, I'd grown accustomed to turn-down service and free towels at the pool. I needed luxury and pampering. I wanted less adventure and more relaxation. But my parents wouldn't budge, and each vacation became less leisure and more expedition. While I went away to the relative comfort of college, my brother - obviously bitten by the same adventure bug as my parents - backpacked alone through Nepal for four months, and my parents continued exploring every peak, canyon, and glacier they could find. (Incidentally, my father climbed the highest summit in each of the 50 states, and would go on to travel to Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro with my brother a few years later.)
My wife, for her part, had an adventurous streak, too. She jumped out of planes in New Zealand, backpacked on glaciers in the bony shadow of Fitz Roy, and bivouacked on the desert plains on the American southwest. But when she met me, all of that changed.
I have developed and curated a decades-long appreciation for comfort. Outside of my undying love for alpine skiing, I won't venture into the wilds of nature unless there's a hot spring or wine tasting at the end of the trail. I have become, for lack of a better term, a wimp. I won't look at a hotel if it doesn't have at least four stars next to its name. I was once despondent for days when the pool at our Tuscan villa was a few degrees too cold for my liking. And, perhaps most disgracefully, I won't consider a vacation unless it involves long stretches of me sitting around doing nothing but reading a book. And once our kids joined the family, we doubled down on comfort vacations. Pools, beaches, and bars within walking distance of both.
But, like all good things, this streak of non-challenging holidays was about to come to a crashing halt.
On Father's Day, my wife handed me a card with a wry smirk ringed with a dusting of apprehension. Inside, it read:
"You + Me = Iceland in August"
This was ... unexpected. Iceland had always existed as a mythical and almost unattainable land. A place filled with oddities and wonders that I'd resigned to only seeing in magazines or travel sites. But here it was, offered up as easily as a glass of water, and all I had to do was take it. A trip to the country would, of course, involve many outdoor activities - and I wondered if I'd be willing to risk my sedentary lifestyle for the chance to see a volcano up close.
When my wife said, "Oh, and no kids," the deal was sealed.
In the weeks that followed, weather-resistant pants were procured, hiking boots that weren't made in the 90s were purchased, and maps and books piled on our kitchen table as we worked out routes into the very heart of nature. (Note: my wife did let us stay at a wonderful hotel and eat some fantastic meals in Reykjavik, so we weren't exactly living in the wilderness on the trip.) With each destination we uncovered, it became clearer and clearer that this would not be a relaxing trip. Epic? Sure. Blissful and indulgent? No.
Upon landing, and once in our rental car and seeing the volcanic peaks in the distance, I felt something strange. A spark traveled from my lower spine and erupted in a firework of nerves throughout my body. I was excited.
Before we checked into our hotel, we drove to the region where the Fagradalsfjall volcano was erupting. Cragged black lava flowed down through mountain passes and filled the floor of a valley where it cooled into a matte grey lake of rock. We hiked up a hill to catch a better view of the crater in the distance and watched as small white clouds of smoke puffed up in random intervals from its summit. We were definitely not in Connecticut anymore.
We hiked between the towering walls of two continental plates at Thingvellir. We saw Strokkur shoot a column of super-heated water hundreds of feet into the air. We got insanely close to the roaring waters of Gullfoss as they poured into oblivion. We saw the silk-like strands of white glacial water cut down through the emerald green sides of the southern mountains - and then walked behind them. We watched as the cold waters of the North Atlantic slowly carved natural arches into the cliffs of Dyrhólaey. And at the very end, exhausted and amazed, we relaxed.
It's almost customary for travelers to Iceland to stop at the Blue Lagoon on their way back to the airport. One could argue its close proximity to the airport makes it a convenient last stop. But, what the Blue Lagoon really does is give you time to reflect on your amazing journeys, relax your tired body from days of hiking, and take one last moment to appreciate the audacious and otherworldly beauty of Iceland.
Everyone deserves a vacation. Everyone deserves time away, time to relax, and time to reconnect. And my love for stupidly nice hotels where the staff genuflects as you pass by and offers up cocktails made from the souls of young harbor seals will never die. But I realize now that getting back to nature, having adventures, and exploring a world away from commercialization is important, too. Take that trip to Ibiza, relax to your heart's content, but make sure you follow it up with a trip that takes you out of your comfort zone, challenges you, and pushes you forward.
Unpacking my hiking boots, their soles still dusted with specks of lava, black sand, and dried glacial mud, I didn't throw them in the back of my closet. Instead, I set them up front in a place of importance; both as a trophy to recent adventure, and in the hope that they'll be used again very soon.
