Everyone photographs Iceland in summer: the midnight sun, the green hillsides, the waterfalls in full force, the lupins carpeting the roadsides in purple. I went in January, when the sun rises at 11am and sets at 3:30pm and the temperature sits around -10°C and the waterfalls are half-frozen and the landscape is monochrome white and grey. It was the most extraordinary place I have ever been in my life.
The Northern Lights
The aurora borealis cannot be guaranteed — it depends on solar activity, cloud cover, and geography — but in Iceland in winter, with the long dark nights and minimal light pollution outside Reykjavik, your odds are better than almost anywhere. My strategy: download an aurora alert app, keep two evenings completely free, drive 30 minutes from the city to escape light pollution on clear nights. When they appeared — first a faint green smear, then bands, then curtains of green and occasionally pink — I stood in a field in silence for two hours. No photograph does it justice.
The Ring Road in Winter
The Ring Road — Route 1, which circles the island — is mostly driveable in winter with a proper 4WD and winter tyres. The south coast in particular is extraordinary: Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss waterfalls partially frozen, their falls creating enormous ice formations. Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon with icebergs grounded in the bay, silent and blue-white in the low winter light. The diamond beach where the ice washes up on black volcanic sand. At this time of year, you frequently have these places to yourself.
The Indoor Life
Iceland in winter teaches you to appreciate interiors. Reykjavik has extraordinary restaurants — the New Nordic influence is strong — and the geothermal pools (the Sky Lagoon, the old Laugar thermal pool) become essential rather than optional. A bowl of lamb soup in a small cafe while a storm rattles the windows outside is one of the pleasures of the dark season. Iceland is elemental in every month; in January, the elements are in full command.