Guð skapaði þetta

Skógafoss, Southern Iceland
Second place info

I love Iceland, and I have always been interested in visiting this nation since most of my favorite musical bands are Icelandic. It is an incredibly safe country to visit; you can just rent a car and explore the countryside with total confidence. The people are friendly and the landscape is simply stunning.

The common story is that Iceland was given its name to trick the Vikings into avoiding it in favor of Greenland, hoping that the name was representative of the scenery. In actuality the Norwegian explorer Floki named Iceland simply because of an unusually harsh winter he endured upon first discovering the Island. The story goes that at one point, Floki climbed a mountain and looked out over the land only to see it completely covered with ice. When spring arrived, he returned to Norway and as people asked him about the new land he simply said something along the lines of “oh, it’s nothing but an ice land… don’t bother going there”. In time, the Vikings ended up migrating there anyways and the name stuck.

In truth, Floki merely had a terrible first impression of Iceland because, in actuality, it really is a beautifully lush country– full of rolling green hills and glorious mountains.

I spent a week traveling across the nation, and there were very few places that could even come close to being considered less than scenically dramatic and beautiful. Plus, with not many more that 300,000 people living there (most living in and around Reykjavik), traveling the country roads truly gives you a sensation of peaceful solitude in nature.

This should truly be on the bucket list of everyone interested in international travel!

Image Code: A049

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