Iceland: My Dream Vacation

You know how sometimes you'll sit and daydream about the things you'd love to do one day?  I find myself often thinking about traveling - packing my little guys up and seeing the world.  We take little road trips, and I teach them how to be a respectful tourist, but to leave the country and really travel? That would be amazing.  One of these days, I would love to bring them to Iceland.

Why Iceland?  It is a beautiful country that boasts breathtaking landscapes, amazing adventures, and so much more.  I would seriously take the trip just to see the Northern Lights in person.  An Iceland holiday would be one to write about in the Christmas card, that's for sure.

My Iceland Bucket List

Iceland has one main road, Route 1 (or the Ring Road), that goes all around the island and can bring you to some of the most famous attractions.  Take for instance, Seljalandsfoss - a gorgeous waterfall that is one of the highest in the world at 63 meters.  You can actually walk behind this waterfall!  Can you imagine the beautiful pictures?

Another thing I would love to see would be the Mývatn Nature Baths: a natural lagoon where guests can bathe.  The water supplies for the lagoon run straight from the National Power Company´s bore hole in Bjarnarflag. The water has a temperature of about 130°C (255 F) when it arrives to the huge basin beside the lagoon itself forming an impressive, man-made hot spring. Altogether, the lagoon and the basin contain around 3.5 million liters of water with a temperature of 36 – 40°C (97-104 F).

And Puffins!  Iceland is rich with bird and marine wildlife, and popular with ornithologists who visit during the nesting seasons to catch a glimpse of dozens of bird species, including the Atlantic Puffin. There's special tour packages that allow tourists to travel by boat to smaller islands where they can get a close up look at one of the cutest seabirds out there (ok, so I'm biased, I love puffins!)

If nature isn't really selling you on how awesome it would be to visit Iceland, they also have a rich city life as well.  Reykjavík is the capital city of Iceland, and is known for being a family friendly place with high chairs in every restaurant and strollers lining the sidewalks.  A safe and clean city, Reykjavík has a compact center that makes it easy to navigate by foot - perfect for sightseeing and showing your family all the sights.  At night, a vivid nightlife takes over with nightclubs and "jammith" as the locals call it - it's definitely one of the hottest party scenes to check out.

To end the day, staying in one of the beautiful Iceland hotels would top it off perfect.  While some may prefer the authentic camping or hostel stay while visiting Iceland, I dream about staying in one of the luxury hotels like the Frost and Fire (Frost og Funi in Icelandic) nestled in the hot springs area. Hótel Rangá would also be one of my top choices, a volcano base hotel where you can see the Northern Lights.

(photo credit for all photos goes to guidetoiceland.is)

Where would you go if you could travel anywhere in the world?