Back in 2010 I made the break from life as a school Geography teacher and set myself up at the kitchen table to create my Icelandic travel business. Looking back, I'm amazed at how I managed to navigate the construction of my first website and all the associated complexities of business bank accounts, public liability insurance and tour operator registration.

Either way, during my earliest visits it was the power of waterfalls, the ferocity of the sea and the strength of the wind that struck me most. As I ventured further into and around the country, I discovered huge lava fields, vast and silent ice caps and enormous expanses of barren grey desert.

As I write, the Reykjanes area of southwest Iceland is the location of another eruption. This largely 'tourist' or –‘no ash’ volcano is centred just to the north-east of Fragradalshraun, the beautiful and most recent new lava field created during 2021 and 2022

Sometimes the solid and sturdy silhouette of the Icelandic horse is the only animal visible in the winter landscape. Small and extremely woolly, with a long mane and fluffy forelock, these hardy creatures seem oblivious to the wind and snow, as they stand munching away at the large piles of hay left for them by their farmer owner

Out East: Fjord fingers full of secrets that aren't all that easy to discover, and packed in between Hofn (where the "East" begins) and Seydisfjordur (where the “Trapped” ferry comes in). It's a perfect place for a slow drive route, ending in the lakeside town of Egilsstadir, from where the journey to the extremities of North-East Iceland can really begin…

It seems so unreal to stand on a rocky, fractured cliff edge and discover that the view ahead is of the boundary between two massive tectonic plates…