Three years in Iceland - and counting

This morning, I received a prompt from my Facebook account reminding me that it’s been three years since I moved to Iceland.??

My 40-year old self, looking at the sentence, would have fully spelled out the acronym “WTF” and added a half-dozen question marks.

But my actual 50-plus-year-old self thinks it’s been a great decision, in no small part because Iceland is one of those rare places that is both great to visit and great to live in.

The first part - “Iceland is a great place to visit” - is a fairly key thing as my wife, Helga Kristin Fridjonsdottir , runs the Iceland Unwrapped travel planning business and is continually welcoming new visitors who come for short and long visits alike.??

Indeed, one of the great things about Iceland is the sheer quantity of places to visit.??

Iceland’s top tourist spots - the Blue Lagoon, the black beaches and waterfalls of the South Coast, and the latest volcanic eruption, get all the headlines.? But one of the great things about being on a small but constantly evolving rock in the middle of the Atlantic is that the vast majority of the country is at least as scenic and also at least as accessible.

I’m writing this from a “summer house” - a cabin set between a lake and some mountains in one of Iceland’s less-touristed areas.? As my wife is a bit of an expert on such off-the-radar-screen accommodations, we spend a few weekends a year in these places, usually sporting a hot tub and modern conveniences like gas grills and dishwashers, to recharge and take in the “bucket-list” scenery that keeps her travel business humming.

Indeed, one of the things that I thought I’d miss about leaving our previous base near Rotterdam in the Netherlands was that we’d run out of places to visit.?

But Iceland’s small coastal towns are an exceptionally vibrant mix, hosting restaurants ranging from epic fish places to an unusually good Moroccan restaurant in a town best known otherwise for its (excellent) herring museum.

Indeed, it’s also proven a very good place to live as well.??

Professionally, it’s had its benefits.? As I work with clients on both sides of the Atlantic, a mid-Atlantic timezone makes it quite a pleasant “virtual commute” - to Europe in the mornings and to North America in the afternoons.

There’s also a small but interested community of pros who are seriously into in what makes organizations tick - like Ingibj?rg Lilja Tórmundsdóttir and Hedinn (Héeinn) Sveinbj?rnsson, MBA .

It’s also been great personally.??

Clean air.??

Cool summer temperatures.??

Great walks and hikes.

Green geothermal and hydro-electric power, keeping us warm and lit through the chilly and dark winters (including the year-round public outdoor swimming pools that we go to two or three times a week for $8 a pop).

Surprisingly good food - even if local supermarkets tend to form the butt end of the global fruit and veg supply chain.

A health system that, while the subject of frequent local complaints, has taken good care of my on a couple of occasions.??

As an American, I usually respond to those complaints by saying “YOU HAVE A HEALTH SYSTEM” - picking up my earlier response to Dutch folks who complained about train punctuality: “YOU HAVE A TRAIN SYSTEM”

But the thing that impresses me the most about Iceland is that, even though it has fewer than 400,000 residents, it has all the infrastructure that you’d expect of an “adult-size” European or North American country.

It’s an organized place.??

Stuff works.?

Internet works.?

We have direct flights to most major North American and European cities through Keflavik International Airport (which I’ve affectionately nicknamed “The Dubai of the North.”)

Reykjavik itself reminds me of an American college town much more than a European capital. Despite its 200,000-strong population, it has the embassies, cultural life, and restaurant choice of a far-larger community.

The prices, aside from accommodation which fluctuates due to spikes in tourist demand, are no longer excessive.? Given that tax and service are included in restaurant and bar tabs, prices are comparable to big-city prices in the US, Canada and Northern Europe.?

The population is also increasingly diverse - a benefit of increased tourism, locals having lived, studied and worked abroad, and increasing participation in European and global labor markets.

What do I like the most about living in Iceland???

The best thing for me is that I’m in a place where other folks want to be.? The usual response I receive from colleagues and clients when they hear that I live here is: “Wow”, “that’s so cool”, or “how did you pull that off?”

And if you want to be in Iceland, have a chat with my wife at www.icelandunwrapped.com .