There are places you just don’t want to leave! I had that feeling in Iceland. And, thinking about everything I’ve seen so far around the world, there aren’t many places I can say that about. I adore certain cities, I go back countless times to some of them, but that sensation of “I don’t ever want to leave this place” I’ve felt only rarely.
I think I could write for a year about all the places I’ve seen in Iceland (and I haven’t even seen everything!). So I’ll just take it step by step…
VATNAJÖKULL
10% of Iceland is covered by glaciers! Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Europe and the third largest in the world! It covers an area of 8,100 km² and has a thickness ranging from 400 to 1,100 meters! Just to give you an idea, Vatnajökull is 10 times larger than the land surface of New York City!
This glacier is so vast that each part of it has its own name. I’ll stop at the section called Breiðamerkurjökull, closely connected to one of the most photographed tourist attractions in Iceland! (I think I alone took over 2,000 photos and videos during my two visits here…)
JÖKULSÁRLÓN
Before my first trip to Iceland, in 2014, I knew from pictures what Jökulsárlón looked like, and I thought: “Well, of course, they stayed on the shore for a few days to catch some nice shots, then added filters, did some editing, and voilà – a beautiful place ready for promotion”.
Oh my God, when I saw the lagoon, I was speechless! It felt like someone had pressed pause on me with a remote control in the “wtf, is this real???” position.
Yes, it’s real! In fact, it’s UNREAL! The multitude of icebergs, the light, the sound of the ice, the glacier wall…
It’s a place that truly leaves you utterly amazed!
JÖKULSÁRLÓN GLACIER LAGOON
(somehow redundant, considering that jökulsárlón in Icelandic basically means “glacier lagoon”)
It’s the largest lagoon and one of the most touristic places in Iceland. And it’s easy to reach, imagine that… It’s right by the main road, in southeast Iceland, on their national road (the ring road that circles the whole country). You can even see it straight from the car, while driving.
I got here coming from the east of the country – on both my visits – since that’s how I planned my route. But, if you drive from the capital Reykjavik, you’ll have to cover almost 400 km to get here.
This place used to be farmland. With the global warming of the 20th century, the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier retreated, leaving behind a lagoon. This happened around the 1930s.
However, the process suddenly accelerated starting in 1975, so from nearly 8 km², the lagoon grew to 15 km² by 1998!
Today it exceeds 18 km² and it’s still growing.
the glacier in the evening
the glacier in the morning
Somewhere I read that Breiðamerkurjökull is retreating by 100-300 meters per year, depending on the temperatures of that year.
I, who saw this place 11 years apart, didn’t even notice that the glacier had retreated 🙂 At first glance, from a distance, I really couldn’t tell. And even when I got close by boat to its wall, I didn’t realize it was a few hundred meters farther back compared to 2014…
The huge chunks of ice breaking off the glacier are over 1,500 years old!!! They float in the lagoon for a few weeks, undergo certain transformations (which I’ll describe below), then head out to the ocean, since the lagoon is directly connected to the ocean – a rare thing for glacial lakes – through a short canal.
When the tide comes in, salty water flows into the lagoon, creating a kind of layered cake – at the bottom it’s salty and warmer due to currents brought by the tide, while at the surface it’s fresh and colder.
The icebergs in the lagoon create a spectacular backdrop!
Some are an electric blue, others have layers of volcanic ash inside, others are transparent.
The blue ones are the “fresh” ones. Just broken off from the glacier, they owe their color to the density of the pure ice, free of air bubbles. Over time, in contact with oxygen and with salt water, their color changes.
And whether you look at the icebergs from the shore or go by boat among them, you feel as if you were inside a fantasy movie.
Speaking of movies…
FILMING AT JÖKULSÁRLÓN
This place couldn’t leave (no pun intended :)) film producers and directors cold. They set their eyes on it and shot here some scenes, some of them memorable.
In James Bond: A View to a Kill (1985), a Siberian area was created here, right at the beginning of the movie. Part of Siberia also became the Icelandic lagoon in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).
In Interstellar it was the frozen planet, and in Game of Thrones, Jökulsárlón shows up briefly in season 7, episode 6, as a background in a few scenes, to convey the feeling of a frozen land beyond the Wall. However, for the same series, many more locations in Iceland were used! I’ve actually just seen one of them myself, in the middle of the country, and I can’t wait to show it to you in the post about the “highlands”!
In James Bond: Die Another Day (2002), the lagoon was the perfect setting for a spectacular car chase on the ice:
The crazy part, though!!! To be able to shoot the car chase on the lagoon, even though they filmed in winter and the lagoon was frozen, they had to “help” nature a bit: the natural ice wasn’t thick and stable enough to support the cars, all the equipment, and the film crew, so guess what they did? They temporarily closed off the lagoon from the ocean, to reduce the inflow of warm sea water, which was melting the ice sheet. Then they used industrial pumps to pull up cold surface water and spray it, thus creating a thicker and safer ice layer. Clever folks, huh!
And of course, they must have shooed away all the tourists while filming… Luckily, I hadn’t even heard of this place back in 2002 🙂
I first arrived at Jökulsárlón in the summer of 2014 and, in the summer of 2025, I couldn’t wait to return! I stayed in the same hotel, 10 minutes by car from the lagoon. Eager to see it again and curious to find out how things had changed, I set off right after I checked in. In the evening, at the exact same hour as 11 years ago, funnily enough.
Late hours have the advantage that there aren’t many people around. Usually, crowds gather in the morning, making a stop on their way east or, the other way, toward the capital. Plus, lagoon tours usually end around 7 p.m. And, well, around that time, normal people want to have dinner and then head to bed…
In 11 years, things have definitely changed! I don’t remember every detail from 2014, but some photos and some of my notes from back then help. For example, now you can no longer go down to the shore to walk around.
From the parking lot, you follow a well-marked trail up a hill.
And from there, fenced off, you can take unfenced photos…
Now the parking is paid. It costs about 7 euros/day, but I preferred to pay upfront for 2 days, since the next morning I had a ticket for the lagoon tour. I figured this way I’d avoid the lines that might form at that time.
A café has appeared, a souvenir shop, a food area with food trucks cooking various dishes, and you also come across more containers selling lagoon tours.
They’ve even built a sort of balcony where you can take pictures without other tourists crowding and ruining your shot. I felt like Juliet, only Romeo was missing, appearing among the icebergs 🙂
WHAT TO DO AT JÖKULSÁRLÓN
First of all, you can walk along the lagoon, as far as the marked trail allows…
You can sit at the wooden tables or on the rocks, calmly admiring/enthusiastically photographing the chunks of ice piling up on one another, while seagulls make themselves at home on them.
Or you can take a tour on the lagoon if you’re here between May and October. There are 3 options:
Amphibious boat. A 40-minute ride on the lagoon, in a larger group. Cost (in summer 2025) – 6,900 ISK per adult (+13 years), about 48 euros.
Zodiac boat. Smaller capacity, but faster and with the great advantage of being able to slip between the icebergs and get closer to the glacier wall. The tour lasts about 70–75 minutes.
And the price is steeper: I paid 15,900 ISK, about ~111 euros! (In 2014, for exactly the same tour, I paid 6,500 ISK, about ~45 euros.)
You can paddle, if your muscles can handle it… Guided kayak tours. They last about an hour and a half, and the cost is around 130 euros!
Both 11 years ago and now, I chose the same option: the zodiac boat. The difference is that back then, I showed up in the morning without knowing about the tours, and they took pity on me, letting me hop into a boat that was just about to leave, after I paid on the spot.
This time I booked in advance, since I saw how quickly spots were selling out. I booked through the first site that seemed like an Icelandic company – icelagoon.com. But I soon discovered that there’s also another one, also local – icelagoon.is. The difference between them is small, sometimes just in schedule. Generally, they run about 6–10 tours per day in the summer season.
ZODIAC TOUR
Nine of us with tickets for the 8:50 a.m. tour enter the container truck. We’re given bulky overalls to pull on over our own clothes.
Should I keep my jacket on, or leave it? Big dilemma, considering it’s cold, and on the moving boat it’ll be even colder. The locals here say they go without, but hey, it all depends on how sensitive to cold you are. I decide to leave it, since the overall they gave me already feels warm enough…
On the other hand, you are advised to bring a hat and gloves.
We climb up the little ladder into the tall truck, which drives us along the lagoon to the boarding point.
“If we’re lucky, we might see seals or icebergs rolling over”, says the captain. Eleven years ago, I didn’t see a single seal (or flipper, for that matter), nor any icebergs flipping. What luck will we have today?…
We set off at full speed. It’s 7.6 km from the shore to the glacier wall. I pull on my hat… then the hood of the overall… I take them off again for a selfie. Or maybe not 🙂
2025
2014
We pass large ice blocks to the left and right. And we keep advancing toward the glacier.
I ask the captain how deep the water is. Just the perfect moment for me to get curious like that, right in the middle of the lagoon…
“Maximum 284 meters”, he answers, and my blood instantly freezes inside me! Now I match the lagoon.
“And the water is 3.4 degrees Celsius” – he shows me on a screen, though I wasn’t exactly giving any sign that I wanted to jump out of the boat.
Suddenly, I remember something!
Even though now it’s clearly written that you’re not allowed to swim in the lagoon, because you can die after just a few minutes, in 2014 I photographed three girls who did exactly that!!!
After thorough preparation on the shore, they entered the lagoon one by one and swam up to the first iceberg that came their way. It was late in the evening, few people around, nobody questioned their sanity, and they quietly carried on with their “extreme sport”. Brrr…
We get closer to the glacier wall and the captain slows down.
We cruise gently among the icebergs, keeping a safe distance. Because, as it turns out, it can be extremely dangerous to get too close to them. Why?
Icebergs can reach up to 30 meters above the water, but let’s not forget that 90% of their mass is under water! A spectacular phenomenon you can witness here, if you’re lucky, is an iceberg flipping upside down!
This phenomenon happens for several reasons:
Once detached from the glacier, the icebergs float in the lagoon. And slowly but surely, they melt. At the base, at a corner…
On the other hand, the saltier and warmer water underneath melts the submerged part faster than the surface part.
And one more reason: icebergs can have internal cracks, air pockets. In this case, the pressure changes, suddenly shifting the distribution of weight.
No matter the cause, the effect is the same – the center of gravity of that chunk of ice shifts. And as the center of gravity changes, the iceberg seeks a new position of balance.
The phenomenon is wow – overturns with sounds like powerful thunderclaps! But as spectacular as it is, it’s just as dangerous!
A strong wave can be created, like a mini-tsunami, which could literally toss a nearby boat! Plus, chunks of ice can break off and hit the vessel.
That’s why those who run the tours know very well that they must keep a distance of several dozen meters from the icebergs. They also know which ones have already flipped, by their color and surface.
We didn’t witness any spectacular overturns – and honestly, being on the boat, I don’t think I would’ve wanted to…
(I did see one from the shore, not a big one, and I heard that thunder-like sound which I had also heard in Greenland, when I was on a glacier tour. Really eerie!)
SEALS
If we weren’t lucky with the iceberg overturns, we did get lucky with seals! Yes, yes, quite a few of them!
Like lazybones, they lie in the sun, on chunks of ice. They lift their heads toward us, looking bored, then go back to their beauty sleep.
One crosses our path! Curious, it follows us, coming very close to our boat, staring at us as if discovering humans for the first time in its life.
The boat captain stops the engine and asks us to be quiet. This makes the seal approach without fear. And so we sit there, looking at each other – us at the seal, the seal at us…
Then it leaves, diving back into its waters. It truly is in its element…
The approach to the glacier wall is overwhelming, I don’t even know how to put it into words… It impresses me deeply!
On the way back, the Spanish kid, encouraged by the captain, fishes a chunk of ice out of the water. A cute accessory for a “cool” photo 🙂
After the lagoon tour, you can walk or drive across the bridge to the beach.
Basically, you follow the route of the icebergs that float from the lagoon into the ocean. Well, you stop at the parking lot 🙂 You can park either at the beach before the bridge or at the one right after it.
Here you’ll find another wonder!
DIAMOND BEACH
The waves throw onto the beach pieces of icebergs drifting in from the lagoon. This creates a stunning setting with… diamonds scattered on the black sand.
The large chunks of ice stay for a while stuck at the shore, in the water, prey to the waves that continuously pound them with force.
I was fascinated by this place ever since my first visit here!
It was July then too, it was cold, and the beach was crammed with chunks of ice.
Now, however, the very same beach, also late in the evening, offered only some… ice cubes, just enough for a whisky.
A few tourists tried to move the ice around so it would look like a small cluster, just enough for a pretty picture.
However, the next day, at 8 in the morning, I find the beach completely packed with “diamonds”. My God, it’s so spectacular!!! And the best part is that I’m the only one on this entire unreal stretch. The bad part? Just now I don’t have time to stay, because I’d miss the lagoon boat tour 🙁
I quickly read what I should do if I come across a seal on the beach…
…and I quickly film, to enjoy Diamond Beach as my own kingdom, mine and mine alone. But the ending is… unexpected:
What else could I trip over if not a huge chunk of ice, right? I almost broke my legs.
A bit later, I find the beach full of people! People fascinated, just like me, who couldn’t stop taking pictures among the stranded chunks of ice.
I conclude that it’s ideal to stay in the area at least one night. Because, from one day to the next, the scenery changes dramatically!
FJALLSÁRLÓN
Just 10 minutes by car (10 km) from Jökulsárlón toward the capital lies Fjallsárlón, a miniature version of the Jökulsárlón lagoon, with very few tourists – at least that’s how I always found it whenever I visited.
The lagoon was formed by the retreat of the Fjallsjökull glacier, which is a glacial tongue of the massive Öræfajökull glacier, which in turn is part of Vatnajökull – the one I told you about as the largest glacier in Europe and the third largest in the world.
I forgot their names in about two seconds! But I did remember that the big one has a child which, in turn, has a child 🙂
Fjallsárlón is a closed lagoon, with no direct channel to the ocean like the other one, which means that all the icebergs calving from the glacier front remain trapped here, floating for a while until they break apart and eventually melt. But no worries, others keep breaking off and filling the lagoon, to the delight of us, the ones strolling along the trails in front of it.
Since the lagoon is small, the glacier wall can be seen very well from the shore, so there’s no need to take a boat tour. Of course, if you do want to get in the boats, tours are available – between April and October/November, lasting 75-90 minutes.
The cost? From what I found, 10,500 ISK per adult (about 73 euros).
I saw this lagoon in 2014 during the daytime.
In the summer of 2025, I arrived late in the evening and enjoyed it as if it were mine, and mine alone. I came back the next day, not only because it was on my way west, but also… don’t laugh at me… so I’d have the sun behind me, no longer messing up my photos 🙂
On this occasion, I also noticed the dynamics of the icebergs, since the midday scenery didn’t look anything like the one from the previous evening:
in the evening
at noon
Just like at Jökulsárlón, here too you walk along well-marked trails, but you also have access to the shore, if you want to test the water with your foot.
There are no food trucks here, but there is a restaurant (Frost), right next to the parking lot. You can try the daily menu – unless you’re unlucky enough to show up right when the whole place is reserved for a massive tourist group, in which case you’ll have your soup as takeaway and eat it outside on a bench, “seasoned” with raindrops.
GLACIER LAGOONS
I’ve seen these places under threatening gray skies, bathed in sunlight, or under raindrops; I’ve seen them late in the evening, in the unreal summer light, with a sun that never sets. Anytime, anyhow, the “scenery” is always breathtaking!
Iceland has many such places and I can’t wait to write about each of them. Until then, you can read about my adventure on Grimsey Island, on the Arctic Circle, see how I slept in a capsule, or laugh at me for carrying a tote bag to the pilot of a plane, or for desperately running with a scooter to catch a volcanic eruption…
