Why Iceland?

Of course, Iceland isn’t actually an Instagram filter. Things in real life rarely look the way they do online. But Iceland has an irritating habit of occasionally living up to the marketing.

Just last night, I finished work, went to the gym, walked outside, looked up—and there were the northern lights.

It was a Monday.

A completely ordinary night

That is the absurdity of Iceland. Something people fly thousands of miles across the world hoping to see can suddenly appear above you while you’re going about a completely ordinary night.

But that’s not really why Iceland.

I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Being outdoors meant freedom, peace and, more importantly, a reset. I grew up in a chaotic environment, and being the gay kid in Colorado Springs meant discrimination was a regular part of my childhood. The outdoors became a sanctuary.

When I think about Colorado now, I have complicated feelings about it. I loved the place. I didn’t necessarily love the time in my life—or all the characters who were part of the story.

Colorado Springs

Driving toward Manitou Springs was different. It represented something I wanted. There was a feeling there that I could breathe a little more and be a little more myself.

Years later, I found a strangely familiar feeling thousands of miles away.

I came to Iceland in winter in 2023, and something clicked. The snow. The mountains. The ability to disappear into the landscape and then go sit in hot water. Parts of it reminded me of Colorado.

Except Iceland didn’t come with my memories of Colorado.

It was something new.

Eventually, I applied for my Icelandic kennitala and got it. And from there, this slightly ridiculous idea kept building. Trip by trip. Year by year.

People have told me that I look happier here. Freer. Maybe it’s something in my tone. Maybe it’s the amount of joy I show when I’m here. Whatever they’re seeing, apparently it is visible from the outside.

I understand why.

Iceland gives me something I’ve always needed: balance.

I don’t want to disappear into the wilderness and spend the rest of my life alone licking my wounds from bad experiences. I still want people. I want human connection. I want restaurants, coffee, nightlife, culture and a city around me. I want to be part of the world.

Reykjavík

Reykjavík gives me enough of that. It is metropolitan enough to give me what I need, while remaining small enough that the wilderness never feels particularly far away. I can have city life and then leave it. And when Iceland starts feeling a little too small, London and Paris are roughly a flight away.

I need both.

People and solitude.

City and wilderness.

Movement and stillness.

Apparently, the land of fire and ice is an appropriate place for someone who contains a few contradictions himself.

And then there’s Þingvellir.

Silfra

Of everything I’ve done in Iceland, diving Silfra remains one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve had. You enter water at roughly 2°C / 36°F and float through the Silfra fissure in the divergent boundary zone between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.

The water is unbelievably clear. It has filtered underground through porous volcanic rock for decades before emerging at Þingvellir, creating visibility that can exceed 100 meters. Our guide told us the water was clean enough to drink.

So, naturally, I drank it while diving.

There is a particular blue in that water that I still carry with me. I’ve processed GoPro footage and drone footage from the experience, and the images are spectacular. But even they don’t quite reproduce what it felt like to actually be there.

And because Iceland apparently has no interest in subtlety, an American increasingly imagining a life in Europe somehow ended up literally swimming between North America and Eurasia.

I couldn’t have written the metaphor better if I tried.

That’s the Instagram-filter side of Iceland.

Then there are the Icelanders.

The Icelanders

Icelanders can be incredibly short and direct. That is a cultural adjustment when you come from the United States and a Latino family background. We are fiery people. Americans are loud. We’re animated almost as much as our cartoons and occasionally seem to operate on about as much sugar as a can of Coke.

Icelanders are…not that.

People can be blunt. People can be rude. Conversations don’t always come wrapped in the extra layer of enthusiasm Americans are accustomed to.

Sometimes opposites attract.

Iceland isn’t perfect, and I don’t want to pretend it is. The wind can be horrible. It’s cold. It’s expensive. People can be difficult. Living somewhere is fundamentally different from visiting it.

That’s partly why I’m spending real time here now. I don’t want the Instagram version. I want to know what happens when the waterfalls become normal, when the northern lights show up after the gym, when I have work on Monday morning, errands to run and a life to maintain.

And then there is Icelandic.

Íslenska

Learning Icelandic sometimes feels like someone handed me a 10,000-piece puzzle and forgot to include any of the corners.

And, strangely, I love that about it.

I have dealt with difficult things throughout my life. I didn’t have an ideal family life. I grew up gay in a deeply homophobic environment. Some of those experiences stay with you long after you’ve physically left the place where they happened.

Icelandic is different.

This difficulty is something I chose.

When I understand a sentence today that would have sounded like complete noise a year ago, I smile. Then I want to learn more. It reminds me that I can stick with something incredibly difficult long enough to watch it slowly start making sense.

Why voluntarily learn an absurdly difficult language in a country where you can survive remarkably well speaking English?

Because I can.

Because I want an adventure.

Because I want to look back one day and say, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I actually did that.”

There comes a point in life when you realize no one else is going to live your dreams for you.

No one is going to go back and right every wrong in your life. No one is going to build the future you’ve imagined on your behalf. We get a remarkably small amount of time on this planet, and eventually you have to stop waiting for someone else to give you permission to use yours.

So I’m trying Iceland.

Maybe Iceland ultimately works. Maybe immigration or legal realities eventually point me toward Spain, Greece or somewhere else in Europe. I don’t know yet.

But one day, I am going to do it.

And maybe that is the real answer to “Why Iceland?”

Iceland reminds me of parts of where I came from without requiring me to remain there. It gives me wilderness without complete isolation, a city without feeling trapped inside one, beauty that occasionally borders on ridiculous, and a language difficult enough to keep me curious for years.

It gives me somewhere to explore, somewhere to challenge myself and, perhaps most importantly, somewhere to breathe.

Iceland isn’t an escape hatch from everything that came before it. No country can do that.

But it can be somewhere I deliberately choose what comes next.

And for now, that’s enough of a reason for me.