How do you maximize 9 days of paid time off? Easy. You go on an adventure. 

There is a difference between traveling and going on an adventure. Traveling is like when you go see your parents who live in a different state, or when you travel to a wedding in a big city. You get a hotel, you do the thing you’re there to do, and you go home. Traveling is when either you have everything perfectly planned, or someone else did the planning for you. Either way you know what to expect and you know what is going to happen. An adventure is not like that. 

Growing up as a missionary kid in Mexico traveling is what I’ve always done. My family traveled all over Mexico and all over the USA. This was my childhood until I got to college. Like every good college student, I was broke all through school. I had school full time and I had to work full time, so I never did anything fun. Boo-hoo. 

One summer, though, I ended up at a Barnes and Noble where I picked up an issue of Outside magazine. While flipping through it I found a short snippet about kayaking in Iceland under the midnight sun. I remember reading that and feeling so inspired. I had never heard of such a thing. It sounded so foreign and I wanted to experience that, but I was in college and I was broke. So I couldn’t scratch that itch. Still, I was intrigued. 

When I graduated from university I was blessed to get hired by an outdoors store called Lewis & Clark Outfitters. Working there was a blast. I learned a lot about new gear, and I got to try out new things like kayaking and skiing. By far the best perk, though, was getting to listen to people share stories of their adventures. These people knew the difference between traveling and adventuring. The kind of people that have a “But Did You Die?” sticker on their bumper. 

One day I picked up a local Arkansas magazine and I found myself reading an article about local explorers who went on a 60 mile backpacking trip in Iceland. They shared their story about this island near the Arctic Circle with unpredictable weather, 70 mile-an-hour wind gusts, and 24-hour summer sunlight. One of those explorers happened to be the owner of my store! Suddenly the fire inside me was lit again. That article was the inception of the coolest trip I would take to date. 

. . .

It was 2018. By this time it had been 8 years since my last big trip with my family. By now I had been working for a few years, I had a bit of cash saved up, and I had about 9 days of PTO that I needed to use up. I had started deciding what to do with my vacation time, when I got hit with the cold realization that I had never been on a trip all on my own. Everywhere I went as a kid and as a teenager had always been with my parents! I was 25 and this was unacceptable! Except, I was scared. 

Planning this vacation was unlike anything I had ever done. I had considered going out west, to Utah perhaps, or to the Pacific Northwest, but driving there and back would have taken most of the vacation days anyway. Doing a staycation was boring, and going only one state over seemed lame. Iceland was a far-fetched option. All of these options were daunting, but Iceland was the most daunting. 

I had never planned a trip by myself, much less one involving going to a foreign country, with a language I had never spoken or even heard. I had never planned a trip using public transportation, and I had never faced the kind of crazy weather the island is famous for. At the time I felt embarrassed to admit it, but I was intimidated by it. So, of course, I didn’t do anything. 

About two months went by where I just lingered and made excuses. I had told everyone at the store that I was going, but in reality I hadn’t made any plans. The same owner who went to Iceland, Darrell, also runs a travel website called Adventure Fares, where it’s easy to find cheap flights to anywhere in the world. He told me that I shouldn’t wait to buy the tickets after I have it all figured out. “If you wait, you will never go. Buy the tickets and then figure it out.” He knew what he was talking about. This is brilliant advice, but at the time I didn’t know it. So once more I lingered. 

A week went by and Darrell’s wife came into the store. After chit chatting for a few minutes she asked me point blank, “So have you bought the tickets yet?” I said “No. Not yet.” I hesitated, and then I added “I’m just not sure about this.” She smiled big and said “Just. Go.” The way she said that did something to me. She and Darrell were right. I had to make a decision, and her encouragement was all I needed. So that night, at 1:30 in the morning, I bought a single round-trip ticket to Iceland.

There I was, staring at my laptop screen, simultaneously full of excitement and wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into. I had a trip, but no plan at all. To build momentum, I shared that I had bought the tickets with everyone I knew. Two of my friends decided to join me. Steven and Zach, which is perfect, because every adventure needs a companion. 

The flight date was three months away, which meant I was able to do plenty of research, and interview plenty of people who had already visited the country. Everyone who had gone had fantastic stories to share about the wonderful experiences they had. Everyone talked about the exotic landscapes and how raw everything felt. Each of these conversations gave me more and more confidence that I could do this. Slowly I crafted an itinerary, I rented a van, and I got as ready as I could to go into the unknown. 

It all felt so surreal when the time came. We were flying out of DFW, which meant Zach and I had to drive 5 hours to Dallas. Steven met us there. We got on the plane and traveled through the night. When the morning clouds parted and made way for us to look down at the Icelandic landscape I got a feeling that I had never experienced before. I was farther East and farther North than I had ever been before. I felt that the world was bigger than I had ever known, yet all of it was within reach. We got off the plane, and within minutes of leaving the Keflavik International Airport I found myself at the wheel of our rented camper van with nothing but adventure and discovery ahead. Nothing could prepare me for the joy that this trip would bring me.

. . .

Iceland is fantastic. The landscape is so foreign from everything I’ve ever seen in the USA or in Mexico. It’s the tundra! At first it might not seem like much. We arrived at around 9:30 in the morning. It was a beautiful, cool and sunny day. Driving from the airport to Reykjavik takes about 40 minutes and most of it is barren land of brown and black rock formed by molten lava and covered in moss. There are almost no trees visible. It was so bare that I was puzzled. It made me wonder what else is there? What’s the deal? What’s so special about this place? 

Our first sign that this trip was going to be an adventure is that none of us had considered getting an international phone plan, so we had no working GPS. I had the foresight to download maps onto my phone just in case we got to a place where there really was no signal, but we didn’t really know where we were going most of the time. 

Eventually, we got into the city and started looking around for a store to buy food. We had planned to drive around the island and to sleep in the van. According to the plan I made, it would take us 7 days to make the full loop. My plan was packed full of stuff we could do each day, so we had to get all the snackie-snacks. We had heard about a store with a piggy bank logo, named Bonus, as being the most affordable option. We went and quickly realized that “affordable” is a relative term in Iceland. Still, we got what we needed and then we explored the city. 

We wandered around the harbor district, looking for some lunch, but, after about an hour walking by the shoreline and seeing only houses we theorized that we might have been walking in the opposite direction of where all the action is. We walked into a gas station convenience store and the very nice clerk informed us where to go. So we turned around and then we started walking uphill. The more uphill we walked, the more people there were. We started to see people on skateboards, we saw students, we saw restaurants and then we saw the famous Skólavörðustígur street full of color and full of people all walking up to the Hallgrimskirkja. 

Hallgrimskirkja is the world renowned church in the shape of a spire that sits atop all of Reykjavik. No picture will ever do this building justice. I remember taking pictures of it as I walked up to it, when I stood outside of it, when I was inside, and when I walked out of it. It’s just so impressive. When we went inside we sat on the benches and a man started playing the organ. I sat there and listened. I watched all the people coming in and out. I saw all the students being shown around by their teachers. The organ player stopped and I started to feel quite tired. When I looked around I saw that my friends were both taking a nap on the church benches. We all forgot that jetlag was a thing, so I woke them up and we continued looking for a place to have lunch. We had our lunch, we explored some more, we took another nap on some benches inside the Harpa concert hall and then we decided to drive 30 minutes out of the city to our first camp site. 

Well, I didn’t have reservations at the campsite, so we pulled off Highway 1 and parked at the trail head of a mountain biking park. The parking lot was empty, we were surrounded by red rocks and the sun was going down. Even though it was early September, the temperature outside was somewhere in the 40s° Fahrenheit. We started making dinner. It was windy. We were wearing beanies and puffer jackets, and we were huddled together around the JetBoil stove where we were cooking scrambled eggs and beans. As the sun went down we cleaned up, we set up our sleeping bags and went to bed. 

The temperatures dropped in the middle of the night. Even in the windproof shell of the van it was freezing, so I was in and out of sleep. In that half-awake state I heard the sound of a car outside. It was around midnight. The car was diving slowly and getting close to our van. Because I knew that we were parked overnight where we shouldn’t be, I assumed it was a police officer. I quickly sat up and listened. When I heard the car stop I slowly opened the sliding door to see what was going on. 

Outside there was a man and a woman standing next to a gray Range Rover Defender and they were walking around looking up. It was a clear night and there were few stars. The woman was excited and they were speaking in English with an English accent. It seemed that they were not here for us, but, rather, for something else. And suddenly I knew what they were doing. I jumped out of the van, barefooted, and told the guys to wake up. 

In an instant the sky lit up. Rivers of light in green and pink and purple covered my field of view. Two streams coming from the north and flowing in a V shape. They disappeared. For a second the sky was black and then a huge spiral formed above us. Green and pink and purple dancing above us. Then more light around the spiral. It lingered. The couple with the Range Rover were ecstatic, cheering and jumping gleefully. My friends and I were mesmerized. The spiral went away, and then a series of streams came down. One going this way and disappearing and making room for the next one going a different direction. And then, just as quickly as it came it was gone. The whole show lasted about 4 minutes, but it was nothing short of magical. Though I had hoped to do this one day, it was not on my plan, nor did I ever imagine that on our first night in Iceland we would see the Northern Lights. 

The next morning we got up and we were tired, since none of us actually slept well, but we were energized by the fact that we were in Iceland! The sun was shining, so we were all in good spirits. Because of the jetlag effect we all woke up way earlier than we meant to. It must have been 7am. We made breakfast of oats and honey, and after eating we explored around and looked at the red rocks where we had camped. My friends wanted to explore some more and go on a hike here. It definitely looked pretty cool, but I insisted that there was another cool hike nearby that we really should do. It led to a river of thermal water. None of us had had a shower since the day before yesterday so they agreed. 

We arrived at the parking lot of the Reykjadalur Hot Spring thermal river. There were only about 10 cars in the parking lot. I had read that it was about a one hour hike to the river, but at first glance there was no river. Like much of Iceland so far, it all seemed pretty bare. We could see a few hikers following the trail going up the mountain, but nothing exciting beyond that. Mind you, if you were to go there now, you would find metered parking spots, signs telling you where to go, a modern cafe and gift shop, and even bathrooms to welcome you. In 2018 it was just a dirt road. We were all unsure, but we started walking. 

On the hike up we passed a horse corral, and we eventually reached a lookout point where there is a beautiful waterfall. Then the trail got kind of treacherous. We started to see muddy pits with steam coming out of them and signs reading HÆTTA! (Danger!) that informed us that if we fell in them we would be dead in 30 seconds. Eventually the trail met with the stream. In the distance we could see more and more steam. There started to be tall grass, and we started to see people coming down with wet hair and bright faces. We came over a hill and we could see the part of the river that I had seen in pictures. 

The river here is split into small pools with dams out of rocks. There were a few people bathing comfortably in the river. There is a boardwalk along the edge of the river and some small cross-shaped wooden structures where one can undress and change into a bathing suit with some privacy. It was cold. We were all wearing jackets and boots and the idea of getting into the water just seemed crazy. Slowly we started taking off layers and the chilly wind cut into our skin. But I so remember the amazing sensation of dipping my chilly foot into the deliciously warm water. Slowly as I sank my body into the stream the water engulfed me in a blanket, and I was immediately so thankful. We all felt it. I looked around and we were all giggling and cheering and talking about what a great decision coming here had been. 

We spent the rest of the day driving around the Golden Circle. It was beautiful. In just one day we had bathed in a hot river, we saw a bunch of waterfalls, we saw a geyser, a crater, and countless horses and sheep. We ended the day at Seljalandsfoss. At the time there was a campsite next to the waterfalls. We parked and made dinner. The light of the setting sun bathed everything in gold. In the distance we could see the outline of the Westman Islands. It was cold, but it didn’t matter. We were so happy. 

 . . .

The next few days were just spectacular. This country seems to have a treasure at the turn of every corner. And there are many corners. Lots of turns revealing lots of hidden places in the midst of huge plains, or fenced by mountains, cliffs, and canyons. There you go driving along the side of an impressive hill, and all of a sudden the majestic Skodafoss waterfall opens up complete with a rainbow and seagulls flying about for added drama. The waterfalls are raw and jagged and their roar is dominant over all the other sounds. The scale is one of tales, like the giant Seljalandsfoss, which can be seen for miles before one arrives at it. It rains often, but when the sun comes out it is bright, and rainbows form with the leftover mist literally bathing everything in color. 

There are some things which are hard to miss, like the black beach next to the town of Vik, or the famous Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach. Even more impressive to me, though, was the enormous Vatnajökull Glacier, which takes about 3 hours to go around. There used to be a tunnel north of Höfn that took 10 minutes to go through. However, we did go off the beaten path a few times, including to see the town of Seydisfjordur. 

Seydisfjordur is one of the filming locations for the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The road going into the town is where they filmed the famous longboarding scene. We pulled off and parked to explore the Gufu waterfall. The area around it is just a cool ensemble of rocks and streams. It was rainy and chilly, but we were having fun. Eventually, though, it started to get dark and we needed to get to our campsite. 

 . . .

On the way to the campsite, we passed through the town of Egilsstaðir. We needed food, and we needed gasoline. We stopped at this cool cafe, inspired by American Diners from the 50s, complete with blue and pink neon signs. We got some ice cream, tried to learn Icelandic, and then we headed out. It was still raining outside, and it was dark. On the edge of town we saw two short figures standing next to the road with their backpacks next to them. They were covered from head to toe and one of them was holding out a thumb asking for a ride. 

During our first few days we saw hitchhikers everywhere, so at some point earlier in the trip we had decided that we were going to pick up the next set of them if it made sense. We knew we had enough space, so we looked at each other, we nodded and went back to get them. When we pulled up next to them, Steven rolled down the window and told them that they could come in. They slid the door open and crawled on to the mattress that was the back of our van. It was here that the two strangers uncovered their heads to reveal that they were our age, and that they were girls! 

Jana and Pavla were both from the Czech Republic. Jana was studying architecture in Reykjavik and Pavla came to visit. Together they were hitchhiking their way around the island. They told us that they had been waiting for hours, and no one would pick them up. They were about to give up and had already made up their minds that if in the next 10 minutes no one got them, they would just go back to the campsite at Egilsstaðir. Well, it was in the span of those last 10 minutes that my friends and I showed up. 

We drove with them for the next two hours until we got to our campsite near Reykjahlíð. In that time we got to know each other and we found that we liked each other pretty well. They also informed us that Pavla had to be at the airport just a few hours before we had to be there. So, since we were all going around the island, we offered to just give them a ride the whole way. They said “Sure.” So, BAM! Just like that, my friends and I got to travel along for three days with two cute and interesting girls from the Czech Republic. How’s that for an adventure? 

To be clear, Jana had a boyfriend, and Pavla seemed to have a thing for my friend Zach. But it was still so cool and fun to travel with them. The first night we camped and we tried to make a fire, but since everything is wet and it’s so windy, we just sat around talking and drank the two tall-boy beers that they pulled out of their backpacks. They taught us that the word for stars in Czech is hvězdy. The next morning we got breakfast at an adorable bed and breakfast near the lake, where you could watch cows being milked, and from which they made cheeses, creams, and ice cream. 

We continued along Highway 1 looking at a bunch of waterfalls, we went hiking, we went to a waterpark in Akureyri, we stopped at gas stations to eat hotdogs, we jumped on colorful trampolines with strangers. We looked at churches and interesting buildings while Jana told us about them. We saw famous landmarks. We went to another Walter Mitty filming location. We camped, we saw an Arctic Fox, and we listened to a lot of euro dance music and the Band Camino. We drank some more beers and just talked and dreamed together. It was beautiful. 

 . . .

On the last day, before we were all going back into the city we were driving out of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Everything was quiet in the car, when suddenly Jana told us to turn left onto a dirt road. She told us that there was a hot bath at the end of it. The guys and I looked at each other, and we just followed her instructions. Sure enough, at the end of this rather bumpy road, which felt a little like trespassing, there was a swimming pool with three sections, cool, warm, and hot. The pool was fed by an underground spring and it was so hot that it pretty much burned, but it also felt amazing. 

We all got in and we switched from the warm to the cool to the hot. The pool is at the end of the road and surrounded by mountains. Zach and I had been wanting to do a real hike, so we informed the others that we were going to climb the mountain right next to the pool. We got out, we changed, got our jackets and we started to climb. It was more like scrambling, actually, because it was all loose rock all the way up. And when I say, all the way up, I mean, as far as we made it, because there were many false summits. We climbed and we climbed and we must have made it some 1000 feet of elevation before we decided to turn back around. After joining the others in the pool again and we all had our fill, we drove to an ice cream shop and got some refreshing cones. 

That night, when we got into town, we knew we were parting ways soon, so we decided to get dinner one last time. We reminisced on everything that we had done and we talked about what was next for each of us. Eventually, it was midnight and we had to drop off Jana at her apartment so that she could work the next day. Pavla stayed with us and we walked along the edge of the sea for some time just soaking up the last bit of Iceland. Eventually we drove to the airport and we dropped Pavla off. We stayed up all night until it was time to return our rental car. They shuttled us back to the airport and there we took a nap while we waited to board our flight. 

 . . .

On the flight back I couldn’t get over how much fun all of it had been. I remember reminiscing about how endless the beauty of Iceland seemed. All of it is beautiful. From my window I looked out at the sea of nimbus clouds. I couldn’t see the end of them and I wrote that this is like the God that I follow. I follow the Creator God who created everything, and He himself is endless, and so so beautiful. He has beauty and treasure hidden around every corner. From that moment on, I was hooked. I love Iceland. 

There is too much to see in just one visit. Jana lived there for three months and didn’t get to see all of it. Unless one is a maniac who doesn’t appreciate beauty, one cannot blast through every attraction or landmark. It’s a slow process of exploring and discovering. Everywhere we went we wanted to stay longer. We wanted to see more of that place or thing. Whether it be a waterfall, or a cave, or the cliffs, or the ocean, or the wind, it’s almost like nature wants to speak to some truth that it holds for humanity. Well, could it be the Holy Spirit? I think so. And one simply cannot rush that. 

The people are the most beautiful. Not only are they all youthful, but they are selfless. They cared about us. Everyone we met was very helpful. They gave us directions when we needed it, they gave us free coffee because we were lost, and one of them even yielded to me on the road and with a smile and a hand gesture he signaled “Please, go right ahead”. They all seemed to know each other, yet they wanted to know us.

I have been to Iceland several times since, and I’ve gone on other large scale trips to other places, but this was my first. Being there was beautiful and exciting, yet mysterious and peaceful at the same time. All I could do was be thankful for every bit of it. I came back a changed man. 

The goal of this is not to give you an itinerary, nor to show off. I am not an influencer, and I never want to be the guy taking selfies and showing off how much I travel. I don’t travel to tick a box off my bucket list. On this trip I discovered that I travel to find God, and to know myself. My experience has been different every time I’ve been to Iceland and, if you go, your experience will be so different from mine. So, if you choose to go to Iceland, do your own research. Go discover it for yourself. It is so worth it. 

• P.S. to be clear, my trips as a child were almost always adventures for my parents, I just didn’t know it because I was a child. Thank you mom and dad for doing all of that for us!

• P.P.S Please be respectful of the places, rules, and laws of the locals. Learn from my mistakes. Nowadays there is so much more information out there that you really can’t say that you are ignorant of the laws and rules. There is a difference between ignorance and disrespect. Having an adventure does not mean being an idiot. Seek out @Icelandwithaview as the best resource for information on traveling there. 

• Thanks @coolhandpotts for being so encouraging. 

• This is the first in a series of three posts about my first three trips to Europe. (Check out: My Second Real Adventure and The Coolest Thing that Ever Happened to Me.)