If you have not traveled to Iceland yet, do it. Like now, get a ticket and go. Having already been there once, I had been joking with friends about going back for, oh, about a whole year. With a couple of my freelance friends, we bought tickets about a month before we were to go and only days before taking off did we book our hotel.

Day One of our trip we landed on the Secret Lagoon Hot Spring as the Blue Lagoon was booked up. While I did thoroughly enjoy the Blue Lagoon during my first visit, the Secret Lagoon was a more “natural” experience. Thankfully the sulfur smell wasn’t too strong and the water was so dang warm. Some spots I swear I could have been boiled although we’d queal and swim away. One quick note, while the minerals in the water can be great for skin it can do some damage to your hair and the temperature can really dry out your skin. Make sure to pull your hair up (or wear a cap), use conditioner once you are out and drink tons and tons of water! You wanna rehydrate.

After we braved the cold for a bit in the lagoon (although at this point it was warmer in Iceland than in Boston), we started making our way towards Seljalandsfoss making a pit stop at the grocery store for travel provisions. This trip was not for eating out, this was for sightseeing!

Unfortunately it was raining and along with the spray from the waterfall, I offered to hang back and let Monica and Katie have an unplugged experience hiking around and behind the waterfall. They came back soaked and loved every minute of it. I don’t regret holding onto 5 cameras and getting my three coffee refills from the cafe (that cafe needs to upgrade their cup sizes…they were not made for my level of coffee consumption).

After being fully soaked by the water, we drove on past Vik where we checked into our hotel, made our pasta and then hung out at the hotel bar for some wine. Let’s talk about small world, at the bar we ran into some other travelers from Boston where we split a bottle of wine and traded stories all night. Can’t get any better than this.