The latest volume in the All Things Nordic travel-journal series combines 44 flexible diary openings with a curated introduction to Icelandic food, culture, design, language and places — creating a personal record to complete during the journey and rediscover long after returning home.
Iceland, one day at a time
Iceland rarely follows the scale or rhythm expected of it. A short distance can contain lava fields, waterfalls, glaciers, black beaches, fishing villages and weather capable of changing the character of a landscape within minutes. My Iceland Travel Journal was created to help travellers preserve those shifts and the smaller details surrounding them: the road taken, the people encountered, a geothermal pool discovered unexpectedly, the taste of something unfamiliar or the moment a mountain emerged from cloud. Whether the journey begins with a few days exploring Iceland or develops into a longer circuit around the island, the journal provides structure without deciding in advance what the experience should mean.
Preparing the journey before departure
The opening eight pages belong to anticipation: the owner’s name, destination and dates, travelling companions, intended itinerary, things to see and do, and a practical preparation list. These pages capture what the traveller imagined before leaving home and create an interesting counterpoint to what eventually happened. Plans might centre on Reykjavík, follow the familiar landmarks of the Golden Circle or extend along the coast towards smaller communities and more distant landscapes, but the journal deliberately leaves room for weather, curiosity and chance to alter the route.
Forty-four diary openings without unnecessary repetition
The central section contains 44 two-page diary openings. Each left-hand page offers discreet prompts for the place, date, weather, route, people met, things seen, food tasted and something distinctly Nordic, while the facing page remains almost entirely open beneath the words Notes, sketches, tickets and memories. Travellers can use it for longer writing, drawings, photographs, receipts, labels, maps, admission tickets or any other fragment worth keeping. The prompts remain consistent from day to day because the book is intended to support observation rather than turn a journey into a repetitive questionnaire.
Rúgbrauð and a taste of Iceland
The curated final section begins with rúgbrauð, Iceland’s dense, gently sweet rye bread. Traditionally associated with long, slow baking and, in geothermal areas, with heat drawn from the ground itself, the bread expresses the relationship between food, landscape and practical adaptation that runs through Icelandic culture. The journal includes a recipe suitable for a domestic oven, allowing one of the tastes of the journey to be recreated at home and served with butter, fish or cheese when Iceland has begun to feel far away.
One museum not to miss
The selected museum is the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík, where the permanent exhibition follows the country’s history from settlement to the present through objects connected with belief, work, domestic life, seafaring and social change. Instead of attempting to reproduce a complete museum guide, the journal suggests ways to observe the collection: beginning with settlement, noticing how people adapted to isolation and climate, following changes in religious life and looking for continuities between historical objects and contemporary Iceland. The purpose is to make the visit more attentive and leave room for a personal response.
The ATN walking route through Reykjavík
The four-page ATN route begins at Hallgrímskirkja and moves downhill through Skólavörðustígur, Tjörnin and the old centre before reaching Harpa and the waterfront. It connects architecture, street life, civic spaces, shops, galleries and views across the bay, ending beside the Sun Voyager. The walk is presented as a framework rather than a timetable, with room to record the best view, a revealing detail, a worthwhile detour and somewhere to revisit. It can become the first layer of a wider Reykjavík stay before the traveller turns towards the south coast and the dark shoreline around Vík.
Landscapes that resist fitting inside a photograph
Iceland encourages photography, but many of its most powerful experiences are difficult to contain in a single image: the sound of water before a waterfall becomes visible, wind moving across an empty plateau, the blue depth of glacial ice or the strange quiet surrounding a lava field. A journey towards Vatnajökull can produce spectacular pictures, yet the journal asks what those pictures cannot record — temperature, scale, movement, conversation and the traveller’s own physical response to the place. Writing beside an image can preserve what the camera leaves outside the frame.
An Icelandic design object discovered along the way
Rather than prescribing a famous national design icon, My Iceland Travel Journal leaves space for a personal discovery. It might be an object made from wool, ceramics, metal, wood or recycled materials; something encountered in a museum shop, independent studio, market or ordinary home; or a contemporary piece whose forms recall lava, ice, sea and changing light. The traveller can record its designer or maker, materials, colours, where it was found and why it attracted attention, whether it was purchased or simply observed.
Ten Icelandic words to take home
Icelandic may initially appear formidable, but even a small vocabulary can make the language feel less distant. The journal introduces ten useful words and expressions, including greetings, thanks, apologies and a toast, with space for travellers to add words heard during the journey. Pronunciation need not be perfect for the attempt to matter: language can transform a routine exchange into a moment of connection and preserve a trace of the country that is not purely visual.
Books, sagas and an Icelandic soundtrack
Iceland’s cultural landscape continues through medieval sagas, twentieth-century literature, contemporary fiction and an unusually influential musical scene. The books and sounds section offers starting points ranging from the Sagas of Icelanders and Halldór Laxness to Björk, Sigur Rós, Ólafur Arnalds and Hildur Guðnadóttir, while leaving space for discoveries made along the way. A traveller heading north towards Akureyri, for example, may find that the same music feels different when heard beside a fjord, beneath a low sky or during the long light of an Icelandic summer evening.
What to bring home from Iceland
The journal’s souvenir pages favour things whose materials, makers or flavours carry a genuine connection with the island: clearly identified Icelandic wool, an object from a local studio, ceramics or jewellery shaped by the country’s geology, salt, tea, liquorice, a book, photograph or print. The best souvenir need not announce Iceland loudly; it only needs to retain the memory of a particular place, person or day and continue to have meaning after its packaging has disappeared.
Looking back before closing the journal
The final reflective pages gather favourite places, meals, discoveries, conversations and photographs before asking the traveller to identify the story that will define the journey. A page addressed to one’s future self gives the completed journal a second life: it becomes something to reopen when the routes have blurred and experiences once thought unforgettable require help returning. For those travelling outside summer, the memory may also include the long anticipation and sudden appearance of the northern lights in Iceland, an experience whose movement and emotional force are especially suited to words as well as photographs.
A companion rather than a guidebook
My Iceland Travel Journal does not attempt to explain the entire country or replace practical travel information. Its purpose is more personal: to provide a carefully designed place in which travellers can preserve the Iceland they actually encountered. With its colourful map cover, 120-page interior, 44 diary openings and country-specific editorial section, it is both a working travel companion and a future archive of places, encounters and memories — curated by All Things Nordic and completed by the person carrying it.
Suggested Online Sources: Visit Iceland — Official travel guide · National Museum of Iceland · Visit Reykjavík — Popular sights · Visit Iceland — Hallgrímskirkja · Visit Reykjavík — Sun Voyager
