07-14-2026 The End of our Long Day

 

Our guide kept us entertained on the trip back to the ship

As our long day drew to a close, our guide talked less about volcanoes and waterfalls and more about what it is like to actually live in Iceland. She spoke of inexpensive geothermal heat and electricity, but also high prices, expensive housing and the challenges of making a life in this beautiful but isolated country. She was proud of Iceland's strong social safety net, its commitment to gender equality, and the way people come together when volcanoes, storms or other disasters threaten their communities.

Watching the Regent ship sail from Akureyri

Of everything she told us, one simple sentence stayed with me. She said that people should be able to live and thrive where they were born. Melody loved that line when I told her about it later, and so did I. After a day spent marveling at Iceland's waterfalls, lava fields, geothermal pools and extraordinary geology, it was a reminder that this spectacular landscape isn't simply somewhere we came to visit. It is home.

A late sunset from our balcony

Back aboard the Neptune that evening, the excitement of our eight-hour journey finally began to settle. Outside, the long Icelandic evening stretched across the sky as the sun slipped toward the horizon. It had been one of those rare travel days when reality exceeded everything I had imagined beforehand. I had stood beside Goðafoss. I had walked among pseudocraters, crossed an active volcanic landscape, watched the earth steam beneath my feet, and looked across the waters of Lake Mývatn. Now there was nothing more to do but watch the light fade over Iceland and be grateful that, for this one spectacular day, I had been there.