Let’s get this out of the way.

If you’re looking for the top 10 Instagram-able places…this is not where you’ll find it.

If you’re looking for the best places to visit, I’ll post some of my most favorite links below for you to check out.

I’m no photographer…so my photos are like what anyone with a smart phone clicks. Some are good. Some…uhhh…not so much.

So…if the above are what you’re looking for in my Travelogue section – honestly, you won’t find them here.

What I have are stories – most of them are directly connected to the places I visit and the people I meet. Some aren’t. Most stories are about good and happy experiences. A very few…not so much. I’ll be honest about all my experiences – with humor and no malice.

These are stories that have affected and changed me. I hope you like them as much as I’ve enjoyed experiencing them. Enjoy!!

Iceland – The Real Truth About The Northern Lights

by the messy optimist

This is about as unfiltered and ‘real’ truth about the Aurora Borealis as it gets. The Northern Lights. And this is about what they DON’T tell you when you go to Iceland.

So…tell anyone you want to see the Northern Lights? If they’re folks who have traveled some – pat comes the responses. Go to Norway. Go to Finland. Go to Lapland. Go to Alaska. Or best of all…GO TO ICELAND. It’s THE place to go. And then they tell you – go during the winters. It’s so worth freezing – everything from the tip of your toes to your butt to your boobs – to death during the Icelandic December winters…because, you know…The Northern Lights.

It’ll be wet, they say.

Your socks, your boots, your jeans, your inner thermals – they will get soggy. You will feel the cold in every nook and cranny of your body like you have never felt before,. But, guess what? BUT IT WILL BE WORTH IT. Because, you know? The Northern Lights.

Go to Iceland and you will see this once in a lifetime event only the very blessed few on this planet are privileged to see. Guaranteed. Confirmed.

So, OK. You guys get the drift, yeah? And when I finally decided to bite the bullet and ‘do Iceland’ – it was with only one intention – SEE. THE. NORTHERN. LIGHTS. I went to Iceland with only one goal – see the breathtaking wonder that god or the big mighty power above has blessed us with – the glorious Aurora. Over the years I’d seen a few videos online of this spectacular wonder of nature and I’d become obsessed about seeing the Northern Lights in person. And so when the opportunity came up – I took it.

Did it actually happen, though? Did I get to see the vaunted Aurora? Well, I ain’t just confessing if I did or did not. You’ll just have to read the rest of this story before you find out if the Aurora – the magical Aurora, AKA The Northern Lights, happened for yours truly or not.

I know, I know/ I’m being a cheeky monkey. But, come on! Just bear with me and come along on this journey with me as I experienced it.

But before we get to my chasing the Northern Lights…a quick backup of what happened before.

The Icelandic experience was unlike any other experience I’ve ever had.

So many things about Iceland was odd and weird and unique and awesome.

It all started with the flight in. I flew from Helsinki to Reykjavik and some 20 minutes before landing…I opened the window and looked out. And I swear…it felt like I was literally in another planet. I went to Iceland in December and obviously it was winter and there was snow. But there’s snow and then there’s SNOW IN ICELAND. Those are two completely different things! Unless you live in Alaska or Minnesota or Finland or Denmark or Russia – you, know?

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Don’t believe folks when they tell you that it’s all good and that you can handle it. Look at the pictures below. That’s not snow you can really ‘handle.’ It’s snow that’s just there and you have to keep reminding yourself, chant constantly, The Northern Lights, The Northern Lights, you’re here for the Aurora, remember? So quit whining and suck it up and do your sightseeing in the meantime. So, anyhoo, the vast swathes of milk-white snow you see from the plane minutes before you land at Reykjavik…boy, it’s a very out-of-this-planet feeling.

And a good 10 minutes before landing the plane flew sooooo close to land that it really spooked me.

It reminded me of those popular YouTube videos of planes taking off and landing near Maho beach at St. Maarten where the plane flies so close to traffic – it felt like that. (Check out the video below of what I’m talking about).

Except – our plane flew very close to a massively empty and snow-filled land.

And that sense of no one and nothing continued throughout my week-long stay there. If you hadn’t guessed already – I went there in the dead of winter – over Christmas. And while the weather was cold AF and I was there primarily for The Northern Lights – Iceland itself is a spectacularly beautiful country and one on which nature has bestowed its immense largesse and it was so worth braving the treacherous cold to see the Icelandic winter landscape. Everywhere I went – the sense of being in the middle of nowhere and/or on another planet continued.

Like I said – it was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

The Northern Lights – The Aurora

And, of course, to get back to the very reason I was in Iceland – say it with me people, The Aurora. The Northern Lights.

Did I see them?

Well…telling you EVEN NOW would be too easy, wouldn’t it? So, I ain’t telling…not just yet.

Let me trace the events preceding whether I saw the lights or not.

My quest for the Aurora spanned five days and five nights.

Correct. I went hunting for the Aurora on 5 consecutive nights.

Thing is – when you go to Iceland they make it seem as if you can see the Northern Lights every single night. Like EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. There are literally hundreds of package tours that promise to show you the dazzling display of this nature’s wonder. So many promises are made.

But the reality is that unless the conditions are absolutely perfect – meaning the the sky has to be pitch dark but the sky also has to be completely and totally crystal clear – you cannot see the Aurora. So even as the guides and travel agents take you from one spot to another chasing the Northern Lights and following all kinds of apps whose only job is to track the Aurora – my 5 consecutive nights in the damp and dank conditions for 5 nights ended in despair.

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So when on night six – and I had officially given up and decided to go to bed at midnight instead of trekking through the pitch dark and wet socks and damp jeans hunting for the Aurora – I fell asleep.

But at around 3am I woke up. I had drawn all of the curtains in my room (I like to sleep in pitch darkness) but felt a sudden glare of some very bright lights coming through the curtains inside my room. Needless to say – I got up and opened the curtains.

And saw some of the most amazing display of dazzling lights outside my hotel window. EVER.

My heart stopped for a second. Were they…could they be…could they?

By this time my heart was POUNDING. The lights looked just like videos of the Northern Lights I’d seen before. Same breathtaking dancing of the various shades of bright greens.

Could it be that simple? I asked myself even as the lights danced in front of me. Five nights of consecutive disappointments after trekking across the rainy and bitterly cold winter nights and I get to see the Aurora right outside my window?

Really? REALLY? Because god is just THAT kind?

BUT…but…it wasn’t that far-fetched either. The hotel guys told me that while there are these perfect places (typically outside of Reykjavik city) to see the Aurora – they can show up, anywhere, and at any time.

So…like, really? Was I just seeing the Northern Lights?

Even amid all the confusion and chaos inside my brain I logically tried to figure out what was happening. A part of me was very aware that I was there during Christmas and the New Year. And as we got closer to December 31 – there were some fireworks display happening intermittently around my hotel.

And then – it was 3am. And NO. It all happened so fast and it felt so-dreamlike that I didn’t take any videos of the spectacle either. (The fact that my Redmi phone absolutely SUCKS and the camera is beyond awful and even if I had taken a video – nothing would’ve come of it is a whole other story that I’ll blog about another day).

So – were they or weren’t they?

Honestly, to this day – I have NO idea exactly what it is I saw that night.

It all happened for a few minutes and then it ended just as seamlessly. I went back to bed – at once exhilarated and confused and questioning about what I’s just seen.

When I woke up the next morning I almost walked up to the reception guys to ask them about what I’d seen the previous night. But just as I reached the front desk I held myself back. Why? Why ask them? Why ask them and be told that either I dreamed the whole thing up or that they were just fireworks going off?

After almost a week of constant and continuous disappointments – my heart couldn’t take one more. So, I let it be.

So – so many maybes and could-bes.

But until I go back either to Reykjavik or Lapland, Finland or Tromso, Norway or Fairbanks, Alaska and see it again – that magical 3am display of green lights outside my hotel window in Reykjavik will be MY NORTHERN LIGHTS.

But the saga of the Northern Lights? To Be Continued.

In the meantime – I’m shameless enough to throw this out into the Icelandic world – I desperately want to see the Aurora – for the very first time OR again. Maybe some wonderful business one wants to sponsor me?

Glorying in the Gulfoss Waterfalls, Being Awed by the Geysir, Picking off Pebbles at the Vik Black Beaches – Top Things To Do in Iceland – Other Attractions

All of my borderline joking and bitching and moaning aside – there is so much more to Iceland and Reykjavik than just the Northern Lights. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime country to visit. From the Blue Lagoon to the South Coast Vik Black Beaches (where Game of Thrones was filmed). The Golden Circle comprising of the Gullfoss Waterfall, the Geysir (the geothermal area) and Thingvellir National Park to the Skogafoss Waterfalls. – uff. There is just so much to do and so much incredible and beautiful landscape to see.

If Florence is an example of what man can do in terms of creating beauty – Iceland is what god or that higher power can do with nature. To call it breathtaking, mindblowing, incredible, awesome…it’s all so weak when it comes to the sheer incredulousness that is Iceland.

The following three videos are from the Geysir. Please watch them in order for you to understand how the geysir erupts and hurls hot water upto 230 feet in the air. I tried to get a single video but kept missing the moment it would erupt!

I also checked out the amazing Icelandic Lava Show in the very heart of the Vik, which in turn is in the midst of Katla UNESCO Global Geopark. It is a once in a lifetime experience where the show allows you to experience hot molten lava in such close proximity. Check out the videos from the show: