A new, thoroughly updated edition of Bradt's award-winning Iceland guide, the most in-depth guide available, featuring honest, practical information from an author who has repeatedly visited the country over 20 years and is familiar with its language, history and culture. Bradt's Iceland is the recipient of the Lowell Thomas Award (the highest travel writing award available in the United States) and provides more context for individual places than any other guidebook, plus frank, investigative hotel and restaurant reviews that hide nothing. Based on 20 years of personal and business travel, exploration and adventure all around the country, the guide is exhaustive, well-researched and comprehensive, featuring a year-round approach to travelling in Iceland in line with the development of the local tourist industry to offer attractions beyond the normal summer season. This latest edition covers the growing tourist infrastructure: the new, fully-paved road system, better routes through the interior, a wave of new hotels and resorts, more tour companies with more tour options, new adventure activities, plus day tours from port city destinations and tips for those travellers arriving by cruise ship. Natural history and wildlife experiences are featured prominently along with a focus on the outdoors and help in accessing even the most difficult corners of Iceland. Also featured is the most in-depth political and economic analysis offered by any guidebook since the turmoil of 2008. And, even though Iceland is notoriously expensive, there are now a lot more options for travellers, including more hostels, campsites, and budget airlines. This new edition also includes a foreword by the newly elected President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson. Containing information on remote offshore islands, the uninhabited interior and Reykjavik's bustling music and art scene, this remains the definitive guide. American tourism to Iceland has skyrocketed, including winter tourism when travelers can experience dogsledding, northern lights, and ice-climbing. There are now more direct flights to Iceland from the United States than ever before, including nonstop flights from Denver, Seattle and Anchorage, Alaska. Replete with lava flows, colossal glaciers and thundering waterfalls, Iceland is one of Europe's most unusual destinations. Iceland's tourism has exploded to over two million visitors a year. As a major tourist destination, Iceland now requires a guidebook that can lead readers away from the industrial complex and still find the authentic gems and quiet nature of this fascinating island nation. Pure, wild, and still in the midst of its own creation, Iceland stands apart from the rest of Europe. With its moody volcanoes and massive ice caps, it has caught the world's curiosity like never before. Iceland offers visitors a chance to get close and personal with its immense nature and vivid wildlife, to experience the live volcanoes and ancient glaciers, and gape at roaring waterfalls and the drifts of obsidian sand in the country's bleak desert interior. This new edition details several new high-adventure opportunities, including multi-day hikes and ski-trips across the glacier Vatnajokull, more interior highland exploration than any other guide, and a special focus on multi-day horseback adventures with Icelandic horses. As a contributor to National Geographic, and a frequent host for tours to Iceland, Andrew Evans explores some of the remotest corners of the country regularly. He continues to lecture about the country to high-end tour groups, as well as the National Geographic Society and Smithsonian Institution. His guide is exhaustive, allowing travellers to make informed decisions, to go anywhere and explore anything.
About the Author: Andrew Evans is a travel writer and TV host who has reported from over 100 countries and all 7 continents. Andrew has made over 20 trips to Iceland, exploring the island nation by foot, bicycle, car, boat, plane, and helicopter. As a contributor to National Geographic, and a frequent host for tours to Iceland, Andrew explores some of the remotest areas of the country regularly and is always on the lookout for undiscovered corners. Andrew has studied the Icelandic language, history, and biology and continues to lecture about the country to tour groups, as well as for the National Geographic Society and Smithsonian Institution.