Sometimes the best part of travel is when the travelers come to you

Good Morning, People! Time for travel tales, true travel tales! I work at a large outdoor adventure and travel retailer on the edge of Downtown Seattle. We often engage with people coming and going from all over the nation and from all around the planet. Such encounters are one of the great and fun aspects of working there.

On the first Friday in June of 2024 met and worked with a couple from Iceland in the Climbing Department. In their mid-30s, maybe about 40ish. Spoke English that was a little too perfect with an odd lift of the vowels, but the man’s T-shirt gave it away, some little scenic place no one ever heard of outside Iceland except map freaks like me. So they were a little impressed. “Come to Iceland!” they said.

The woman went from being solemn to moving as if in some kind of slo-mo shadow dance as she described, eyes closed, her sadness so many people outside of Iceland seem to dismiss her native country as merely freezing glaciers surrounded by the cold, icy ocean.

“We also have fire!” She said as her arms and hands and fingers weaved mind crafted shapes in the air. “And volcanoes! We have volcanoes! And earthquakes. And the Aurora Borealis! And wild, wild oceans! We are a land of fire and ice constantly being born again from the depths of the Atlantic.” Continue reading →