Iceland
Iceland is a little smaller than New Zealand’s North Island, and holds active volcanoes, the largest glacier in Europe, black sand beaches, geothermal lagoons and, from September to April, the Northern Lights. It is a long way to go from Australia and New Zealand — and one of the few places that starts repaying the flight within an hour of leaving the airport.
Pack Ya Bags offers a carefully curated selection of Icelandic tours, from Northern Lights itineraries that overnight in the countryside where the sky is genuinely dark, to full circuits of the ring road taking in the north, the East Fjords and the south coast. Escorted small-group departures run through the aurora season from September to April, with midnight sun programmes over the summer. FIT and group departures available.
Walk the rift between two continents at Þingvellir, watch Strokkur erupt on the Golden Circle and stand beneath the basalt columns at Reynisfjara. Drift past icebergs at Jökulsárlón, descend into a lava tube beneath a glacier, meet the Icelandic horse, and end the day in the Blue Lagoon or the Mývatn Nature Baths. Iceland also pairs neatly with a wider European itinerary — a stopover on the way to or from the continent turns one long-haul flight into two holidays.
