Rick Steves - Rick Steves Iceland

Fields of lupine in Icelands southeast corner; a monster truck gets you into the interior Highlands.

Social movements that sparked upheaval elsewhereChristianization, Reformation, independencearrived in Iceland with strangely little fuss. The countrys Viking Age roots and its historic connections to Norway and Denmark give it an unmistakably Nordic aura, while the long-time presence of an American naval base developed Icelands affinity for all things Yankee. Today, Iceland feels like it has one foot in Europe, and the other in America.

About 830 miles across, Iceland is roughly the size of Maine and smaller than the island of Great Britain. More than half of the country is uninhabited tundra (in the interior Highlands). Almost all of its 340,000 residents live near the coastline, and two-thirds of Icelanders reside in the capital region of Reykjavk, on the southwest coast.

For the traveler, Reykjavk is the natural jumping-off point for exploring Icelands dramatic countryside. Its an easy hop from Reykjavk to the inland Golden Circle route, studded with natural and historic attractions (from geysers to thundering waterfalls), or south to the famous Blue Lagoon thermal baths (on the Reykjanes Peninsula, near Keflavk Airport). Two hours away, the South Coast offers glaciers, black sand beaches, and a jagged volcanic landscape. And an hours drive north of Reykjavk is West Iceland, with Settlement Age history and a volcanic tube cave.

The countrys name is Ice-land, but thats only part of the story. This little island features a stunning diversity of landscapesfrom frigid glaciers to boiling geysers, and from towering mountains to dreamy fjords. Thats why, for most visitors, Icelands raw, awe-inspiring nature is its biggest draw.

Iceland, which plugs the gap between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, was formed long ago by volcanoes (eldfjll, fire mountains)and regular eruptions continue. The best known include those at Surtsey (1963), which added a new island off Icelands South Coast, and on Heimaey (1973), which increased the size of that little island by a square mile. In 2010, the infamous Eyjafjallajkull volcano blew a column of ash four miles into the atmosphere that drifted east to Europe, halting air travel.

Odds are you wont witness an eruption during your visit; Iceland weathers about one every five years. Even so, its impossible to come to Iceland without experiencing its volcanic landscapes: Keflavk Airport sits on a petrified lava flow. Things just get more interesting from there, from trapped-in-time sheets of lava, to giant burst bubbles of molten rock, to craters holding vibrantly colored (and still steaming) lakes.

Icelands highest volcanic peaks are capped by glaciers (jklar, singular jkull)frozen seas of ice, flowing at a rate of a few feet each day. About 11 percent of the country is covered by glaciers, mostly along the South Coast and in the unpopulated Highlands in the islands center. At Slheimajkull, you can walk up and touch a glacier; at Jkulsrln and Fjallsrln, you can ride a boat on a glacier lagoon, circling bobbing icebergs calved off from an icy tongue; at various places, you can hike or snowmobile across the top of a glacier, or enter an ice cave within one.