It was exactly ten years since my first visit to Iceland when I returned last summer with Adventure Canada. And let me tell you, it couldn’t be more different. To visit Iceland by sea is an extraordinary and unique way to travel here.

Iceland was only beginning to boom on the tourism map a decade ago. It was still pretty chill. Instagram was still new, and Iceland had yet to dominate it. I went with girlfriends, including a friend from Iceland, and we did a loop road trip. It was so much fun. It was also one of my first jobs as a full-time travel blogger, so it meant so much to me. 

This time around was completely different. Instead of flying in, we sailed over on their Scotland, The Faroe Islands, & Iceland: North Atlantic Saga trip, arriving by sea. All up, I spent about two weeks there with Adventure Canada on their Iceland Circumnavigation trip and then departing on their Iceland to Greenland: In the Wake of the Vikings trip. 

There’s something special about visiting a place the old-fashioned way, the way it was originally settled. It’s thought that the Vikings settled in Iceland in the 9th century, but it might have been earlier.

Making their way across the North Atlantic, likely searching for arable land, the Norse came in their thousands, settling all over Iceland within a few decades. What’s interesting to learn that a lot of the genetic evidence includes Irish and Scottish ancestry in addition to Scandinavia, particularly, women. Most people believe they came as slaves. 

Following in the wake of the Vikings over a millennia later by ship is a spectacularly cool way to arrive in Iceland.