Chasing the Northern Lights: A Workation Adventure in Iceland
Written by: Emanuele Giarlini, Francesco Ditrani
Last March, my colleague Francesco, me, and a friend of our decided to spend one entire month in Iceland to catch the northern lights. We dedicated a whole month to combining remote work with exploring one of the coolest places on Earth that, during the winter season, is heavily covered in snow.
Working and chilling in Reykjavik
Iceland is a small country with a population of roughly 380 thousand people, one third of those, living in the capital Reykjavik. Temperatures in winter often go below zero and the lake in the center of the city completely freezes, allowing people to reach the tiny island that lies at the center of it.
Reykjavik downtown is cozy, liberal, vibrant and full of amazing graffiti made by the local street artists. The main street is crowded and full of fancy restaurants serving amazing vegan low CO2 emission food alongside whale steaks and shark bites; yes, we tried shark, and we can confirm that it tastes awful.
At the center of the city there is a majestic church called Hallgrímskirkja that can be spotted by every side of the city and it’s easily reachable through a street completely painted in rainbow colors, as a sign of respect towards the LGBTQ community.
For the first three weeks, we based ourselves in Reykjavik and followed a pretty basic schedule: by day, we worked from our rented apartment or from a local cafe while evenings were for exploring the city, getting in touch with local folks and trying out the typical Icelandic cousin.
The decision to spend the first three weeks in the capital was taken in order to have a stable and comfortable headquarter to work. Having a full-time job and traveling around would have been a problem and we didn’t really want our productivity to be negatively impacted. All the meetings at MOIA are remote friendly so keeping in touch with our teams was easy and smooth; frankly speaking, without such policy our long workation would not have been possible.
Working in a completely new environment also gave us a motivation burst, even though we had to tune ourselves to the new working time (due to the time zone) and get used to the Arctic Night that is still present in March.
Despite keeping an eye on Aurora forecasts, the Northern Lights remained shy during this time. On the flip side, we were lucky enough to see one of the biggest volcanoes of the island erupting just next to Reykjavik and lighting the sky for a couple of nights.
Hit the (Ring) road Jack!
The last week of our trip was dedicated to exploring the entire island via the famous Ring Road, that is basically a circular ~1300km road that starts in Reykjavik and circles the whole island.
Public transportation coverage is quite strong in the capital of the country, but the rest of the island is reachable only by car since there is no train system in Iceland. Therefore, we took the decision to rent a small vehicle for the trip, wishing ourselves luck with the low temperatures and the snow that inevitably comes with it. Streets in Iceland are empty almost all the time and things get even more solitary during winter, therefore driving around completely alone is not advisable, especially if you are a foreigner.
During this trip we had the chance to see many of the greatest landscapes that the country has to offer, like the amazing rivers and falls that you can find basically everywhere. Once we reached the extreme north of the island, driving became hard and somehow dangerous, due to the bad weather, so we decided to stop next to the Arctic Henge: an artificial stone structure created to give the few tourists that get there a fantasy book like vibe.
The east side of the island is where you can find most hot pools, created by the active volcanoes that rumble below the surface. Taking a bath in those pools while outside snows, is an amazing experience that can be had in a handful of places on this planet.
The last part of our adventure led us to the south, the warmest part of the country, where people can visit the “city” of Vik, just next to the famous black beach; a place that seems to come from another planet.
Seven days after we started our trip, we (finally) reached Reykjavik and closed the circle, concluding one of the coolest adventures of our life.
The Magical Finale: Aurora Borealis
Northern lights cannot be seen in the city, due to the light pollution; the only way to spot them is to move outside of the urban area, get to the darkest place you can find and, well, be lucky. Yes, you got it right, spotting the lights is a matter of luck, they don’t just show up any night and the show is different every time; the solar activity that creates the lights is responsible for the different shapes, colors or intensity that you see.
Northern lights cannot be predicted but only forecasted, sad but true.
Another important thing to consider is that the exposure of your camera plays a huge role when you take pictures of the lights. Northern lights are very ephemeral and evanescent, don’t expect to see the spectacular light effects that are commonly posted by travel bloggers on Instagram, especially if you are observing them with naked eyes.
Ok, ok, I know what you are thinking about: did you manage to see the Northern Lights in the end?
And the answer is: Hell yea! We did it! And it was mind-blowing.
A New Sense of Creativity and Inspiration
Our Icelandic workation was the perfect blend of productivity and exploration. We returned not only with checked-off bucket-list items but also with a renewed sense of creativity and inspiration.
Iceland’s raw beauty, welcoming locals, and the Northern Lights make it an ideal destination for those seeking adventure while staying connected to their work.
To find out more about MOIA’s Workation process, feel free to read it here.
