On an afternoon in late October, I was supposed to meet Laura Alice Watt for coffee in the vicinity of Dyrafjordur, a fjord in Iceland’s remote and majestic Westfjords. 

Laura, a retired college professor and Point Reyes National Seashore expert who spent most of her life in the Bay Area, left her home on Sonoma Mountain and relocated to Iceland back in 2020. The story of how and why she did this is intriguing, and a month earlier, as I was planning my own first trip to Iceland, I heard her tell it in a podcast. I reached out, and over video chat, Laura convinced me that it was not only possible, but a great idea, to do a road trip through the Westfjords in the late fall — and she suggested we meet up.

The internet, however, did not recommend it. Iceland’s fall weather is temperamental, with blizzards, strong winds and days of snow and rain arriving without much warning, websites explained, and the narrow, winding and sometimes-gravel roads of the Westfjords can have missing shoulders and steep drop-offs. Laura seemed more trustworthy than the internet, though, and she filled me in on the country’s unofficial motto: “thetta reddast.” That roughly translates from Icelandic to “it’ll all work out.”

So I went for it, and had been rewarded earlier that day with some of the most striking winter waterfalls and mountain scenery I have ever witnessed. But now that it was time to meet Laura in person, an abrupt snowstorm was blowing in, whitening the sky and blanketing the road.

“I suspect you should get over to the hotel — in case this snow continues,” Laura messaged me. “It is quite heavy here right now.”

I directed my Google Map to Holt Inn, a bed-and-breakfast on a working sheep farm a short drive north. Though my rented Jeep Renegade had “snow mode” and was on studded tires, I was afraid to drive on snow and ice, unable to see the actual road. In addition to my concern about sliding off into a fjord, I was nervous that if it kept snowing, I might have to rework most of my itinerary, which included not just the Westfjords but all of Iceland’s national parks.

As the snow piled up, so did my doubts about whether my foray into Iceland would “all work out.” But if Laura’s experience was any indicator, there was nothing to worry about.

Leaving California for Iceland

Laura spent most of her life in the Bay Area, and to an outside observer, it might have appeared she was deeply rooted there. At age 50, she had owned a home up on Sonoma Mountain for a decade. She was a tenured professor of environmental history and policy at Sonoma State University. She had just written a book about Point Reyes National Seashore, and the tensions around its ongoing transition from a working landscape to wilderness.

But the truth is, Laura never felt completely settled in Northern California, and for her entire adult life, she had wanted to visit Iceland. It had always seemed too expensive, though, and was never the right time. That changed in 2017, when on a drive from Colorado to California, another car hit Laura’s and she could have been killed. Instead, she walked away, and soon after booked her first trip to Iceland.

Rather than driving the Ring Road or visiting the South Coast like a usual tourist, Laura ventured to  Djúpavík, a remote corner of the already-remote Westfjords, for an organized photography trip. She remembers tumbling out of the van after a long drive from the airport, not even certain about how to pronounce the name of her location.

The landscape was dramatic, with craggy mountains and waterfalls plunging into a fjord. The mix of untamed wilderness paired with a small settlement felt a little like Point Reyes, and the rocky edge of the coast recalled Northern California’s. The place was both strangely familiar and also like nothing she had ever seen. She fell in love right away.

“I felt like a bell that had been struck and was just reverberating,” she told me.

A week later, as Laura flew back to Northern California, fires were breaking out across the region and forcing evacuations, including her mountain neighborhood. Spending the following week at a friend’s house, she also couldn’t stop thinking about Iceland. Once back home, she put a map of the Westfjords on her wall, and anytime she read about Iceland in the news, she would get “that weird teenage-crush giddy feeling.”

“It was just a sense of this is very important,” Laura said. “I need to come back here. I need to learn more about this place.”

She returned to Djúpavík on the same photography trip the following year, and her relationship with the place began to deepen. Through interactions with locals, she learned that their remote region was facing a similar issue to that of Point Reyes: There was potential for hydropower, and residents saw it as an opportunity to better their lives. But environmentalists in the capital argued that the land should remain “untouched wilderness,” despite the fact that people had been living there for centuries.

Inspired by the parallels, Laura applied for — and received — a Fulbright grant to study the region’s environmental history. The pandemic struck soon after, threatening to derail her project. But, having already taken a sabbatical from Sonoma State, she jumped through the COVID-era hoops and made her way to Iceland anyway.

She rented a place and started learning Icelandic, and eventually her Fulbright did come through. Just as she was starting the research, she learned that Sonoma State was having enrollment problems and trying to balance its budget by soliciting professors to take early retirement, she told me.

Immediately, she contacted an immigration lawyer trying to find out if there was some way she could stay in Iceland. And there was, although it was iffy as to whether it would be approved: Laura created a consulting company, hired herself and filled out stacks of paperwork. As she waited for a response from the government, she prepared to sell her house.

Several months later, and coincidentally all on the same day, she signed her retirement papers, learned her request for a two-year work permit in Iceland had been approved and found a listing for the perfect Westfjords home. She bought it, and earlier this year obtained her permanent residency in Iceland.

It all worked out, as they say. And for the first time in her life, Laura felt she had found her place.

In the land of fire and ice

When I started planning my own first trip to Iceland, I was thinking I’d drive the famous Ring Road and do side trips to Iceland’s three national parks: Thingvellir, Snaefellsjokull and Vatnajokull, which protect an ancient parliament and a rift valley, a glacier-topped volcano and plunging lava caves, and a vast ice cap and associated glaciers, respectively.

These national parks are managed differently from those in the U.S., in that until very recently, each one was controlled by a separate entity. (A Nature Conservation Agency was created in January to coordinate conservation efforts in Iceland, and is newly in charge of numerous protected areas including Snaefellsjokull and Vatnajokull.) Up until the 21st century, Thingvellir was Iceland’s only national park, and although Vatnajokull is very large, the other two are less than 100 square miles.

There have been proposals to create additional national parks, most notably a Central Highlands one that would cover 30% of Iceland and become the largest national park in Europe, Laura told me. Although the region is rugged and unpopulated, she said, the park’s creation stalled in part due to questions about how management goals would impact traditional grazing rights. That, too, calls to mind Point Reyes, we agreed, except that in Iceland, wide support for farmers means this national park hasn’t been created.

Travelers tend to love visiting the area anyway, and the reason is no secret. In Iceland, astounding natural beauty extends far beyond the national parks, and the most challenging places to visit tend to offer the biggest rewards. So while I decided to keep all three national parks on my itinerary, I axed the Ring Road and booked a ferry to the Westfjords instead. I suspected it would either be one of the best or one of the worst travel decisions I have ever made, and I was right.

I entered Iceland at around midnight on Oct. 26, and immediately there was a problem. Via text message, I learned that my suitcase — which I had checked because it is not possible to fit eight days of winter gear in a carry-on — was still in Frankfurt, where I had connected. It could not be delivered for two days.  

I took a six-minute, $50 cab ride to the $100 hostel I had reserved for the night, and it underscored something I had been constantly warned about: Iceland is crazy expensive. For my Benjamin, I got a locker and a pod just big enough to crawl into, with a stiff base that could not be described as a mattress. Any time I moved even slightly, it sounded like a tin can getting crushed.

Visiting Iceland’s national parks

Created in 1928, more than a decade before Iceland gained independence, this 60,000-acre park is smaller than all but 15 of the 63 U.S. national parks. On the short drive from Reykjavik, I was enchanted by the undulating wintery landscape and galloping Icelandic horses that seemed to be welcoming me to the park, which offers two main attractions.

At the center of Thingvellir lies the birthplace of its parliament, established by the Norse people after they became the island’s first settlers around 870 A.D. Visitors can walk through the ancient, open-air assembly where the whole island was represented starting in 930, but I headed directly to the second draw: the rugged volcanic landscape, and its famous, slowly widening rift valley between the North American and Eurasian continental plates. 

Within that valley, it’s possible to plunge into a fissure’s near-freezing meltwater and either snorkel or scuba dive between the spreading tectonic plates. I had signed up for the latter.

Once we were fully geared up, we hiked a short, icy trail to the fissure’s entrance, where we waited for a couple of large groups of snorkelers to make their way in. When it was finally our turn, we descended some stairs and waded off a platform into the frigid water. Then we emptied the air from our buoyancy control vests and slowly submerged into the cleanest, clearest water I have ever experienced.

I could see the underwater stacks of parted volcanic rocks as perfectly as if the water were air. And hundreds of feet ahead of us, snorkelers were also visible at the surface. When we reached the narrowest part of the fissure, Hanna directed me to place one hand on each side, pretending to touch two continental plates. In reality, the plates are too far apart to be touched simultaneously, but I went along with it. Then, for about a half hour, I essentially flew between two underwater cliffs in a frigid, slow-motion lazy river, marveling mostly at the clarity but also at my ability to navigate such an inhospitable environment.

After surfacing and climbing up another platform, we hiked a snowy trail back to the start point in full scuba gear. I had icicles in my hair and I couldn’t feel any of my digits, but overhead, the sky was expansive and glowing, and I felt utterly triumphant.  

To ready myself for the next national park, I drove two hours to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in West Iceland and checked into the Lava Resort. There, I dined on steaming fish soup and tender local lamb and soaked in geothermal water surrounded by a sheep farm and a 4,000-year-old lava flow. My cabin had a washing machine, which allowed me to clean my one outfit, which I dried on a heated towel rack.

Despite the high costs and the hassles, I was starting to understand why more than 2 million people come to this island every year — and why some, like Laura, decide they never want to leave.

In the morning, a delicious buffet breakfast awaited. And in the name of Icelandic tradition, I took a shot of cod liver oil first thing. This is said to be very good for brain health, but honestly, I really don’t recommend it.

The day’s main event was Snaefellsjokull National Park, which at a little over 40,000 acres is Iceland’s smallest national park. It’s an active volcanic area, with relatively young lava fields, gaping lava tubes and a glacier-topped stratovolcano centerpiece famous for its appearance in Jules Verne’s 1864 novel “Journey to the Center of Earth.”

Nothing but 80 species of bacteria live in the cave, Paula told me, and then she pointed out a pile of bones belonging to an unfortunate arctic fox that stumbled in and never escaped. When we turned off our lights and listened in total darkness to water droplets trickling from the basalt, it was eerie at first, but then strangely calming, and I hoped that was the fox’s experience, too.

After the tour, I dropped by the park’s nearby visitor center, and an employee told me that live arctic foxes could be seen scampering in the lava fields. As I cruised around the rest of the peninsula and hiked up one of its wind-whipped craters, I scanned miles of snow-covered terrain for their gray bushy tails, with no luck.

‘Westfjords are the best fjords’

When I drove onto the ferry that morning, I was surprised — and nervous — to see that my car was one of just three (out of a possible 50) making the trip. Snow was in the forecast on and off for the next several days, so it was hard not to wonder if taking a boat to Iceland’s most remote area — with no guarantees about when I could leave — was a mistake.

The two-hour crossing was pleasant enough, though, and when I drove off the ferry onto the Westfjords, the sun was shining and the sky was clear. I visited a series of mostly frozen and absurdly scenic waterfalls, then had a small geothermal pool beside a fjord all to myself. The drive from there felt like I was rolling through a frosty moonscape before I arrived at Dynjandi Falls, the largest waterfall in the Westfjords.

Parts of the waterfall were iced over, and signs recommended crampons for scaling the trail to the summit. I had good hiking shoes and went for it, slipping and sliding my way to the base of the 330-foot, icicle-shrouded cascade. On my hike back down, it began to lightly snow, and that’s when I heard from Laura about heavier snow near her place.

Back on the road, I entered a tunnel barreling an impressive 3.5 miles through a mountain, and when I exited on the other side, I did so into a blizzard. I shifted the vehicle into snow mode, and its studded tires maintained good contact with the road, for the most part. Over the 15 minutes it took to reach the inn, I alternated between amazement at the fluffy white scenery and terror that the snow would pile so high I’d get stuck.

I have never been so happy to arrive at lodgings in my life. The inn was set in a former schoolhouse and my cozy room had striking views of the snow-dusted countryside, wild horses included. There was no restaurant onsite, so the innkeeper Helga called up a neighbor Gunna who runs a three-table restaurant called Kaffe Sol in her home. Normally it’s closed at this time of year, but Gunna agreed to open just for me.

I asked Laura if she’d want to meet me there, but the weather had spooked her. “I’m too much of a California driver still,” she texted. “Icelanders drive through it like it’s nothing, and I’m fine if there’s no wind, but being able to see the road is helpful.” 

So instead, I got to know some other Westfjords residents. At Kaffe Sol, Gunna served me a delicious meal of traditional Icelandic pancakes with cream and home-cooked rhubarb porridge. In the morning over breakfast, Helga regaled me with a story about Gunna’s cow, which famously escaped a slaughterhouse in 1987 and swam across the fjord — while pregnant. “The Westfjord Wonder Cow” became a successful children’s book, and there is now a swim across the fjord held every August in the cow’s honor. When I expressed my delight over the whole thing, Helga gave me a copy of the book. I would have to come back during a round-up in September, she said, when the sheep are sheared.

Much of the drive to Isafjordur, the region’s largest town at 2,600 people, took place inside yet another tunnel. And the kindness of strangers continued there. I had hoped to go whale watching that day, but the seas were too rough, and it turned out that an ATV tour business owner and guide, Gunnar, was available to take me into the surrounding mountains. He’s usually closed at this time of year and works on housing interiors, he told me, but if people show up and he’s available, he’ll run an excursion.

We zoomed across the town’s long peninsula that juts into the fjord, then ascended into the mountains, past a ski resort. It wouldn’t be open until December or January, and at that time, travelers would start showing up again on planes. When snow began to fall, I was electrified by the sensation of joyriding on an ATV in winter weather, while also enduring the now-familiar pain of blood retreating from my fingers. 

I was 100% captivated by Iceland, but my lodgings that night really put me over the top. Heydalur, a family horse and vegetable farm tucked away by Mjoifjordur, is right out of some Icelandic fairytale.

Upon arrival, an arctic fox ran up to greet me. Seriously. It turned out to be Luffa, a free-range pet who was orphaned four years ago and possibly kicked by a horse, as evidenced by her sideways orientation. Heydalur’s owners oversaw her recovery and left food out for her, and eventually, she was playing fetch and roughhousing with the dogs.

After getting settled into the remote 1,235-acre farm, I went for a swim in the pool, which is enclosed within an oversized greenhouse, and soaked behind the horse pastures in a geothermal pool that a bishop apparently blessed in the 12th century. “Many sick and tormented people have been healed after soaking in its water,” the hotel information book had advised, so I wasn’t about to miss that.

Dinner was local lamb stew and a tasty Icelandic craft beer, served in a revamped, candlelit barn. And while the aurora forecast (yes, this is a real thing) for that night was inauspicious, when I stepped outside around midnight I immediately saw it: a blurry green apparition dancing across the sky right above me, shimmering and shape-shifting. The experience was put on steroids when Luffa the fox stuck her head out of a nearby tree pot and seemed to be watching, too.   

That night, my understanding of why a lifelong Californian might set up shop in the faraway Westfjords thoroughly solidified. And in fact, Laura isn’t the only one who has. Her neighbors, novelist Leslie Schwartz and photographer Greg Littlewood, came from Los Angeles a couple of years ago and built a Westfjords retreat for artists and writers.

“The Westfjords are the best fjords,” Laura told me the locals are fond of saying. Unfortunately, I never got to meet her in person in Iceland, but since I arrived back in California, we’ve video chatted extensively and exchanged lots of messages, mostly regarding our mutual adoration of Iceland (the weather’s unpredictability notwithstanding).

I told her about how on the day I was supposed to drive south to the third national park, Vatnajokull, a windstorm closed the icy roads. So instead of watching icebergs float from a lagoon out to the sea, entering an ice cave and hiking on a glacier, I remained in Reykjavik, indulging in decadent meals and soaking in elaborate geothermal lagoons. Not the worst outcome, we agreed. And clearly a reason to return.

We’ve also talked a lot about another place we both adore: Point Reyes. I lived there on a historic ranch for six months in the early 2000s, and over the years Laura worked on her book, she built friendships with many of the residents. It’s been painful, Laura told me, to be hearing from afar about how the ranching community is being broken up, their complex history and relationship to the place being lost. 

In the Westfjords, people don’t worry about others removing them from their land, she said. Many farms have been in continuous use since the late 800s and are not seen as incompatible with environmental quality. Instead, they remain deeply valuable to local communities. 

Whether your ancestors lived here for centuries, or you just showed up, you can feel that you belong on this landscape.