It describes their travels in their VW Camper on the MS Norröna from Denmark to the Faroe Islands and then on to Iceland where they complete a circuit around the country. It's also a return to Iceland for the couple after a first visit many years earlier. The whole journey took five months.
It's also the latest of a whole series of journeys in their VW camper van they have taken since retirement, some of which are available in book form.
The Iceland book has over 500 pages and over 700 images, and is all fully mapped so you can follow their journey. It also starts with a really helpful cultural history of the country, and provides a wealth of other background information, including camp sites they used, and also Icelandic Species Lists of Wild Flora, Bird-Life, and Fauna, along with the people they met along the way.
They made their journey in 2017, so there have been some changes since they travelled there - COVID led to a dramatic increase in new infrastructure for tourists being added.
They visited a lot of places I am familiar with, and many that I haven't had the chance to get to yet.
The books are very detailed in terms of the routes taken and the sights seen.
They were not fans of Sun Voyager ("a heap of twisted scrap metal") or people who slam doors on camp sites.
Interestingly they didn't explore the Reykjanes peninsula, particularly Grindavik south of Brennistein, which is an area I really like. Their photos also show that it was possible to get a lot closer to some of the hot mud pools without the ropes and signage which are there now.
They weren't fans of 'graceless' Selfoss, although it has undergone a lot of recent growth. I like the centre and the bridge across the Ölfusa river. They liked Stokkseyri (as do I) and Thingvellir - which they did a comprehensive exploration of (often when I visit I don't have time to do it justice). They headed up towards Hekla - I've driven those gravel roads and the landscape is dramatic towards Thorsmork. Heimaey was another spot they visited and made an impression on them.
They describe the coastal plain as "utterly dreary" - I love it whatever the weather. They visited the family who ran the information centre at Thorvaldseyri below Eyjafjallajökull - I visited them in 2010 about 5 months after the eruption and chatted to them in their garage. Winds picked up the ash and blew it around even then.
Their books are available on the Langlands Associates website. They are a chunky A4 format.
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