ICELAND ADVENTURE

I wake up with one thought in my head. Again. "Maybe it was a stupid idea."

- MARCUS WENDT

I open my eyes, and the hoar-frost-covered roll cage above me catches my attention. I'm somewhere in Iceland. It's November, and I'm still tucked into my sleeping bag in the back of my JLU. At the very least, I didn't prepare as well as I had planned for this trip.

A deep-sleep mattress lies beneath me, surrounded by pillows and clothes to block cold bridges between my body and my Jeep's. That's about it—no extra heating. The engine oil temperature reads 20F as I'm about to start the engine—staring at a solid layer of rime ice on the inside of the windshield.

But to be fair, the idea had been stupid long before this—driving my Jeep from the southwest of France to the northern tip of Denmark in just three days. Then, almost 3 days on a ferry crossing the North Atlantic in winter storms.

All of this just to come back here - because I'd had this idea for years—to return to Iceland with my own car. To roam freely for as long as I wanted. To finally explore this beautiful island in more detail than I had on past trips. To find surf and northern lights.

2024 marked the peak of solar activity—a 12-year cycle of the sun that intensifies the aurora—so nature had set the time frame. Since there are no visible northern lights in summer, it had to be winter. But, as I'd learned on a previous trip, it takes more than just solar activity.