Our latest adventure took us to Iceland, the land of fire and ice, home of everlasting winter mixed with plenty of volcanic activity.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Springtime in the Land of Fire and Ice (this post)
• The Steakhouse (Steikhúsið): A Great Spot in Reykjavik

This trip occurred in March/April 2026.

Reason for the trip

We were just in Europe last November and wouldn’t you know it that we would end up back here again. Iceland has been on our short list of destinations for quite a while. And with a few of our friends going to Iceland recently, we felt it was time for us to give it a shot ourselves.

What appeals to us about Iceland? Well, the Northern Lights for one. If you’re near the Arctic Circle, you’ve got a chance to see the Northern Lights. That includes destinations like Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Finland, and Russia. But why not Iceland, which feels like a frozen version of Hawaii? We tried finding the Northern Lights over the course of a few nights and finally saw them on our last night in town. What. A. Relief!

We went with a small tour group that knew the spots to find the lights. While the above was just taken with my iPhone 15 Pro, the below was taken by the tour group with a better camera. I brought my own camera to attempt looking at the photos but the most important thing I was missing was a low-light camera lens. Go figure I had the stand and camera but just missed one component to take my own photos. I missed the elements of purple and pink in my photos, but still not too bad, right?

And poor Char for not being able to stay awake to see them. At least we have photo proof of her being there. Though it almost looks like we’re standing in front of a green screen.

There’s so much more to do in Iceland besides just looking at the Northern Lights. It’s called the Land of Fire and Ice for a reason. The island has quite a bit of volcanic activity, which feels almost crazy given how covered in ice it can be. With so much volcanic activity, you could take a tour through tunnels carved out by lava, like we did below. Walking through here is impressive enough under normal conditions, but coming through here in the cold just shows off how awesome all the icicles are. It feels almost like it’s a Disneyland exhibit.

The kids got plenty of time to check out the awesomeness of the area, including some hot springs while the blizzard raged on. But what did they enjoy doing the most while in Iceland? Pulling over to the side of the road and just playing in the snow. You could tell we’re from a warm climate because no one else was doing this. On top of that, if you’re normally from a cold climate, the last thing you want to do is go to go to the cold in the spring. The good news? Crowds were low probably as a result of that.

Flights

Based in Los Angeles, we had two options for this trip:

• Route through Europe to get to Iceland
• Route through North America to get to Iceland

We chose the former. One of the requests from Jenn was to have a lie-flat seat to and from Iceland, so I worked with the request as best as possible.

In retrospect, it was actually pretty nice to route through Europe with how much disruption there was with the partial government shutdown. We were flying a Skyteam carrier out of LAX, which enabled us to use the Delta One check in facility in LAX to skip the normal TSA checkpoint. Admittedly, TSA lines didn’t get too bad at LAX, but it was nice not having to worry about it at all.

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class LAX-LHR

Our first flight was on Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class cabin to London. There are a couple of flight options and we ended up choosing the later flight so we didn’t need to take an extra day off work. That late night flight meant the kids were pretty much asleep at departure. But they had plenty of time still to enjoy the tail end of the flight. One of the best things about flying from the west coast of the United States is that the flights are long enough to both get some sleep and also enjoy the flight too.

We hadn’t flown Virgin Atlantic since Alex was a 1 year old, so it was nice to give it another try. Thankfully, on flights from the United States in the evening, the onboard bar wasn’t in service. That might suck if you’re looking to hang out and socialize all flight but with kids, we were happy there wasn’t something to distract the kids from getting much-needed sleep.

British Airways Club Europe LHR-KEF

From London, we chose to fly British Airways in Club Europe (business class). We’ve reviewed the product before and not much has changed, so we won’t review it again. But it was an otherwise enjoyable flight that took about 3 hours from start to finish. Did we have to fly in business class? No, but it honestly wasn’t unreasonably priced. At the time, it was 27,250 Avios + $25 per person for the journey (it’s now 30,000).

Was it necessary? No, but sometimes it’s nice to find an excuse to make the family happy.

SAS business class KEF-CPH & CPH-FRA

On our flight out of Iceland, I could have just chosen Icelandair to come home, but I wanted to clear out Jenn’s account of her stray Miles & More miles. That meant us departing out of Frankfurt on the long haul journey home. Again, I could have chosen a nonstop for the trip from Keflavik to Frankfurt, but I have to admit that SAS offered quite an affordable fare in business class. In fact, their business class fare wasn’t far off from what Icelandair was charging for economy class.

Since I have an interest in renewing my Delta Diamond status, I went with the cash SAS fare for about $350 per person in business class. Why pay miles when you can just buy it for a reasonable price?

Both flight segments were roughly comparable and both came with meals. That’s the thing I appreciate about European business class: even very short flights still come with a meal while it’s hard to find that on flights within the United States.

Lufthansa 747-8 business class FRA-LAX

Our flight home was out of Frankfurt. With as tough as it can be to find nonstop flights to the west coast of the United States, it’s not too terribly uncommon when using Lufthansa Miles & More miles. It’s almost a cheat code if you otherwise have no hope for the nonstop. Yeah, not many bank programs directly transfer points to Miles & More, and maybe it’s better it stays that way.

Our flight home was on the 747-8, which has both an upstairs and a downstairs business class cabin. We chose seats in the upstairs cabin, which was a treat for the kids. They loved using the stairs in the plane to go up to their seats, and was the first time they used the stairs–though it wasn’t the first time they’ve been in a cabin with two stories. Lately, they’ve been looking forward to sitting next to each other on these longer flights, which is a nice treat for Jenn and I. Sometimes it’s hard finding time for us to spend quality time together!

Hotels

Sofitel LHR Terminal 5

For our quick one-night stay in London, we stayed in the Sofitel LHR at Terminal 5. The one downside with our routing is that we needed to pay for an ETA to enter London. But the plus side is getting some much-needed rest along the way. Our hotel in Terminal 5 at the Sofitel was an enjoyable stay. While we wouldn’t consider the hotel for a long-term stay in London, it was excellent for an overnight.

The kids, perhaps driven by a lack of sleep, loved acting like their extra rollaway beds were a fun escape from normal life. They twisted my arm to take this photo of them sprawled out on their beds.

The Reykjavik EDITION

Our stay in Iceland was strictly in the Reykjavik EDITION hotel. This Marriott hotel is supposed to be ranked as highly as their Ritz Carlton and St. Regis properties. However, I’d place this as a step below those properties. Yes, it’s a nice property, but I don’t know how the EDITION brand is quite so highly regarded. The hotel might be one of the better options in the city, but it doesn’t offer that many amenities compared to other top-end brands.

One of the biggest issues with the room is that it just doesn’t have much storage space. In a place like Iceland with such a high need for winter clothing, you’d think they would have plenty of place to store your stuff, but there was enough room for just one person. When you have rooms that fit a family of four, you’ll realize pretty quickly that it’s tough to find a place for everyone’s clothing.

Hilton Frankfurt Airport

On our trip home, we stopped by the Hilton Frankfurt Airport hotel. Would it have been nice to stay in the city? Yes, of course. But we knew coming in that it would be tough to make that happen. Our options were to book a room at either the Sheraton or Marriott airport hotel or here at the Hilton. Given the rates, the Hilton seemed like the better option.

The good news was that this was the weekend of Easter. Hidden within each room–and throughout the hotel–were some Easter eggs for the kids to discover. They found so many eggs that one of the friendly employees just had to take a picture of the kids with their finds. If you end up finding a picture of the kids holding their eggs somewhere, let us know where it is!

Thanks for reading along

We’ll get more into everything we did on our trip. But before we get to all the individual posts, we just wanted to extend our thanks to you, the reader. We’re appreciative that you want to read along on our adventures. Hope it helps you when planning your own adventures!

As always, we will give you the good along with the bad to help you make an informed decision for yourselves.

Thanks!

Suggested reading:

• All other trip reports
• I Got Pickpocketed and Lost Nothing
• The Travel Gadgets That Make Our Travel Easy