Road to Ísland

In February 2020, Nomadic Road ran the Road to Ísland expedition again, taking a group of overlanders 1,200 kilometres across Iceland over six days. The route mixed tarmac, packed snow and glacier terrain, working around the south and southwest of the country at the heart of Icelandic winter. February in Iceland delivers short daylight windows, persistent wind and the kind of weather that switches from snow to sun and back inside an hour. The 2020 edition turned out to be the last Road to Ísland expedition before the pandemic disrupted international travel. The group reflected the route's appeal: photographers chasing winter light, overlanders adding Iceland to their cold-weather lists, and a few first-time Nomadic Road participants drawn specifically by the glacier driving. Several days the convoy worked onto glacier surfaces, moved across frozen waterfall sites and stopped at geothermal fields steaming in air well below zero. The black-sand beaches of the south coast, with their basalt columns and heavy Atlantic swell, gave the route its visual contrast to the white interior. Daytime temperatures hovered around freezing, with night-time lows pushing well below. Evenings were spent in small Icelandic guesthouses, with hot showers, lamb stew, pickled fish and the slow rhythm that long winter days produce. The Northern Lights showed up on several nights, which always reorganised the schedule. The February 2020 Road to Ísland expedition delivered Iceland at its rawest. It remains one of the most visually distinctive cold-weather routes in Nomadic Road's catalogue. The February 2020 edition closed a chapter for the route, with international travel disruption arriving shortly afterwards, and remains a benchmark for what a tightly designed winter overland trip can deliver in just six days on the road.