Why not take a road trip to discover Iceland this summer, says
Acountry shaped and sculpted by the elements, Iceland deserves to be discovered on a road trip. With one main ring road looping the island, it’s easy to drive through the dramatic, other-worldly landscapes, detouring on to gravel roads to find hidden waterfalls and lagoons.
Given the green light for travel (though you can only enter freely if you’ve had both jabs), the sparsely populated Nordic nation is now open for business, and the timing couldn’t be better: highland roads are accessible, migratory flocks have landed, and the days are long enough to pack two holidays into one. and-a-half hours from the capital, a backbone of snowstreaked peaks stretches along the Snaefellsnes peninsula, ending in the sugar-dusted dome of Snaefellsjökull, a dormant volcano and glacier.
Neighbouring blackpebbled beaches Dritvik and Djupalonssandur are strewn with pieces of rusted metal, the eerie remains of the Epine trawler, wrecked in 1948.
Try lifting a collection of granite boulders, once hauled by hefty fishermen to measure their might.
Perched on the edge of the world, Hotel Budir frames the beach and coastline through its floor to ceiling windows (doubles from £223, room only; hotelbudir.is).
There are few forests in Iceland (Vikings plundered most of the trees), but clutches of wind-stunted, dwarf birch woodlands cover Husafell, an outdoor playground of hiking, biking, horse-riding and running routes through canyons and crystal-clear rivers. The park lies inland; turn off from route 1 and take the 50 and 518.
for walking are plentiful. Or take a trip to the Canyon Baths (£56; husafell.com), where a guided two-hour stomp is rewarded with a dip in geothermal waters.
Harnessing the power of the surrounding glaciers and hot springs, modern eco-hotel Husafell is in the thick of the wild action (doubles from £110, room only; husafell.com).
A roller-coaster ride of precipitous clifftops and tunnels, this section of the