A short flight from America brought us to a literal wonderland called Iceland. It's a small island of only 300'000 people. Most of the population lives in Reykjavik; the world's highest capital city and the city that we stayed in. it's a literal wonderland as the country is made up of volcanoes, ice glaciers, lava, moss, hot springs and the clearest, purest water rivers and waterfalls. But most interestingly it offers 24 hours of daylight in summer! The land of the midnight sun.

The country is probably most well known for being in the middle of nowhere. its air traffic disrupting volcanoes and starting the global economic crisis but it has a lot more to offer. It's a playground for adventure sport seekers. Its sophisticated and trendy for the cosmopolitans. Its uber-luxurious for the wealthy. It even has hostels for us kind of backpackers. It isn't cheap though and given that the vast majority of everything there is imported prices are very expensive - don't expect to get away with paying less than $20 for a meal, irrespective of how basic it is. But when in Iceland, be like the beautiful, Nordic Icelandic people: eat your meal on the street while sipping your espresso, dress in the latest trends and fashions of Europe, bath in the hot springs and walk the streets like you own the world.

With all of this sophistication and European influence, the people in Iceland are still really friendly and jump at the opportunity to talk to foreigners and hear their stories. They're not quite sure why you've come to Iceland (of all places) but they're intrigued by everything you have to tell them. They all speak English and they're all well educated - with one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Our hostel landed up being on one of the main funky shopping streets in the uptown area. But we quickly realized that the city of Reykjavik is so small that it doesn't actually matter where you stay, everything is only a 5-10 minute walk away. Its only about 600m to get from uptown to downtown.

We weren't in town for long enough to take advantage of the adventure sports on offer but we did do a day tour around the "golden circle" that took us to the main points of interest on the island all the main natural wonders that are on offer while giving some really interesting history of the country.

The most mind boggling element on offer though definitely has to be the sun that doesn't set, the midnight sun, the 24 hours of daylight. We landed just before midnight, the sun was up. We got to our hostel at about 1:30am, the sun was up. We missioned around for a while till about 3am, the sun was up. We finally went to sleep at about 5am…and the sun was still up. You try get your head around that. The only time that it got a little darker was when it was raining and the sky filled with dark clouds. We were visiting during the week when the bars close at 2am, but on the weekend, they stay open all night and you can really play in the sun all day. There is also some interesting food on offer and some of the delicacies are lobster soup (not too kosher but really good), whale (just like beef) and shark (be careful before you order this one cause the cured version tastes, well, like the sulphur from the volcanoes only a bit more bitter).

This place turned out to be a huge surprise and its somewhere we will definitely be going back to visit. Lying between New York and London, it is very accessible not a long flight away. Definitely try go over a weekend in summer or go see if you can get a sighting of the fascinating northern lights in winter. But either way, make an effort to go there…the economy will love you for it.

Trek on…Brett and Darren.