Our Iceland 2027 tours are live! + Queer Travel Beyond the Rainbow Flag
Published 19 days ago • 10 min read
Hi Reader,
And just like that, August came to an end and we are already in the second week of September!
I am spending just under a week at home recovering from jetlag before heading out to Armenia for our first tour there. I will also join the farewell dinner of our Georgia tour, since our tour to Armenia is immediately after and starts in Tbilisi actually.
It will be great to eat all the Georgian food I can fit in my stomach again, they have such amazing dishes and wine, mmmmm, I cannot wait!
In the meantime, I am also excited to announce our new and improved Iceland tour for 2027 which has a couple of small additions and changes from our long runing tour.
2027 will see us travel there for the 20th and 21st time, and while we have made small changes every year to keep up with the expanding number of activities, this time we decided to replace one of the hotels with the 5* Silica Hotel by the Blue Lagoon and start offering a floating experience in between the icebergs too.
How amazing would it be to float in the purest of waters among the sparkling ice formations?
On this week's email:
Our 2027 Iceland trips are now live! Go check them out here.
This week's podcast episode has Anastasia chatting with Meg Ten Eyck an LGBTQ+ travel advocate and expert, Chairman of the Board of the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association and Founder of Every Queer, who shares all the challenges and joys of traveling as a members of this community and goes beyond travel bans, and prominent rainbow flags and queer packages to share the real experiences and calculations LGBTQ+ travelers need to make
🌊 Stand in front, above and under the most powerful waterfalls
Nothing explains better the force of nature that the pounding water falling down a wild waterfall filled with water from ancient glaciers.
Iceland is the land of waterfalls and there are so many to visit and experience. We will stop at 5 of them at least, each as unique as the previous one.
You can climb to the top of some, get behind others, step right under some and view some from the distance.
🦭 Take an incredible zodiac tour
We will don cold weather suits and jump on a zodiac on the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, where we will speed among icebergs that are floating after breaking off from Vatnajökull glacier, the largest one in Iceland and oldest in Europe.
We will get up and close and feel the energy when one of these icebergs turn, or a piece of ice breaks off from the glacier.
Look out for seals chilling on the icebergs, always ready to post for photos!
💎 Float among icebergs
From this October, we are offering a new optional activity to float among icebergs in a dry suit. This will be done in the south and you will be able to add onto your booking if you are keen.
What a magical chance to float in the purest waters and look up into the sky between floating pieces of ancient glaciers...an opportunity of a lifetime only on our tours!
🧈 Let your mouth water at Icelandic cuisine
We will start the week with a food tour, continue with a lava bread cooking class where the dough is cooked by burying it in volcanic and thermal soil, and enjoy all the freshest Nordic cuisine you can imagine. Our guide Sigga is an expert foodie!
Oh and did we mention butter and bread? Yep, butter alone is worth a trip to Iceland, and I am not even a butter person!
★ Stand on the most beautiful black sand beaches
We will visit 3 black sand beaches, including the famous Diamond beach where icebergs "go to die" and shine like diamonds, the wild Reynisfjara beach that is known for the rock formations and the rogue waves, and Viking Beach with the stunning Vestrahorn mountain pictured above reflecting in the shallow pools.
Black beaches are another level of beautiful, with their raw but shinning appearance and their wild look.
🌌 See the Northern lights!
I know, I know, this is the no.1 reason many people visit Iceland and from September to March, you can see this beautiful performance in the sky above. So far, all 18 groups we've had travel with us to Iceland in October except for one has seen them, and it was WOW!
The hotels have wake up calls and Sigga will share apps you can use to track their presence. They are never guaranteed, but since we will spend a fair bit of time away from the city lights, our chances are good.
New hotel: 2 nights at the Silica Hotel at the Blue Lagoon
From 2027 onwards, we have upgraded our accommodation to spend two nights at the luxury Silica Hotel that is part of the Blue Lagoon complex.
Silica Hotel is a boutique sanctuary of healing with only 35 rooms and its own private, mineral-rich lagoon with the same properties as the Blue Lagoon but only accessible to hotel guests.
All rooms come with terraces opening onto the newly created or moss-covered lava fields from recent volcanic explosions, free minibars and premium Blue Lagoon amenities.
The design is conceived to be in harmony with nature and offers clean lines and warm minimalism.
🧖♀️ A little me-time
Enjoy some me time and wellness moments at the Blue Lagoon, the private Silica Lagoon, and at the heated, outdoor thermal pool of the hotel in the south we stay at.
Iceland is all about the power of the Earth and nature and nowhere can you feel this closer than in the naturally warm thermal pools of the hotel or the baby blue silica waters of the Blue Lagoon, where we will enjoy premium access that comes with a drink and 3 natural masks to wear, plus a sample to take home.
Enjoy the Silica Lagoon on the other 2 days we spend at Silica Hotel. That is 3 days with to enjoy the properties of the volcanic aquifers and geothermal seawater of the Blue Lagoon wit its premium
And if you are lucky, the Northern Lights will come out to play while we're soaking, as has been the case on many of our previous tours.
Magic!
🧊 Enter a natural ice cave
Get right into the belly of the glacier, and experience of a lifetime!
Every year, the glacier moves and the experience changes. We will get our technical gear on, and probably crampons, and walk over the glacier and into a natural ice cave formed millions of years ago and shifting every year with the weather and the volcanic activity.
This is an experience like no other. Being able to touch the ice, in all shades of blue and grey because of the volcanic deposits creating layers build over millennia is just incredible.
👭 Friends FOR LIFE!
Our trips are made for camaraderie, new friendships and empowerment. Come as strangers, leave as friends!
Do you have a friend who could be interested in this trip?
Forward this email to them.
Episode #23 - Queer Travel Beyond the Rainbow Flag
This week's podcast episode is one that is entirely focused on the realities and calculations that LGBTQ+ travelers need to make when exploring the world.
Do you show up as your true self or do you try to conform?
Is it safe to come out or is it better to remain closeted?
How much of yourself can you safely disclose and show?
How to determine if a place is friendly or also welcoming?
Anastasia talks to Meg Ten Eyck, Chairman of the Board of the International LGBTQ+ Travel association, Founder of Every Queer and queer activist, educator and communicator, about all the challenges and joys of traveling as a queer person.
Check out all the details of the podcast here, listen to the episode and start following us [Solo Female Travelers Podcast] on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss an episode:
Why airplanes still have ashtrays in the lavatories even though smoking in planes has been banned for decades. Read here.
UN votes to adopt a new world map that shows Africa's true size. Togo spearheaded a resolution to abandon the use of the Mercator projections map in favor of the True Earth map which shows the real size of Africa and reflects a more accurate depiction of the world's countries sizes. More here. If you listened to our podcast episode on How to decolonise your travels, you have already heard me talk with our guest Dr Vinci Ho about the colonialism-infused view of the world that the maps everyone uses has, especially when it comes to Africa, by making the continent look much smaller than it is. If you ever traveled in the continent you may have noticed that it takes 9h to fly across east to west, while it takes inly4 to cross Europe, now how could this be possible is maps show both distances to be pretty much the same? The reason for this is the maps we use. This will now change.
Fake AI videos are coming fro travel. More and more hotels are now using AI to generate their social media content, and the tool makes them look much better than they are, even adding features and facilities that don't exist, or room types that aren't there. In a world so much is created by AI, who can you believe? We don't use AI to create our content, we don't even use stock images or videos, all the photos and videos on our website or social media have been taken by our team or our professional photographer. Listen to Skift's podcast about how a luxury resort in Sedona created 17 fake AI generated videos.
Weird things that have been confiscated by TSA. Read here.
Climbers have to be rescued in California after using AI to plan their hike and severely underestimating the requirements, fitness level and route. Read more.
The "in-betweeners", the people who live across several cities / countries. Are you one of them? Read more about this trend here.
Less than 1% of Jamaica's beaches are public and acessible to Jamaicans. and hotels like the Sandals resort are pushing hard, with Government support, to reduce that to zero. Thiw would mean Jamaicasn would become landlocked, even though they live on an island, and have to pay to access their own beaches while luxury travelers have exckusive access to them through their hotels and all-inclusives. I think this is outrageous. Hear more about this here. PS it is never too late to boycott brands who do these types of things...
I hope you have a great rest of the week wherever you are.
Hugs from our global team
Solo Female Travelers C/ Europa 18 5-2, Sitges, 08870
