Globe Trotting

Exploring fire, ice & the weird at the world's hottest travel destination (Beyoncé loved it!)

At the end of a year and the beginning of the next, I like to take stock of where I’m going and where I’ve been, not in a psychological sense, but more along the lines of: the holidays are over, time to plan a summer vacation.

Years ago when composing a list of new lands to visit, I decided it would be most efficient to start with actual lands, places with land names. Having seen the lands of Eng, Ire, and Switzer in the past, in 2014 I made Iceland my vacation destination.

If you too are looking for a special land for traveling in 2015, may I suggest this ultimate truth-in-naming country, a destination so cool, it's hot enough for Jay Z and Beyoncé. The power couple visited Iceland twice in December — during the Christmas holidays and to celebrate Jay Z's 45th birthday on Dec. 5.

Other travel guides will tell you what to see, but here’s my check list for getting into the spirit of this land of fire and frozen water.

Explore Geology, Geography & Geometry

If land masses were humans, Iceland would be a hormonal-addled adolescent whose parents are going through a turbulent separation. The island lies on both the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates causing this teen to sometimes erupt in volcanic temper tantrums so fierce, it shuts down airports across Europe.

In Iceland you can ride around on a tiny horse, find reindeer grazing near the seashore, and almost get in a car crash with a flying swan.

This geological volatility creates amazing and varied geography in a compact area. Sometimes sea, volcanoes, glaciers, mountains and waterfalls are not hundreds of miles but mere steps away from each other.

To best experience all this glorious geography, rent a car and drive in a circle. Most of Iceland is spanned by one highway, the Ring Road, that traces the coastline as it loops around the country.

If you’re the type of traveler who likes to get off the beaten path, don’t worry. Route 1 is mostly two-lane and not very beaten; in fact, there are portions that aren’t completely paved. If you’re the type of traveler who wants a direct itinerary, this is also the path for you, as it’s almost impossible to get lost running a ring.

Enjoy Hollywood Induced Deja Vu

To discover this amazing geology, early in our trip we headed to Thingvellir National Park, where those idiotic enough to dive into the clear, frigid waters of the Silfra Tectonic Fissure, (even in a dry suit, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so cold) can swim between the two continental plates.

Afterward in a futile attempt to warm up, I took a hike along a starkly rocky ridge. Though I knew Thingvellir is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland, I still felt like I was wandering through time, seeing a primal Earth few humans have beheld. But with that sense came another equally powerful feeling: that I had walked this rocky path before. Was it some racial memory or past life knowledge?

Then a wise voice inside my head cried out: “Hey, isn’t this the way to the Starks’ crazy aunt’s house on Game of Thrones?

Then a wise voice inside my head cried out: “Hey, isn’t this the way to the Starks’ crazy aunt’s house on Game of Thrones? OMG, this is totally the way to Lysa Tully’s Moon Door palace.

Iceland’s alien landscapes overwhelm, offering both a feeling of being small yet special, because so few people in the world have seen these visions. Yet, there were several times, standing on beautiful black beaches or triumphantly climbing along the blue and white ice towers of a glacier, when I felt these sights vaguely familiar, probably because J. J. Abrams, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Nolan and even Ben Stiller have also been beguiled by the same visions.

In the past decade, hordes of film crews have invaded Iceland for movies like Thor 2, The Secret Live of Walter Mitty, Prometheus, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Interstellar and Noah. Still nothing beats seeing these “Sci-Fi Landscapes” in real life.

Claim Your Own Waterfall

Iceland supposedly has 10,000 waterfalls and while I lost count at about 100, that number certainly feels true. Every Iceland travel article seems to have a top 10 to see, but I found the best ones are the odd foss (falls) we had to work to see.

I virtually discovered Bruarfoss (Bridge Falls) puttering on Google Maps, but never found exact directions, so when I made it to the area, I wandered aimlessly on foot inside of Iceland’s version of a summer-house gated community until my traveling companions and I stumbled upon the most intense blue falling waters I’ve ever seen. The wandering made the experience all the richer.

Dynjandi, (Thundering One), looking like some giant tiered water cake, took a two hour’s drive on unpaved, snow-covered, fjord roads and even into a one-lane tunnel deep inside a mountain to reach. Neither of these two falls were the biggest or most famous in Iceland, but they were such a journey, I felt like they belonged to me, if only for a few moments.

Embrace the Weird

While not its national bird, in my mind Iceland would be best represented by the puffin, which looks like the product of a whimsical night of debauchery between a toucan and a penguin. The puffin might seem comical hopping around on land, but it’s stunning in the air. The whole country seems filled with such dichotomies and beautiful weirdness.

If land masses were humans, Iceland would be a hormonal-addled adolescent whose parents are going through a turbulent separation.

In Iceland you can ride around on a tiny horse, find reindeer grazing near the seashore, and almost get in a car crash with a flying swan. I had no idea swans flew. I though they just floated in ponds.

In Iceland you can bathe in the therapeutic waters of one of the most famous spas in Europe, The Blue Lagoon, when, technically from an engineering stand point, you are in actuality soaking in power plant waste water.

The smallest of towns, which are most towns in a country of only 322,000 people, have at least one communal geothermal heated pool and a gas station selling some reasonably good pizza.

There’s even better pizza and pools in the capitol, Reykjavik, a city full of chillaxing, yet bustling night life, amazing public art and architecture guarded by street armies of lazying cats in peace treaty with the air force of water fowl blanketing every watery surface.

This land might be icy, but its people and vast wilderness will send you home with fiery memories to keep you warm for years to come.

Hikers on Falljökull Glacier, Vatnajökull National Park.

$Tarra Gaines Iceland December 2014 hikers on Fallj\u00f6kull Glacier, Vatnaj\u00f6kull National Park$

Photo by Tarra Gaines

Hikers on Falljökull Glacier, Vatnajökull National Park.

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WILDFLOWER WATCH

The hunt for Texas bluebonnets could be tricky this spring, experts predict

Marble Falls bluebonnet field, bluebonnets

Photo courtesy of Visit Marble Falls

Bluebonnets could be sparser this year across Texas.

Bluebonnet bounty across Texas may be a little harder to spot this spring after a dry fall and mild winter, particularly across the Hill Country.

The 2026 wildflower bloom season is expected to vary widely across Texas, shaped by uneven rainfall, continuing drought conditions, and local microclimates that influence where seeds germinate and how wildflowers thrive, according to the experts at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. This forecast is similar to the 2025 season projection.

Across the Hill Country, from Austin to San Antonio — considered bluebonnet mecca each spring — the recent fall and winter weather helps explain why bluebonnets, in particular, may be sparse. Much of Central Texas saw a notably dry fall, followed by a mild winter with limited rainfall. The fall is the time when many wildflower seeds, and especially bluebonnets, germinate.

Bluebonnets rely heavily on fall moisture to sprout and winter rain to grow before blooming in spring, according to the Wildflower Center. When conditions are dry, fewer seedlings emerge, and roadside displays can appear patchier than usual.

“We may just have to look a little harder for bluebonnets on the side of the road this year in many locales,” said Andrea DeLong-Amaya, horticulture educator at the Wildflower Center, in a press release.

Caltrops in Big Bend National Park Caltrops on the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service

Central Texas, in particular, has the native prairie ecosystem where hardy native flower species can thrive. Add to that thin, rocky limestone soil and the state's long-established roadside management practices, and it's no surprise that drivers see an abundance of bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and pink evening primrose emerge and thrive during the spring.

The lack of rain in early spring does not mean a paltry wildflower season. Bluebonnets dominate early spring in areas around the state, then retreat. With subsequent solid rainfall, later wildflowers such as firewheel, purple horsemint, and black-eyed Susans will take over as the wildflower season progresses into the summer, according to the Wildflower Center.

“If early spring bloomers are a little more sparse, later spring and summer flowers have more room to flourish,” DeLong-Amaya said.

Around the state
Wildflower displays can vary dramatically even within short distances. Small environmental differences, including soil moisture, shade cover, and pavement heat, influence which seeds will germinate and how flowers thrive. The Texas Department of Transportation, which has sown wildflower in highway medians since the 1930s, provides a map for the best wildflower weeks across the various regions in the state.

Across North Texas prairies, fields of Drummond phlox and prairie verbena often appear alongside bluebonnets, particularly around the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails south of Dallas.

ennis bluebonnets Ennis Bluebonnet Trails will be open April 1-30, 2026. Photo courtesy of Visit Ennis

The organizers of the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival posted on Facebook on February 27, "Ennis Bluebonnet season is officially on the way! We are already monitoring the trails, and these sweet little baby bluebonnet plants are starting to pop up right on schedule. Bluebonnets plants start emerging as these green rosettes in late winter and typically bloom throughout the month of April here in Ennis."

Ennis bluebonnets typically peak around the second to third week in April. This year's Ennis Bluebonnet Trails will be open April 1-30, and the Festival will take place April 17-19.

In West Texas and the Big Bend region, desert wildflowers such as Mexican gold poppies and desert marigolds can produce dramatic blooms after winter rains.

Coastal prairies along the Gulf Coast can produce sweeping displays of yellow coreopsis and red Indian blanket wildflowers in spring.

Even in dry years, experts say Texans can still expect to find wildflowers somewhere across the state.

“I’ve never seen a year where nothing is blooming,” DeLong-Amaya said. “That just doesn’t happen.”

The Carolina jessamine is the Wildflower Center's 2026 Wildflower of the year.Photo by Stephanie Brundage via the Native Plant Information Network

The Wildflower Center also named Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) as its 2026 Wildflower of the Year. The evergreen vine produces fragrant yellow trumpet-shaped flowers and can climb along fences or trees.

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