At the beginning of this year, I had zero plans of going to Iceland in 2026. While Iceland had been on my bucket list for a couple years, it was never a location I envisioned for a solo trip (and I had yet to convince any of the people that I like to travel with to come along to a certified cold place.)

It’s interesting how life works sometimes. And, it’s actually quite funny how I ended up in Iceland, because—back in February when people on my Antarctica trip asked what my next trip would be, I kept telling people: I’m planning on going to Wales to photograph puffins.

So, how did I end up photographing puffins in Iceland with Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove instead, and would I do it again?

Let’s travel back in time a little bit, since this trip was not my first time seeing puffins.

The first puffin I ever loved was the cartoon one in The Swan Princess. Puffins and penguins had always been the same idea in my head: impossibly cute black-and-white birds, one up north and one down south. And both had been living on my need to see bucket list for years.

And I knew technically that puffins were more attainable. I had been so close to places where they could be found a few times before. But I had never planned a trip around it. But, last year, my best friend and I set out on a road trip to Northern Ireland and I had managed to convince her to give me a day of puffin chasing.

However, unfortunately, I had made the wrong choice of location. When looking for puffin locations in Northern Ireland, almost all of them listed Rathlin Island as one of the places to see puffins and since it was the best in terms of our route, I picked it.

What the internet failed to make clear to me: Rathlin was a place to see puffins. It wasn’t a place to see puffins up close. In recent years, Rathlin has worked to eradicate rats from the island and it had been successful for the first time when we went in 2025. But, prior to that, rats had been up on land. And where rats are, puffins are not. So, the place to see puffins was at the bottom of the cliff.

It was still a wonderful trip, but I came home knowing I wanted another chance to see those beautiful faces up close. I figured the next puffin season would be dedicated to puffins, and Skomer in Wales seemed like the obvious choice. Instagram hat been showing me photos and videos of it for years. But unfortunately not just to me. The one place to stay overnight and the ferry tickets book out months in advance, because it is popular.

So, move on to February 2026, when my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica finally happened. I met a lot of well-travelled people—and talked puffins with a few of the photographers. Rachel Bigsby had volunteered on Skomer, and Dani Connor also thought it was probably the best place to photograph them. I was ready to book as soon as I got home.

Iceland kept coming up in conversations too. One of the photographers, Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove, is Belgian-Icelandic and has been living and teaching there for a couple of years. He mentioned teaching a bird workshop at some point, but it didn’t click.

Then, while I had hours to kill in Buenos Aires, I finally looked through the photographers’ websites. And I realized that Jeroen’s workshop wasn’t just about any birds, or just anywhere. “Puffins in the Midnight Sun” instantly got me. And his photos had everything I wanted from my own puffin shots.

It took a few days for the idea to settle. I had wanted to go to Skomer for almost two years, and I hadn’t been on a proper solo trip in a while. Plus, I’d just come from a group trip with 100 people, and the “I don’t like group trips” person in me wasn’t sure she was ready for another one.

But the more I read about Grímsey, the more it sounded like my kind of place. Skomer’s puffins are used to people, and you can get incredibly close. Grímsey, on the other hand, is a tiny island in the Greenland Sea, with fewer than 20 permanent residents and a full 24 hours of daylight around the summer solstice. It can be empty.

And if there’s one thing I’ve noticed about how my travel has changed, it’s that I’ve started chasing remoteness instead of bustling cities. I’d rather have puffins that are a little less used to people if it means the chance to be alone with them.

So, I decided to make a trip out of it. If I was going to Iceland, I’d see some of the mainland too—and tackle my respect for driving there.

Before the photography workshop started, I rented a car and drove along the south coast and made a few stops along the golden circle.

I had been prepared for it to be somewhat crowded since we were in peak season and I was tackling some big touristy stops, but it was more crowded than I expected in some areas.

While I tried to always plan early and late stops when the crowds were gone, I still planned stops all day long. That means that I was at some places during the maximum of tour busses stopping.

I was absolutely overwhelmed and a bit grossed out at Gljúfrabúi and Gullfoss. Gullfoss was so full of people, that when I saw a stuffed parking lot at Geysir on my way back, I didn’t even attempt to make a stop, even though Geysir was a place I had wanted to see forever. I’ve seen people fully switching their sleep and awake time in Iceland during peak season, and I think that might actually be a good call.

I still loved my little solo road trip and the stops I made.

But the highlights absolutely were Reynisfjara after 10 p.m. and Víkurfjara at 6 a.m. Those black sand beaches, when empty, were an absolute dream. It’s also where I saw my first Icelandic puffins.

But by the end of my 3 full days of exploring Iceland’s most popular areas, I was so ready to see a place less travelled of this gorgeous country.

There are two ways to get to Grímsey: by ferry or by plane. The ferry takes 3 hours and leaves from Dalvík, which is about 40 minutes from Akureyri, the place where the flight takes off.

Akureyri has its own small airport, and we’d be flying into Grímsey and returning by ferry. The workshop started at the Reykjavík domestic airport, which was closed when I arrived. The domestic airport in Reykjavík is much more like a train station than an airport, there’s no security and the airport opens just 1h before the first flight. We were on that first flight.

In the entrance hall, I met Jeroen and the two other participants of the workshop. We were a very small group, which I was happy about. We had a quick coffee after handing in our bags and then quickly got in line for the flight.

It’s quite funny how there is a singular door, that leads to Gates 1-5. Gate being a bit of a stretch. There’s a fence with 5 separate doors and 5 parking spots for planes.

The flight featured some gorgeous aerial views out the window, and when we landed at the small airport in Akureyri, we collected our luggage and checked in for our flight to Grímsey. First time I had ever been handed a handwritten boarding pass.

We had to wait a bit for our flight, but Jeroen was prepared with some slides and a presentation about what to expect of the workshop, the island and the puffins.

And then it was time to board a small plane.

The plane had 14 seats and you could see the two pilots sitting in the front. The “security briefing” consisted of one of the pilots looking out at us, saying hi, mentioning there’s no toilets on board and to keep our seatbelts on. This was the smallest plane I had ever been on, and it was super fun.

The views out of the plane were also wonderful again.

Grímsey has a huge landing strip in comparison to the size of the island. The reason for that is that it could be used as an alternative landing if there is a situation at Akureyri airport. Landing was super smooth.

At the landing strip we were picked up by Halla. She’s the owner of Sveinsstaðir, the guesthouse we would be staying for the week. There’s two other guesthouses on the island, but from what I gathered, those don’t come with a hostess like Halla. She was incredibly warm and welcoming and made us feel at home in her home immediately. As the week progressed, we started referring to her as our “workshop mom”. She was incredibly nurturing and offered to drive us around the island, made us breakfast and coffee and lunch. She is one of the 20 permanent residents that live on the island year-round and it was incredibly nice to live with a local for the week and learn about life on the island from her. Halla is the founder of ArticTrip and also offers tours around the island for people visiting, even if they are just here for a day trip (which is what most people do).

Sveinsstaðir is a 9-bedroom home, with two bathrooms, and it really felt like we moved to Grímsey for the week. The guesthouse was filled with lots of beautiful photos and books about the island.

It was a very sunny day and after we got settled in and had lunch at the only restaurant, we went out for our first puffin photography session. We walked towards the lighthouse, where we also learned about why we saw a few people that had sticks as they were walking around.

At the time, the Arctic Terns were nesting and they are very protective of their nests. They will dive bomb you if you get too close to their eggs or chicks. Jeroen had prepared us for this, and his suggestion was to put on a hat and slightly lift it up when we were walking through a nesting area. I brought a bobble hat mostly because Jeroen had been so firmly against the bobbles in Antarctica and I thought it was funny. His expression was priceless when I asked if a bobble hat might be a good idea for the terns. (Because, yes, it was a good idea.)

At the time, there were also scientists on the island. We saw two people with rods walking around and wondered if maybe those were them.

As we arrived at the cliffs, we spotted our first puffins and Jeroen gave us a demonstration of how to approach them, before we got started on our own. He also gave us tips along the way for composition and details to look out for.

We spent a few hours getting our feet wet in puffin photography. It was amazing that we got started in the sunshine and it was so cool to see puffins this close up. We saw a few sitting and I realized very quickly how difficult getting them flying would be.

The workshop was structured in a way that we would have daily critique sessions in the morning so that we would have tips on how to improve before heading out to photograph. But for this first shooting session, we didn’t have any tips from our own photos yet. However, Jeroen sat next to each of us, and gave tips on how we could use our location to compose a shot. I also remembered tips from Antarctica about composition and tried to keep all of that in mind.

Time passed incredibly fast, and before we knew it, it was time to head back. On our way, we spotted a bird’s nest right by the road. It was incredible how much bird life existed on the island, and the fact that a bird could nest right by the road was a testament to how quiet the island was.

Before our first midnight sun session, we headed to the only restaurant on the island (Krían), where we would have dinner each night.

The cook at the restaurant was Halla’s sister and the food was delicious.

After dinner, Halla gave us a lift out of town up towards another cliffy area, where we photographed puffins in the midnight sun.

It was my first time experiencing the midnight sun and it was absolutely magical when it was midnight and the island was bathed in golden light. We spent hours close to the narrow tip of the island and it felt like we were completely alone with the birds at the edge of the world.

We spotted our first puffin with fish as well and I was so excited.

We returned to the guesthouse late at night, and enjoyed the beautiful night light on our way back.

I then went on to spend a few hours (like, until 3 a.m.) going through my photos and picking out the ones I wanted to talk about the following morning.

The way a critique session was structured was that we would each pick 3 photos we liked and 3 photos we didn’t like, and also explain our reasoning for our choices to the group. You could pre-edit them or you could just take the raw photo.

The weather had gotten significantly worse overnight and as it was gloomy outside, I was quite glad we didn’t have to head out first thing after a short sleep, but instead got to fuel up with copious amounts of coffee, bread, cheese and local spreads.

Then we got started on the critique session.

To be honest, before the trip I hadn’t really expected to take away that much from the critique sessions. I really thought that the main thing I would take away would be how to approach puffins and tips in the field.

This was my third photography workshop, and we only had one session of looking at photos at the end on my Northern Lights trip, and because I fried my laptop’s battery on the first day in Antarctica and could only get it running as it was attached to power, I didn’t take part in a lot of the sessions offered on the ship there. I had been around when photographers were looking at other people’s photos or editing their own. But this was a bit of a different setting.

On this trip, we had a super relaxed environment sitting at the dining table, and the method of picking good and optimizeable photos beforehand, made a huge difference to me. Having to put into words why I thought a photo worked or didn’t work or what I liked about it, forced me to think about it more.

And Jeroen’s feedback was incredibly helpful. Even in that first session, he was not only able to point out certain minute details about head-position that I hadn’t even noticed. But I also realized why burst mode is so valuable.

Because if you’re dealing with a changing environment, where you have to keep track of so many things, it is easy to focus on getting the animal in the place you want and pick a nice background but then for example rely on burst mode to make sure you get the moving water in the background. Then when you have a burst, you can pick the one where the water and the bird are in a position you like. And you can spend a bit more time on picking your favorite and get really nitpicky in a large array of options.

If you shoot less, you’re giving up opportunities.

What was also great is that Jeroen could use our actual photos to illustrate issues. Obviously picking 3 photos you like is great to talk about editing to make it even better. But when picking the 3 photos you don’t like, it made sense to not just pick a photo that is obviously bad. Like, if the bird turned its back to you or if it was out of focus. But instead, the photos we could learn most from, were the ones where something was almost good.

Jeroen was amazing at pointing out the detail that was responsible for that “almost”. And often times, it could be fixed by shooting something a little bit differently. Adding breathing room around the subject, lifting up or lowering the camera, making sure the subject was looking into the photo instead of out of it. So much to learn.

When we went out to shoot that day, it was what regular tourists would call “bad weather”. It was moody and very windy. This, is good photography weather!

The light was much less harsh than the previous day, creating much softer colors and the wind would be working in our favor too.

I had realized that puffins were incredibly hard to catch in flight the day before, but when the wind is this strong, the birds don’t really fly the way they normally would. They basically hover or get pushed around by the wind, making it much easier to pluck them from the sky.

By day two we had basically crossed off literally my entire shooting bucket list that I had dared to dream of. I didn’t expect to make such quick progress of ticking off my photography goals.

On this day, we got great flight shots, lovely portraits and attempted to shoot birds at the local pond. However, the water was quite low this year compared to previous years and it was really hard to photograph the birds there. We still attempted it at the end of the day, but didn’t really come back with great shots.

At the cliffs we also encountered gulls and other seabirds. I took some shots of gulls, that, what I learned this day, will attack you with the contents of their stomachs if they feel threatened. Yeah, there are projectile-vomiting gulls. The things you don’t wanna know sometimes, haha.

That night, there was not a single bit of golden light, so we stayed in and reviewed our shots and spent the night talking about birds, and iceland, and photography.

The weather had not calmed down much when we woke up the next day. It was wet and windy, but the good thing was, that it was basically the same conditions as the day before. And I hadn’t really gotten a bird in flight shot I was very excited about and also there wasn’t that much fish going on.

Before lunch, we still went out for a bit. Back towards the lighthouse where we had started on the first day.

This is where some of the basalt columns of Grímsey are, and while we weren’t graced with a lot of birds, seeing this geological wonder is still always getting me excited.

By this point, we also already knew exactly where to duck from the nesting terns. We saw the same birds on the street getting a bit stressed out when we came too close. We had gotten into a rhythm.

The morning was spent trying to photograph birds taking off, and even though the water was very reflective, I was really impressed by how well the A7V’s autofocus stayed on them. This was the kind of thing my old A7C would’ve struggled with. (In case you’re wondering, I was shooting all of this with my trusty Tamron 50-400 lens on the Sony A7V.)

In the water, we also spotted Common Eider Ducks, which is a very common sight in a lot of places, but seeing these ducks with their long faces is very rare in Switzerland, so it was my first time actually seeing a duck with this face shape, and the white coloring was super interesting to me.

For lunch, we had hot dogs, with the option of getting a “cod dog,” a Grímsey original invention.

While we’re at it, food had been quite a big part of our conversation, especially some of the traditional Icelandic foods.

Now, there are people who call me a picky eater because I will not eat raw tomatoes and hate ketchup and mayo with a passion. I don’t typically do seafood, but I usually make it a point to try most things (except if there are still eyes or I have a moral issue with what’s being eaten) at least once. And I love to visit new places and try local foods, since it is such an easy way to experience culture.

One of my favorite things I learned about Icelandic food culture is that they’re big on ice cream, which—I so get behind. I will never understand a single person who doesn’t eat ice cream outside of summer. Why they would deny themselves this pleasure I will not understand. Iceland has a big dairy industry so their ice cream is heavy on the milk flavor, but they will also usually come with toppings. One of them, obviously, being licorice, since it’s up north.

I had been working my way through Icelandic candy in the days before the workshop (peak candy, so much great caramel and licorice stuff) and we got to try a few candy things during lunch this time. Ice cream was still on my list to try, though.

Icelandic hot dog culture was a thing I had not expected. They like them with mustard and relish and a mix of crispy and fresh onion in an American bread bun, with a sausage that is heavy on the lamb. It was fascinating to me how Halla came in to ask if we’d like a hot dog for lunch or a cod dog (all the hot dog things except instead of the “dog” it featured battered cod), and she was casually holding a plastic bag with a sheep head in it. Really driving the contrast home.

Now, for some, the idea of ice cream with licorice sauce might sound a little bit crazy, but Iceland features a lot of very out there food. Like sheep head, which Halla told me was her favorite dish of them all, and she was very excited about it. Since there’s still eyes, I was very happy she did not prepare that for us.

We had talked about fermented shark, which is served in bars with a shot, and one brave soul in the workshop actually tried it, since Halla had some ready to go. But shark, which, if I’m right, is poisonous unless it goes through this fermenting process, is not the craziest ingredient on Icelandic plates. There are two more: whale and puffin.

We had a very interesting conversation about where this historically stemmed from. And while I understand the cultural significance, I also personally take a bit of issue with eating species that are vulnerable, especially if you’re just doing it for the oddity of it, sat in a Restaurant in Reykjavik. I feel like hunting and shipping puffins from small islands to the capital to feed them to tourists is a bit iffy (luckily whales will hopefully be banned). But I understand that in a place like Grímsey, where puffin had been eaten historically and puffin eggs were eaten as well (no longer for the eggs, I was told) there is much more of an ancestral connection. It’s part of the history of the people living there and something they’ve done with their families for generations.

Conversation flowed very easily during meal times and it was so fascinating to learn about the local customs, history and way of life around this place.

We also learned that we’d be experiencing a local big event this week. Summer solstice was coming up, and while Jeroen first thought that we might miss it, the timing actually lined up so that we could be visiting, (there was a potential for puffin on the menu, though). People’s families were starting to arrive for that.

The afternoon session was actually one of my favorites. It was windy and very cold but we had a lot of birds with fish in their beaks, and some of them with a lot of it, so there’s a lot of photos coming up. We also saw the first fish-bearing birds vanishing in their burrows, though my autofocus let me down there.

This was the shittiest of the days too, though. Literally.

I guess what you don’t really anticipate when you’re photographing big colonies of birds is that birds poop. I had been prepared for Antarctica to stink. Puffins didn’t stink at all, but I was ready for there to be bird poop. What I was not prepared for, was casually sitting on the edge of the cliff photographing and it being flung right up my front, all over my jacket and on top of the lens. At least the front stayed clean. That wasn’t very enjoyable. And while I do have practice in being randomly pooped on by birds in the strangest places, having it being thrown at me by the wind was a first I could’ve done without.

The photos are worth it though.

Due to the bad weather, we were once again wholly alone. The only company we had out there was the birds and the occasional sheep checking out what strange creatures were huddled up at the edge of the cliff with their weird cylindrical things pointing around.

Unfortunately, it was yet another night where it was dark and there was no chance for nice golden light. But I guess we were all happy to offload our thousands of photos back in the windstill warmth of a building.

I really wanted to catch some behavior too, and I absolutely love the little sequence that unfolds next. A bird had landed between other birds and I could tell that one bird was a bit more interested in that fish than the others and tried to sneak up on the catcher. The other bird noticed, though and flew off. But loved that little sneaky bird trying to rob the other one.

Day four was full of stormy weather. Now memory fails me if it was this day or the next, but one of those days, the ferry brought in a lot of passengers for the summer solstice event, and we learned that it was one of those ferries you really don’t want to be on. Weather and waters were incredibly rough and the doctor that comes in periodically to the island was on that ferry that took way longer than usual to arrive and brought in quite a lot of seasick and well-shaken passengers.

As for the photography on this day, it was absolutely great!

We had another shot at taking bird in flight shots due to the rough weather and Halla was kind enough to drive us up the hill as she felt bad for us about the weather.

She was very excited when she picked us up, though, and we showed her photos of our “silver fox.”

We dubbed him Mister Silver Fox. That one scruffy-looking little fellow seemed to be one of the hardest workers we saw. He returned multiple times with a full beak of fish and we kept joking that this guy was the one all the ladies wanted because he was a provider. Despite his inflamed looking eye, he was quite literally the catch of the day.

During the day’s conversation, Halla had shared a bit about Icelandic appreciation and beliefs about elves, which was quite fascinating. As someone who has written fantasy novels in her teens, I remembered researching folklore when I was about thirteen years old. That was the first time I ever had seen Reykjavík written out. Iceland has a special connection to elves and other mystical creatures and Halla told us that Icelandic people believe that it is best not to enter elven territories and that this is the country where elves are consulted during some road building too.

I love a place with history, and folklore is something I always enjoy. Having been to places like Kvernufoss, which feels a lot like a place where a troll might live, I understand where they’re coming from. And Iceland definitely feels a little bit magical.

At night, as we were going for dinner, we had our regular fill of the dish of the day and shared a drink while some of us peeked at the ongoing World Cup games. The restaurant was fuller than the previous days, as the summer solstice event was just a day away. And once plates were getting empty, a man with a guitar stood up.

Troubadour is a profession, just like the species of Elf that I only really knew from fantasy novels. But apparently Iceland has a culture for travelling people that take instruments to restaurants and sing a few songs.

This troubadour was going to be performing at the summer solstice event as well, and he graced us by singing a few Icelandic and international songs at the restaurant the night before.

I love little glimpses and impressions of culture and local entertainment like these whenever I travel. And while I definitely don’t think I have a talent to pronounce the Icelandic language, hearing it sung made me fall in love with it a little bit more. As a language lover, this is now definitely on my list of languages I want to learn for fun after I retire.

On this day, I finally got to capture a razorbill sitting still. I really liked the faces of these birds with their dark beady eyes, though thanks to the next morning, every time I see them, I now think of them as Mister and Mrs. Unibrow, because that’s what I dubbed them when I saw a head-on photo of them for the first time during our critique session.

But none as successful or recognizable as “Mister Silver Fox”.

We had seen him circle for a while and it was quite easy to track him because his face was so dark and he had a very inflamed eye on one side. He reminded me of two-face from Batman, but in puffin form.

He was an incredibly successful hunter, though. In the hours we spent on the cliff observing him, he consistently came back with new food for his mate and chicks.

But really, the highlight of my day was finally capturing puffins cuddling up and tucking their beaks in to protect themselves from the elements.

When I first signed up for the workshop, seeing a photo of a cozy puffin in Jeroen’s portfolio really struck a chord with me. It was a pose I hadn’t really seen before, and I had seen a lot of puffin photos on the internet. But this shot made the puffin feel so adorable, and it was amazing how little you had to see of its face for it to still be recognizable as a puffin.

So, I really had that on my list to see and photograph.

I was not disappointed. That day, I finally crossed it off the shot bucket list.

And, suddenly, it was our penultimate day on Grímsey. And the weather was as wet as it gets. Originally, the weather forecast had predicted that it would be sunny and nice and we had planned to do a loop around the entire island.

There are a lot of areas of Grímsey that we had wanted to explore, but due to the conditions, we didn’t get to see as many places as we had hoped. But nevertheless, we had a huge array of weather and in photography, different weather is actually more valuable than different locations if all you’re photographing is a very small bird. If the blurry background is in a bit of a different area, doesn’t matter as much as if the entire mood is different.

So, I wasn’t complaining. And since I had actually bought rain-pants just for this trip—I didn’t mind actually using them on this day.

On this day, Halla told us about the various jobs she has on the island (I think it was 5 or 6 different roles). It was fascinating to learn about the organization of town. But the most adorable thing was hearing Halla talk about “going down-town” anyways so she could give us a lift to the photographing spot.

Grímsey’s downtown, or city centre, is about four houses, so it was quite a cute statement.

What was incredibly interesting to note in the photography was how each day and with each weather, the type of fish and size of fish varied a lot.

On this day, we saw a lot of puffins with very young, transparent-looking eels and shrimp, so it seems the weather affects what they’re finding.

While on previous days we had seen a lot of bigger fish, this day we saw much more small, but also a lot of puffins with fish, more than the previous day it seemed. So it is really worth going out each day.

Now, the school of Grímsey doesn’t currently have enough children to function. All the children leave for the mainland during the school year, but the school serves as a community center. There’s a small stage and a place to put up tables, and the school was the location of the summer solstice event that was the plan for the night.

We were welcomed in, got some drinks, and then learned that the women’s association is responsible for organizing the event. Around a hundred people were on the island for the event, which is a bit crazy to think about, since that’s about as many as you get. You could really tell that the event meant a lot to the community. People’s families were here and everyone dressed up and was excited for it.

The Troubadour was back and not only was there a performance but even communal singing, with a projector showing the lyrics so that everyone could sing along.

I had really wished for an evening of midnight sun on our final night here, but getting to take part and experience a piece of island culture was a lovely consolation prize.

Overnight, the sun had come out, and as we woke up, it was almost the same type of weather as the day we had arrived.

I was feeling almost sad to return to civilization. This place had something so calming, magical, and homely about it that I could sense a nostalgia for it before I even left.

But luckily, we still had quite a few hours before we had to go. After our final critique session, we headed into town for another round of hot dogs for lunch.

And this time we got to see the Hot Dog Stand.

Enjoyed a hot dog with all of downtown at our feet.

And then not only did I notice the absolutely perfect keychain on the stand—I also saw that there was ice cream on the menu!

So finally, I got to have my taste of Icelandic Ice Cream with licorice and caramel sauce and it was an absolute winner.

On our final day, we also finally got to have a look at the souvenir shop and the grocery store in town. And while I had already bought my hand-knit Icelandic sweater in a lovely knit shop on my road trip, nestled between the most gorgeous mountain views, a couple days earlier, secretly I had really hoped to find a hand-knit item with a puffin motif. And—Grímsey delivered in the shape of a handmade hat by a local woman.

So obviously, it had not only to come home with me, it also instantly went up on the head!

The highlight was seeing the grocery store, though.

I honestly love nothing more than browsing a grocery store in general whenever I travel to a place, but visiting a grocery store in a remote area and seeing what people consider necessary is so fascinating to me. I stocked up on licorice to take home, though the pepper licorice I only found at the airport! While most Nordic countries are known for their salty licorice, Iceland makes mostly sweet licorice. The only unconventional spiced version they produce is pepper. (Very delicious!)

But Grímsey’s grocery store isn’t just a place to stock up on food items. As soon as you step in, not only do you see the bright orange wall with an outline of the island. You’ll also notice that it is filled with handwritten messages.

Halla told us that this was “the guestbook.” The entire island has a guestbook.

Now, as a calligrapher, you can’t really give me the option to write on a wall and in a place I loved and not expect me to take you up on the opportunity.

So, I grabbed the offered Sharpie, and while I could’ve written—I don’t know (checks the word count of this article)—over 10,000 words (I trimmed it, a little bit) about how much I had loved my time, I did what I do best as a calligrapher rather than a writer: distill it down into a simple word I can add a flourish to.

Now, after saying thanks and checking out the town, it was time to go and say goodbye to the birds.

We had a few final hours to photograph. And since it was very sunny, and sunshine makes the light harsh and contrasty, I didn’t really go out with a lot of hope to shoot a final few bangers, more like a few goodbye shots that are just a more contrasty version of what I had already captured.

But Grímsey had one last surprise for us. Something even Jeroen said he had never quite seen like this before, despite coming to the island many years already.

And that was a puffin with a lot of eyeballs to distract in its mouth. Including a tentacly fellow.

And after that, it was unfortunately time to pack our things, get them on the ferry, and leave.

The ride on the ferry was cold and windy, but the water was still. It took 3 hours to reach our destination, and when we arrived, we drove past the heart-shaped traffic lights of Akureyri to our hotel and then had our final lovely dinner before it was time to fly back to Reykjavík in the early morning.

It’s been over three months since I left the island of Grímsey. In the meantime, I’m back at work while sorting through the photos when I have a minute to spare.

I came home from a place that was 13°C in the middle of summer to an absolute heat wave, which definitely made me miss Iceland. But it wasn’t just the better temperatures.

I still remember the first time I came home from Scotland. A place I’ve returned to multiple times because it’s become a place of comfort, a place that feels welcoming and like a little piece of me stayed there. I don’t get this feeling as often anymore.

But as I stood on the ferry home, there was a part of me that felt a need to come back. And not just to Iceland, but to that tiny island specifically. I’ve since read in forums online of people that wondered whether it was worth sacrificing a day or two of Iceland exploration to see Grímsey and I’ve read a few times that it is not worth it.

Iceland is filled with much more exciting landscapes; that is true. But this small island offers something very few places on Earth offer: a true feeling of remoteness, a sense of calm, and a glimpse into a wonderful and welcoming small community where everyone chimes in to make the place run.

This place is not for everyone, but if the right people find it, it has the power to leave a mark. There is a part of me that still wishes to see Skomer, just because it has been on my list for so long, but I’m not actually sure it will give me what Grímsey did.

Especially since I feel like I’ve come back with not just a couple of good puffin shots, but basically an entire portfolio of puffins.

As for a review on the workshop? This “not a fan of group trip” person might add an * to that, that reads something like: “Does not apply to photography-focused workshops and trips”. And yes, I’d do another one in a heart beat.