Jonathan Tourtellot
Iceland

Some places you’re expected to fall in love with—Italy, San Francisco, Bora Bora. But others ambush the affections, taking you by surprise. Thus for me and Iceland, the first, just-curious stopover sparking a return visit, and another, and another. And still I go back, to experience again the low, golden subarctic light; the wild, sweeping, black and green and white landscape; the intense, well-educated people, speaking their medieval language into snappy new cell phones.

The island is extremely volcanic; geothermal forces heat the houses, generate electricity, warm the swimming pools, grow tropical plants, burn through the glaciers. Iceland takes duality to its extremes. Winter days are too short. Summer nights are too short. There are places where the ground is hot beneath your feet. There are days when floating, puffy clouds seem to hover at ceiling height in the cool, clear-as-ice sky.

Nowhere do hell and heaven feel closer.

Jonathan Tourtellot is a senior editor at TRAVELER.