When on holiday you are likely to look up the popular activities to enjoy in the area that you are staying and, depending on the climate, weather etc, some activities may not come to mind but your search results may surprise you.
In hot, beachy areas like Miami or the Gold Coast you will find lots of options for things like surfing and snorkelling, which come with amazing views and unforgettable experiences of nature. For colder places like Iceland you would be more likely to find hiking, in-vehicle tours and cosy spa-like retreats to enjoy the cold and the scenery it creates from the warmth of a car or heated room, but Iceland has a brilliant place to go snorkelling – that is, if you don’t mind the cold too much!
Silfra rift is in Þingellir National Park (pronounced thing-vet-lir) which is in the tectonic boundary of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates that run through Iceland’s landmass. Swimming between tectonic plates is definitely an experience to boast about, but what makes this rift particularly special is how spectacularly clear the water is, with visibility of 70-80 metres. There are three sites that snorkelling is commonly practiced – Silfra Hall, Silfra Cathedral and Silfra Lagoon.
This area is also a common stop point on the Golden Circle routes, so after your aquatic adventure you can walk through Almannagjá (translating to ‘the public’s canyon’) which features views of the river Öxará, Lögbjarg (Speaker’s rock, the central point of the Alþingi parliament meetings which are now held in Reykjavík) and Öxarárfoss (The waterfall of Öxará, a man-made waterfall to divert water to Almannagjá way back in the 9th Century) – so overall, not a bad place to visit and full of historical, political and natural sites, all in arms reach.