Welcome to Iceland Guest - Your Online Travel Guide.

Iceland Guest is an information website for your travel to Iceland. On this site you can get all the tourist information you need for your vacation in Iceland. We hope that you will find this online travel guide useful in planning your holidays in Iceland.

About Iceland
Iceland is a refreshingly unconventional travel destination. The Icelandic nature is unspoilt, exotic and mystical with its spouting geysers, active volcanoes, tumbling waterfalls, towering mountains, vast lava plains and magical lakes. Iceland’s fjords, glaciers and highland plains present visitors with some of the most beautiful and enchanting places they will ever see, as well as a rare feeling of utter tranquillity.

For travelers on a quest for action, Iceland’s pristine nature offers great potential for outdoor activities such as snowmobiling, horse riding, cave exploring, hiking, swimming, skiing, river rafting, kayaking and mountain safaris on modified four-wheel drives, to name but a few. Iceland supports a surprisingly diverse Nordic flora and fauna and is an ideal place for ornithology enthusiasts, while also offering some of the world’s best whale watching destinations.

About Reykjavik
Reykjavík sometimes feels like a cosmopolitan capital and a tiny seaside village - all wrapped up in one. But Reykjavík has the best of both worlds; the qualities of a modern, forward-looking society complemented by a close connection to Iceland‚s beautiful and unspoilt nature.

Reykjavík’s legendary nightlife is bolstered by plentiful cultural and social happenings in addition to an abundance of first-class restaurants. The size of Reykjavik city centre is also limited enough to allow for easy navigation by foot. Reykjavík has been described as a young and daring city that is characterized by strong contrasts. Conveniently small, clean and safe, it is more or less free from the major problems that haunt many other capitals. Big city events are frequent, the winter lights festival finished recently with thousands of participants and more tourist at this time of the year than we are used to.

in Focus

25.4.2007

Search for Oil in Icelandic Waters to Begin?

A report regarding the search for oil in Icelandic waters was released by the Icelandic National Energy Authority (OS) on Monday. If accepted, the search could begin next year.

The territory mentioned in the report as a likely oil zone is known as drekasvaedid (“the dragon zone”), located on the Jan Mayen ridge off Iceland’s northeastern coast and only partly in Icelandic waters, as RÚV reports.

“There are about 3,600 square kilometers, which we consider very promising and we have to investigate more closely,” said OS’ project leader Kristinn Einarsson. “Compared with the size of other such areas abroad, this is quite large.”

OS believes oil can be found in the dragon zone at a depth of 1,500 meters.

The next step involves plans and environmental impact estimations put before parliament. Once they have been accepted, laws have to be changed and taxes and tariffs agreed upon. After approximately one year, permits for research could be issued to private companies.

“We believe it is our duty to harness our natural resources as much as we can and see whether there are opportunities [in the dragon zone],” Einarsson said. “I’m fairly certain there is oil there, but time will show whether there is enough oil to be harnessed.”

It takes 24 hours to travel to the dragon zone by ship and it can only be reached by air with larger helicopters.

Source: Iceland Review (www.icelandreview.com).

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