Northeast Iceland

Norðurland eystra is built around Akureyri, a town of about 20,000 at the head of the long Eyjafjörður fjord, with a walkable centre, cafés, and one of the world's northernmost botanical gardens (open summers, free). It makes the natural base for the Diamond Circle, a roughly 250 km loop east of the town. Goðafoss, the "waterfall of the gods," drops in a wide horseshoe about 50 km from Akureyri. Lake Mývatn is ringed by geology you can walk through — the Hverir mud pots, the Hverfell crater, the Grjótagjá cave fissure — and the Krafla caldera nearby still steams from eruptions that ran 1975–1984, with the Víti crater and a geothermal plant on its rim. Further on, Dettifoss is among Europe's most powerful waterfalls. On the coast, Húsavík has Iceland's most reliable whale watching, with humpbacks regular in Skjálfandi bay through summer.