One Night in Iceland’s Famous Ion Adventure Hotel

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

Last spring, my mom and I planned our own take on the 2012 mother-son road trip movie The Guilt Trip (starring Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogan) in Iceland. My mom doesn’t like to fly and has always wanted to see the northern lights, so Iceland seemed like an ideal international option, less than a six-hour flight from Boston.

I wanted to find a place for us to stay in the countryside outside of Reykjavik that we could use as a home base for our day trips to the island’s famous natural attractions. More than a decade into the country’s unprecedented tourism boom, there are plenty of Icelandic hotels and rentals that fit that bill, with varying offerings and price points. For much of that time, Ion Adventure Hotel has sat at or near the top of just about every Iceland travel recommendation list. (Of course, it should be noted that the small island country’s tourism boom has not come without adverse impacts on its housing market.)

In 2011, an abandoned prefab structure—a former staff building for a geothermal power plant—was acquired for development as a hotel, with Los Angeles-based design studio Minarc (helmed by an Icelandic couple) behind the renovation. Since it opened two years later, the 43-room boutique hotel has been praised by publications like Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, and Outside, included in the collections of Michelin Guide and Design Hotels, won a number of design and sustainability-related awards, and even been featured on BBC’s Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby. There have been some notable exceptions to the praise, though. In 2015, for example, a New York Times writer said that "if a crucial mark of a luxury hotel is seamless orchestration," the Ion still had "a way to go," citing more than one unfortunate double-booking scenario and a cramped, un-soundproofed room.

For our purposes though, staying at the Ion would put us next to Nesjavellir, the country’s second largest geothermal plant, 20 minutes by car from the UNESCO-listed Thingvellir National Park. We’d also be just a few driving hours from the waterfalls of Seljalandsfoss, Reynisfjara’s black sand beach, and Geysir, namesake of, well, geysers. Plus, I wanted to see how the hotel would fare from my own perspective all these years after its debut, as well as in the eyes of my mom, a self-educated design maven. So I booked us two nights there to find out.

Thursday

6:00 a.m.: Our red eye lands first thing. To find our rental car, we step outside into gale force winds, thrilled to be on a balmy spring break! After fueling up with coffee and pastries from a Brauð & Co location along our route, we are on our way inland.

11:00 a.m.: The infinitely Instagrammed Blue Lagoon has been closed due to recent volcanic activity, so instead we visit Laugarvatn Fontana, closer to our hotel, to pass the time until our 4 p.m. check-in. Fontana sits on a small lake and draws a fraction of the crowds of Iceland’s most famous hot springs. I sample the numerous baths and go from the sauna straight into the lake for a cold plunge. The geothermal baths are a panacea for my jet lag and post-airplane skin.

3:30 p.m.: My mother, who apparently loves greenery, thinks we’ve reached the apocalypse: snow-dusted mountains, volcanic rock covered in moss, diminutive Icelandic horses, and not a car—or person—in sight, as we drive toward a boxy structure rising above the landscape through a gust of steam. On its stilts, the Ion does look something like a postapocalyptic bunker.

Luckily, it’s a bunker with amenities. A stone-slab reception desk sits between a simple seating area with angular couches and ovular papasan chairs on one side and a bar and espresso machine on the other. A receptionist who looks like a European version of Vanderpump Rules star Tom Schwartz checks us in and signs us up for the northern lights wake-up call. The Ion sells itself as a northern lights destination; photos online show silky emerald ribbons dancing over the structure’s flat roof, and the hotel website touts the views from the floor-to-ceiling windows of its Northern Lights Bar. From my prior research, I know that April is late for the season, but we hold out hope.

Our "standard room" is cozy and European-sized, grounded by two twin beds, not unlike those in a student dorm, with modern accents in dramatic grayscale—fresh white linens, a wooly black throw. My mom and I sidestep around each other as we unpack. Using the woolen throw as a yoga mat, I do a Yoga with Adriene video and my mom breaks jet lag rules and takes a nap.

4:00 p.m.: I head down to the Lava Spa, which has changing rooms and a dimly lit "relaxation room" with low chairs draped in more fluffy throws. I’ve brought a book, thinking I’ll read there, but the outdoor swimming area is completely vacant. I dart from the men’s locker room and into the geothermal pool built into the wooden deck below the concrete, metal, and glass mass propped up by tubular concrete stilts. I have the space to myself. Sometimes, I find sleek, brutalist-style design off-putting—cold and angular. Yet here, the sharp lines and stark materials integrate with the volcanic landscape. The pool is shallow enough that I sit on the bottom and rapturously read Daniel Lefferts’ Ways and Means, losing track of time.

Before returning to the room, I ask Icelandic Tom Schwartz where I can find drinking water. He assures me that the tap water is quite clean but to make sure I drink only cold water "because hot water is terrible." He’s right about the tap—it’s shockingly fresh. But the hotel’s geothermal location also means strong whiffs of sulfur permeate the room when I use the hot water. Honestly, it could be worse. I crack a window after my shower.

6:30 p.m.: We eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, Silfra, which serves New Nordic cuisine with local produce and fresh catches (both nights, it’s Arctic char). The space is neatly appointed and understated. Beyond an oversize painting of a fish spanning the length of one wall, the decor is simple, if not slightly underwhelming. We’re the first ones to sit down—the only ones for a while—and I can’t help but feel like the whole experience is White Lotus coded. My negroni comes out in a stylish glass, lightweight and flaring open at the lip. I compliment the server on it, and she responds, "We’re a design hotel."

My mom and I both love the hostess, a woman with colorful highlights framing her face, partially because she’s so generous in pouring my mom’s wine, and partially because she’s so generous in general. I order the Arctic char with a pumpkin puree and we split velvety skyr topped with blueberry puree for dessert.

Friday

8:00 a.m.: We return to Silfra for an Icelandic breakfast spread: fluffy scrambled eggs, pastries with Nutella, Nespresso coffee, and more skyr, before embarking on a day trip to some spots along the Southern coast. By daylight, the winding, two-lane road leading to and from the Ion is less daunting.

April is a pleasant, though chilly, shoulder season, so we enjoy smaller crowds at both Seljalandsfoss and Reynisfjara. At the latter, the waves crash high while I admire the basalt monoliths towering over the Atlantic. We find lunch at Black Crust Pizzeria in Vik, where the pizza is thin crust and fresh, and a moss wall has a neon sign that reads, Pizza and Wifi, Baby.

4:00 p.m.: We return to the Ion for another early evening session at Lava Spa and dinner at Silfra, but our sights are set on a bigger prize tonight: viewing the aurora borealis from the Northern Lights Bar that protrudes from the stilted end of the structure and looks out onto the vast lava field.

9:30 p.m.: With a full stomach and an espresso martini in hand, my mom and I snag a spot on one of the low-slung, modular couches situated on the elevated platform near the walls of windows. We have one eye each trained out toward the scenery, should a quick burst of brilliant lights dart across the darkening sky while we discuss Jill Zarin’s chaotic Below Deck appearance. We keep our voices down so we don’t disturb the guests sitting on the sofa behind us.

As the night rolls in, a crowd of about 15 tourists from the United States, Italy, and Thailand amasses in the Northern Lights Bar viewing area. For most if not all of us, this will be the main event of our respective trips and we’re holding our breath. The common game plan seems to be to have a drink in the bar, wait past dark for an aurora sighting, and, if they appear, dash down the stairs and out the exterior door. Our Italian bartender says they might be visible around midnight. At the hour mark, I start feeling slightly pessimistic about our odds. Drinks finished, we go to the room for our coats just in case.

10:40 p.m.: Not two minutes after we return to the room, we receive a call from the front desk that the northern lights are visible. We run outside and join a crowd with iPhones aimed overhead. (Certain smartphone photography settings can pick up light that’s too faint or fast-moving for the naked eye to see, which is often the case with the aurora borealis.) My mom and I both, unfortunately, have iPhones too old and slow to capture the spectacle. 

We look through the camera view of a man from New York’s newer iPhone and see brilliant wisps of greens and purples. Once we know what to look for, we begin to identify the white streaks of light dancing above us. When we squint hard enough, we can make out some faint green light with our bare eyes.

11:45 p.m.: At one point in The Guilt Trip, the mother and son go to the Grand Canyon, and once they’ve seen it, they don’t know what else to do, so they go back in their car and keep driving. After about an hour of staring up at the northern lights with the other bundled-up Ion guests, my mom and I return to our room and watch out the window for a bit longer from the warmth of our modest quarters, a sulfuric smell from my evening shower still lingering in the air. The hotel might not live up to everyone’s idea of luxury, but I’m glad to have seen—and smelled—it for myself.

Top photo courtesy Ion Adventure Hotel

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