The glacier lagoon you can reach without a tour

On Iceland's south coast there is a lagoon full of icebergs, and the strangest thing about it is how easy it is to reach. No tour, no guide, no boat required: you just drive up, park, and walk to the water's edge. Jokulsarlon is a glacial lagoon where a tongue of the great Vatnajokull ice cap calves directly into a deep pool, and the result is a slow-moving raft of icebergs, some the size of cars, drifting toward the sea in shades of white and electric blue.

You can pay for a boat trip out among them, and plenty of people do. But you do not need to. Standing on the shore, watching house-sized chunks of centuries-old ice turn and crack and float past in near silence, is more than enough, and it costs nothing but the drive to get there.

Then comes the part most people do not realise is right there. Cross under the road bridge to the ocean side and you reach Diamond Beach, a stretch of black volcanic sand where the icebergs that make it out to sea get washed back up by the waves. They sit scattered across the dark sand like enormous gemstones, glittering and slowly melting, each one different, the whole scene rearranging itself with every tide.

We arrived in the evening, driving the Ring Road with no plan beyond stopping at whatever looked extraordinary, and this stopped us cold. Of all the things in Iceland you can experience entirely under your own steam, with no booking and no operator, this is near the top. Just drive up, and stand there.