The Month Of Iceland: September 2025 Recap

I’m writing this while looking at the sun rising over Iceland as adorably short legged Icelandic horses graze in my front yard and a variety of birds start their day playing in the lake nearby. Literally, what is my life?!? But before I get ahead of myself, let’s see what I got up to this month.

I Went Back To Iceland🇮🇸!

I knew that my Partner and I wanted to go to the UK for his first trip there this summer, but how to get there was another question. All the airlines I looked at seemed surprisingly expensive. I get that it’s the high season of summer and later learned that Wimbeldon was happening in London while we were there (oops 🙂 ), but I still thought there must be a better solution.

Enter IcelandAir 🙂 . I’ve documented my first flights with them on this very blog and while they have a few quirks, I was overall very impressed with their price, offerings and customer service.

• Review: IcelandAir – Boston, MA to Reykjavík, Iceland
• Review: IcelandAir – Reykjavík, Iceland to Zürich, Switzerland
• Review: IcelandAir – Amsterdam, The Netherlands to NYC

So when I saw that their flight from NYC to London was half the price of other airlines, included a free stopover in Iceland, and allowed me to do a multi-city flight that would save us thousands of dollars – I was sold 🙂 . 

In the end I booked flights on IcelandAir from NYC to London to Iceland to Denver –  for $643.73 total per person. Yeah, my jaw dropped too. Not only was that a lot of savings, but it would allow me to break up a flight crossing the Atlantic to return to one of my favorite recent destinations, Iceland!

• “Is It Worth It?” The Blue Lagoon: Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Spring
• Review: Blue Car Rental – Iceland‘s Best Rental Car Company

Unlike our wild adventure circumnavigating the country in a week, this time we stayed in one place with one goal: seeing the Aurora Borealis. Our last visit included the aurora, but somehow it was always too cloudy for us to see and even our taxi driver in Reykjavík said “You never saw that aurora this week? Wow – you are unlucky.” Thank you random man! That definitely makes us feel better 😉 . 

Luckily this trip was a success 🙂 . Despite our Airbnb host saying this wasn’t a great time for northern lights sightings, and our weather apps saying it would rain all week, we rarely had a cloudy day and there was actually a solar storm while we were there that created the gorgeous colors above. 

We also enjoyed being able to act more like locals by going to a local hot spring and exploring lesser-know national parks around Iceland. It was a wonderfully relaxing week and I can’t wait to go back 🙂 . 

I Knitted (And Taught It)

An Icelandic Sheep Headband

I’ve mentioned in previous monthly recaps how I now buy local yarn in every country I visit since I started knitting in January. This month took that to another level. I bought Icelandic sheep wool at a local yarn store and then made a headband that depicted Icelandic sheep. The synergy 😉 .

It was my first colorwork and I did it in one sitting over a few hours, which was unexpected. But it was so fun that I just kept going and then it was done!

I then wore it when we wen’t aurora chasing and believe it was a bit of a good luck charm 🙂 . I also realized that I have a new appreciation for sheep since I use their wool to knit. As a result, I felt differently about them this year compared to when I was in Iceland last year. This time I wasn’t just fawning over baby sheep and asking their mamas to get out of the road when I’m driving, but I was appreciating their coats and thanking them for sharing their lovely wool🥰. 

Teaching My Mom

Some big new news this month is that I taught my Mom to knit! After only learning 8 months ago myself, I offered to teach her after her attempts to learn crochet ended in frustration. She claims I’m a good teacher, which was good to hear and she understood how to knit in less than an hour, which is awesome. I’m curious if she’ll be infected with the knitting bug like I was 🙂 . 

I Finished My First Sweater!

I had the goal of finishing my first knitted sweater before the Rhinebeck Wool Festival in October and I did it! I ended up getting bored of doing the same thing on the body of the sweater and instead did the sleeves and collar before getting back to the body. So my sweater was a crop top for a long time 🙂 . But now it’s done after two months of knitting and I love it! 

This month I also bought a pricey knitting kit that came with more knitting needles and accessories in a gorgeous case. Having more knitting tools definitely helped simplify all of my knitting projects this month and knitting is quickly becoming my most expensive hobby 😉 . Also just a heads up that I have a profile on Ravelry in case you want to be knitting friends.

I Played Video Games

As usual, the Sims had another monthly sale and I bought the High School Years Expansion Pack for 50% off. Surprisingly I’ve found it to be really fun and unfortunately like the Seasons and Growing Together Expansion Pack, I think the High School Years EP should be base game because without it, teens are very boring 🙂 . 

When I bought this new pack, I used the creator code lilsimsie to give her 5% of the purchase price. The code doesn’t give me a discount, but it’s a nice way to support some of my favorite Sims creators and give EA less of my money. And speaking of giving EA less money…

EA’s Sale

I play a lot of Sims 4 and this month we got some sad news about the game. 

EA is being sold to a very conservative private investor group that includes Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund (which is owned by their government that commits endless human rights abuses, such as executing journalists and queer people) and Jared Kushner’s investment firm. This news literally made me start crying and I don’t cry easily.

I told my Partner that tears seemed like a ridiculous reaction to this gamer news, but he said that Sims is a game I love and have loved for most of my life so it makes sense. Fair enough.

This deal isn’t official until it goes through a EA investor vote, but if it happens, the sale will occur in Summer 2026. And if this deal goes through, I won’t be giving EA my money anymore. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on this game and played the Sims 4 for almost 1,500 hours over the last 10 years, but if this deal goes through – I’m out. 

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. I also kept with my tradition of watching the ridiculous movie Eurovision while in Iceland. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

1. Eurovision Song Contest
2. The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
3. Knives Out
4. War of the Worlds (2025)
5. Dune
6. Dune: Part Two
7. The Mummy (1999)
8. The Assessment
9. Next Goal Wins
10. The Shallows
11. Final Destination Bloodlines
12. The Substance
13. High Potential (S2)
14. Taskmaster (S19)

I also had a call with a friend that I haven’t really talked to since high school, because a mutual friend I saw in England mentioned she’s an avid knitter! My new hobby is bringing people together 🙂 . 

I Read 20 Books

Here were my favorite reads this month:

1. Abundance by Ezra Klein
2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
3. Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here.

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I Changed Ad Networks

As I mentioned in the below post, I was shocked when Mediavine reached out to me last month saying it was time for me to graduate from their Journey program that I joined in January. I didn’t have regular Mediavine’s required 50,000 minimum sessions and I originally thought this might be some kind of prank, but nope! So I’m with regular Mediavine now.

• Review: Journey By Mediavine – An Awesome Ad Network For Websites With 10,000 Sessions

I Wrote 5 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Bath: August 2025 Recap
2. MY PARTNER IS RETIRING!!!
3. Review: Stonehenge & The Cotswolds Tour From Bath, England
4. Journey By Mediavine – An Awesome Ad Network For Websites With 10,000 Sessions
5. Review: Singapore Air Economy Class – Tokyo, Japan to LAX for $44

I also was asked to be a guest on The (Humble) Warrior Podcast:

Physical

Sleep

Sleep was a bit of a challenge while in Iceland only because I was either staying up or waking up around 1am every night to look for the aurora. And when we saw something, I was too excited to fall back asleep.

And then sunrise was at like 6am so if I didn’t use my eye mask, I would be up at 6 regardless of with the sun blasting me in the face 🙂 . It was all worth it, but I did end up getting back into napping as a hobby as a result of this new, strange sleep schedule. 

Food

I was originally thinking that I’d have to go off keto in Iceland and eat random ready meals like I did last year when we circumnavigated the country and moved Airbnbs daily, which made it difficult to cook. But that wasn’t the case this time!

I know the country and its grocery store options a lot better now, so I was able to plan around going to a large grocery store (the Bonús in Reykjavík) and stock up on all my usual keto cooking and snacking staples. So instead of going off keto as planned, I stayed on it outside of our travel day. We got a last Fish & Chips at our favorite chippy in England and then ate fresh IKEA meatballs at the Iceland IKEA – and I have no regrets 🙂 .

So I added a week I thought I’d have to take off back into the mix. I might just make my 65% keto target for the year as a result 😉 . This month I ate keto 80% of the time and took 6 days off keto. 

Exercise

My main exercise continues to be daily PT/pilates/yoga along with walking along Icelandic lakes, mountains and to/from waterfalls…or in one instance, falling towards a waterfall – ouch! I would not recommend it 🙂 . Be careful on uneven, possibly slippery surfaces people!

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

The Aurora Borealis

As I mentioned, I finally saw the Northern Lights! And in preparing for this experience, I did way too much research that I will now share with you 🙂 . 

It might seem obvious, but to increase the chance of seeing the northern lights you need to look…North 🙂 . Wild I know.

While we were in Iceland in September, it never actually became “night” – the darkest it got was “Astronomical Twilight” so it looked like the sun was only just setting at midnight because it was barely over the horizon all night. It was wild to see that while I was up at 1am looking at constellations. It was also helpful for stargazing and aurora chasing that the moon didn’t rise for 3 days of our visit. 

Every night I used the apps Hello Aurora and SpaceWeather to see what was up. They both allow you to set notifications so it can tell you if other people are posting pictures of the aurora near you (with Hello Aurora) or if the KP index is over 4 (with SpaceWeather), which indicates solar and aurora activity. 

On the night we first saw the aurora, there was only a KP of 3 and Hello Aurora said there was 97% cloud cover and a 23% chance to see the aurora – but we saw it. We also saw shooting stars at the same time, which was a magical way to experience one of my bucket list items. 

However, the next night was a solar storm with a KP index of 6 and 7. Hilariously Hello Aurora stopped working that night after being flawless for a week – I guess the sun was too powerful to measure 🙂 . In addition to those apps, I also used this Icelandic website that locals told me is what they use to see the aurora forecast. 

I got lucky that we had a weak aurora “dress rehearsal” the night before the solar storm because I quickly realized that all of my photography tips did not work on the aurora with my Pixel 8a. 

I needed to keep my shots steady in the wind and I don’t own a tripod so I had to get creative. I got a tupperware container and hand towels to make a DIY stand for my phone that I could place on the ground to face towards the sky and capture long exposures of up to 4 minutes. 

On my Pixel 8a I used the Night Sight camera function and selected the longest exposure possible, which is usually called Astrophotography mode. It then takes a long exposure while counting down on your main screen so you know when it’s done. While doing that it actually takes a photo and a video, which I will be posting to my Insta when I get to it 🙂 . 

Birds

My birding went to the stratosphere this month. The first morning I awakened in Iceland it was to Whooper Swans gliding right in front of me while an uncommon Red-Throated Loon screamed good morning. And I loved it 🙂 . I grabbed my mini binoculars and a coffee and watched the world wake up. By the end of the month my bird list was booming. 

Manx Shearwater, Meadow Pipit, Red-Throated Loon, Whooper Swan, Graylag Goose , Pink-Footed Goose (which are basically only in Iceland, Greenland and the tip of Scotland/Ireland), Common Eider, Redwing, Whimbrel, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Iceland Gull, European Starling, White Wagtail, European Golden Plover, Arctic Tern, Northern Fulmar, Black-Legged Kittiwake and a Green-Winged Teal 

For that last bird, we actually saw it being chased by a Merlin and I guess it got him because the duck fell from the sky and hit our car while we were driving. Luckily my Mom is cool under pressure, but it was scary. Birding can be wild y’all. 

Creativity

My creativity has been cranking after some rest, but in terms of writing this blog, that has at times meant getting excited about writing something that’s not next in my posting schedule. I guess it’s a good thing that I make the schedule 😉 .

Emotional

My emotions were ok this month. They went from generally really high in Iceland to having a dip when we got back to America for the first time in months. It was a bit hard to separate how much of that are emotions in response to all the horrible things going on in this country and how much was my clinical depression🤣. I guess they can feed into each other. 

But by the end of the month I was in a similar situation as in the beginning. I was with my Mom and my Partner looking at the beauty of nature, which always helps me get perspective and definitely lifts my mood.

Money

What even is money 😉 ? I keep creeping closer to becoming a Black Female Millionaire and still can’t really make myself care about a budget. The fact that I received my quarterly dividends this month didn’t help change that feeling either.

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And here’s where my money netted out at the end of the month:

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Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in September! We’re currently in Colorado, which I’ll write about in next month’s recap and then we’re ending this 3 month travel extravaganza and heading back to our new homebase in Upstate NY. I’m excited to see my family again after 1/4 of 2025 passed in a whirlwind of travel. Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
5. The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
6. The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
8. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap
10. The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap
11. The Month Of Amsterdam: November 2024 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2024 Recap

Monthly (2025)

1. The Month Of Yuki Matsuri: January 2025 Recap
2. The Month Of Auckland: February 2025 Recap
3. The Month Of Sakura: March 2025 Recap
4. The Month Of Seattle: April 2025 Recap
5. The Month Of Settling Down(ish): May 2025 Recap
6. The Month Of Machu Picchu: June 2025 Recap
7. The Month Of The UK: July 2025 Recap
8. The Month Of Bath: August 2025 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?