Bessastaðir, the Icelandic Presidential Residence (March, 2013)

While You Are There: Well, you didn’t come to Iceland just to see the presidential palace, did you? Here’s all the awesome stuff we crammed into a five day trip. Blue Lagoon, Northern Lights & seafood dinner tour, the penis museum, Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, Reynisdrangar, Gullfoss, Geysir geothermal field, Sólheimajökull glacier, Reynisfjara, Viking horses, elves, great food, and too many people trying to teach us to say Eyjafjallajökull.

Why It’s On My List: Two reasons (1) The novelty factor. How wild is it that you can take a tourist bus right up to the president’s house? There are no gates, walls, security. Our tour guide kindly requested that we not go up the driveway to the house out of respect for his privacy, but that’s all. (2) Because I didn’t have room for anything else from Iceland on this list but the whole country is a wonderful, magical novelty. Go now! From Denver (and I’m assuming a lot of other cities) you can have a free layover in Iceland if you fly Iceland Air, so no excuses! Also, their flight attendants are the most fun. Sorry, Southwest.

For this year’s A-Z Blog Challenge, I’ve decided to showcase 26 of my favorite places in the world. I’ve only been to 22 of the 196 countries, so I’ve got some more travelling to do, but these places are well worth a visit.