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Russell Crowe's Icelandic Souvenir is a New Addiction to 'Skyr'

Russell Crowe has a new addiction. It's called "Skyr" and, though it may sound scandalous, Skyr is actually just Iceland's traditional yogurt which Crowe discovered while filming Noah there last month. Now that he's back in Australia, it seems Crowe's in crisis and having a hard time finding his new favorite food.

"I seem to have left Iceland with an addiction to Skyr...can you buy it anywhere else in the world?," Russell recently tweeted.

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In-Flight WiFi / Icelandair / WiFi / In-Flight Entertainment / Row 44 / Airlines / Airline News / Europe Travel / Iceland Travel / → All Tags

Icing the Competition: Icelandair to Be 'First North Atlantic Airline' with Fleet-wide WiFi

Icelandair knows that you can only read so much about the Blue Lagoon in your guidebook before you need to hop onto the internets to check out a few more sample itineraries (and more pics of those hot springs). So that’s why the carrier is teaming up with Row 44 to offer up some international WiFi to each and every one of their airplanes.

Wait just one sec, however. It sounds like the installation process will start towards the end of the year, and the goal is to get a couple of planes up and going before 2013 rolls around. Thanks to super specific definitions, Icelandair will even be the first North Atlantic airline to do the fleet-wide WiFi thing.

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From Iceland Express to Iron Maiden Air? Hey, It Could Happen.

It's still one month until Christmas and already we've found a lump of coal in our stocking. Yesterday, the low-cost airline Iceland Express went out of business after its operator, Astraeus, went bankrupt. This sucks! It's bad news no only because it's horrible when a company travelers count on ceases to operate, but also because Iceland Express' cheery orange planes were the only option for affordable one-way flights from New York to Iceland, and even on to Europe.

Going roundtrip on Iceland Express from New York to Reykjavik could go as low as $399, and secretly we've been dreaming of hopping a transatlantic cruise, then returning from London via Iceland Express with a stopover in Iceland. Perhaps it all seemed too perfect, we knew it wouldn't last. The airline even had Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson as a pilot.

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Iceland Was Made for Time-Lapse Videos

With the threat of winter also comes the drop of tourism to Iceland, unless you enjoy having only several hours of a sunlight each day. In New York, Iceland Tourism is plastering the interior of subway cars with ads attempting to attract travelers to come spot the Northern Lights, but we're not fooled; it's going to be dark and cold the rest of the day too! Thus, in a sort of ode to the change in seasons, we're enjoying this time-lapse video of one traveler's three-month-long driving trip around the country.

In it, there's the standard panning across breathtaking views, but also a few surprises, which causes it to stand out; he time-lapses his own packing (1:05) and setting up his tent waterfall-side (5:00), plus other tourists enjoying the sights (see especially around 2:00 for that).

This may perhaps be the last chance to smile at the beauty of Iceland, since another of the country's volcanoes may erupt and cause what's becoming an annual international travel meltdown. So...yeah. Enjoy!

Big Ash Problems / Volcanoes / Delays / Iceland Travel / Travel News / Weather / Katla / → All Tags

There's Another Iceland Volcano to Worry About This Winter

If you remember back to the not that long ago time known as yesterday, we mentioned how there’s one of those pesky volcanoes causing a little trouble on the bottom half of the earth. Well back up on the top half there might be some problems too, and once again we’re ready to blame Iceland.

At least this year it’ll be a little easier to pronounce and discuss, as the problem child is the Katla volcano. This pesky little sucker is located towards the country’s southern coastline, and unfortunately it’s much larger than the Eyjafjallajokul that we remember so well from last year. Some scientists even think that if Katla gets a little feisty that it could make last year’s ash problems seem small by comparison—oh boy.

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File Under 'Good to Know': Iron Maiden Has a 757, and the Band's Frontman Flies It

Yes, this airplane totally exists and yes, we feel kinda late to the news since it's actually been tooling around the world since notorious heavy metal band Iron Maiden customized an Astraeus Airlines Boeing 757 in 2008 to fly around on their world tours. It wasn't until this week that we really learned what we were missing, when Lonely Planet's US Editor Robert Reid hopped onboard "Ed Force One" for a tete-a-tete with Iron Maiden frontman (and the plane's Captain) Bruce Dickinson. You can read the first bit of Reid's adventures here.

What the what?! It just seems too awesome to handle. Heavy metal man Dickinson goes from flying high on stage to champion fencer to flying high literally, as a part-time pilot with Astraeus. Iron Maiden is still touring, believe it or not, but Bruce makes time to jet. And—here's the real news—the plane is now on a somewhat regular schedule flying to the US from Iceland, with international low-cost carrier Iceland Express.

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Big Ash Problems / Volcanoes / Iceland Travel / Grimsvotn / Delays / Travel News / Weather / Britain / Britain Travel / → All Tags

Scotland Cancels Flights Because of Grimsvotn Ash Cloud; Is Europe Next?

We've already caught you up on the pronunciation, location, and identification of Iceland's erupting Grimsvotn volcano, so all that's left is to start ticking off the airport closures.

When the volcano started erupting on Rapture Day, experts at EuroControl, the European air safety organization, predicted literally zero impact on European airspace. Greenland had to cancel flights and Iceland's Keflavik airport was closed over the weekend, but the rest of Europe was supposed to escape a repeat of the Big Ash problems from last year's Eyjafjallajokull eruption.

Scientists pointed out that winds were blowing north rather than south, that the ash was large and coarse rather than fine and pointed (it matters for jet engines), and that the clouds were so heavy that the ash would fall to the ground. Gunnar Gudmundsson, of Iceland's Meteorological Office, insisted that the eruption would not "shut down airports abroad." Not so much, it turns out.

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Know Your Erupting Icelandic Volcanoes: Grimsvotn 101

As you're probably already well aware, the Icelandic volcano that blew its top this weekend was one with which we're not yet on cursing terms. It's name is Grímsvötn, and it's not even neighbors with good ol' Eyjafjallajokull.

The good news is that the ash cloud isn't big enough to majorly threaten European air travel such as Eyjaf's did in 2010, and Iceland tourism is about to take off again. The bad news is that the ash cloud already closed Reykjavik's Keflavik Airport for a short period, canceling flights, and it could do the same in a small way to Scotland soon.

Now for the big three things you need to know about the volcanoes: Pronunciation, Location and Identification...

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How to Quickly Check If An Icelandic Volcano is Erupting Right Now

If it can be said that the second half of 2010 belongs to the controversy over full-body scanners, then the first half of the year definitely goes to the flight-cancelling powers of the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano and its resulting ginormous ash cloud. Because this natural event so disrupted air travel for most of March and all of April, the traveling public now has it branded into their minds, so naturally there should be an easy website to quickly check whether or not an Icelandic volcano is erupting right now.

The isanicelandvolcanoerupting.com site comes from the good people at Reykjavik-based budget airline Iceland Express, but it's for everyone.

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Iceland Express Will Get You from NYC to Europe for $399 Total

Believe it or not, it's already been since the beginning of June that low-cost airline Iceland Express began flying between Newark-Liberty International and Iceland's Reykjavik-Keflavik Airport. The route has done well for them and they're extending the seasonal service through the end of October, as well as throwing in a totally new route—Orlando to Reykjavik—specially for the month of October, but we're guessing it'll return for summer 2011. The Orlando flights begin October 2 and end October 26, chiefly for Icelanders to get a last bit of sun.

If you're looking to squeeze in a last taste of Europe in summer, the airline is also throwing a huge sale on flights from New York to their European mainland destinations. For $399, taxes included, you can get from NYC to Copenhagen (we found $399 for a Sept 6 departure, Sept 13 return), London-Gatwick ($399 for Sept 2 departure, Sept 6 return), and Luxembourg (Sept 1 departure, Sept 9 return). Surf around for more dates, but remember not to try later than October since the airline will leave NYC for the winter.

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'Indefinite' UK Travel Restrictions Stay While Many European Flights Resume

Yesterday we reported on the tiff between the airline industry and the EU, where airline officials were blaming ongoing big ash problems on bureacratic incompetence. If only the EU's transport ministers could get together, the argument went, they would realize that airplanes can fly around or under the ash thrown up by Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

Well yesterday the EU's transport ministers did meet, albeit by videoconference. They went over the situation and decided—wouldn't you know it—that the continued shutdown of Europe's airspace was unnecessary. More than half of the Continent's 27,500 flights are set to take off today, though we're still nowhere near the end of this debacle. For instance Britain's airports remain closed at least through Wednesday, with London mayor Boris Johnson announcing today that travel restrictions could be "indefinite."

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Airlines Fight to Ease Restrictions on Ash Cloud Air Space Shutdown

With international air carriers set to lose $1.75 billion per week because of comprehensive European air space restrictions—'that's billion with a capital "B"—airline officials have politely begun to ask EU bureaucrats wtf is going on. Or at least that's what they were doing at the end of last week. Having received no satisfying answers over the weekend, and with literally half of Europe still shut down because of the unreliable computer models, flying below and around the ash is a viable option, and European governments are too slow and incompetent to adjust to actual conditions. There have been test flights since the eruption, with pilots reporting "perfect" springtime conditions. That EU Transportation Ministers are functionally unable to organize a conference call to update their heavy-handed flying restrictions, insist the airlines, is outright "embarrassing."

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