I share the love of Iceland with a lot of my friends. One day, as I was talking to one of them, Antonio Sá, who also happens to be one of the most talented travel photographers I know, he came up with an expression to describe this place: “point and click country”. He made that expression up on one of his first trips there because wherever he went, every corner of the road he turned, he was surprised by an amazing landscape. So much so, that he almost just had to point and click to get a good photo.

Looking back on the photos I got from my three trips to Iceland, I decided to check if his expression was accurate. I created a collection of images I took from very close to the road. For all the images in this essay I did not have to walk more than 200 meters from my car to shoot them. For some I even just got out of the car and snapped a few shots from where I was parked on the roadside.

Iceland has a main road (Route #1) which goes around the Island and, because of that, is known as the ring road. It then has several other roads that one way or the other end up connecting with this one. All the images here were shot either on the ring road, or on one of these. I did not include photos taken from F roads. These are special types of roads that only all-terrain vehicles can travel on. They usually lead to spectacular and less explored places, but I deliberately decided to leave these out of this photo essay.

Of course Iceland has many more places than those that can be seen from the road, and if you are ever planning to visit this amazing country I do advise you to hike and explore as much as you can. I am sure you will be awed by the magnificence of the landscapes. From fantastic waterfalls to moss-covered lava fields, from black sand beaches to glaciers and mountains, from volcanos and fumaroles, to arctic landscapes, the country really never ceases to deliver opportunities for producing amazing images. That is why it’s so sought after by movie crews to shoot some well known Hollywood productions.

As these images prove (or so I hope), even if you just want to do a road trip on the island, it’s not hard to come up with beautiful photos in this amazing place. Just go there and check for yourself. Point and click country is waiting…