2023 Iceland Wrap-Up: Big News Stories & What’s Coming in 2024

It’s the end of 2023 and it has been quite year in Iceland, my personal life and for All Things Iceland. This episode is a recap that hits on all those areas, and I share what I have in store for 2024! Of course, included in my recap is an update about the most recent volcanic eruption.Like most of my episodes, I will also have a random fact and an Icelandic word of the episode to share at the very end. How My Life in Iceland Has Changed in 2023 I’ll start out with the personal bits first. For those that listened to my 5-year anniversary episode of the podcast in June, you know that Gunnar and I are no longer together. Deciding to split was not easy. While I decision to no longer be together happened in 2022, our divorce was not finalized until July 2023. The divorce process in Iceland is a minimum of 6 months. There have certainly been some challenging times throughout the process.I learned a lot about myself and fir the first time in a long time, I started to live on my own. Even though I continued to work on All Things Iceland, I took many much-needed breaks for my personal well-being and that helped me to feel so much more refreshed every time I came back to publish videos, podcast episodes or to projects for other companies.While my life changed drastically the last couple of years, it has transformed me in ways I never imagined. As I have shared in the past, Iceland is my home and I love being here, so it is where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future.  Spending More Time in the US I saw my family much more than I have in previous years. I came to the US three times, which is quite a lot for me, but it was awesome. I met some of my listeners and followers out on the streets of Reykjavik or at a coffee shop. I am often not able to meet up with people because of my schedule but I have thought of hosting dinners where people visiting can dine and chat with me in person while in the country. I would love to hear people’s feedback about that. Feel free to email me at jewells(at)allthingsiceland.com or message me via Instagram, if you are interested in that idea. All Things Iceland Recap in 2023 Even though, this fits into both the personal and professional part of my life, it was such a joy to be one of the people featured on Geography of Bliss hosted by Rainn Wilson.For those who have not heard of it or seen it, the actor who played Dwight Shrute on the hit show The Office (specifically the US version), hosted a travel show where he goes around the world to find out what happiness means in different cultures. The first episode is Iceland. It was originally aired on Peacock, which is NBC’s streaming service, but I think it is available on several platforms now.Not including this one, I published 32 podcast episodes last year, which surprised me because I didn’t feel like I put out that much in 2023. As you’ll soon learn about 2024, I have a lot more in store for the podcast because I miss having lots of great episodes going out that hit on many different aspects of Iceland’s culture, history, language, nature, and travel.I couldn’t do as many interviews as I wanted in 2023, but my favorites were with Chief Phil Fontaine from Canada and Aka Hensen from Greenland.I learned so much from all my interviews but those two were eye opening for me in many ways. I have them linked in the show’s description on my website allthingsiceland.com, if you would like to listen to them. Who the Podcast Reached in 2023 The podcast reached 187 countries last year. For those that are curious, listeners from the US are my largest audience but the top 7 are US, Canada, Iceland, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway.There are many European countries after that, but I loved to see all of the ones on the list. Some that stood out to me as I scrolled through the list of 187 countries are th...