Like many good adventures, this one began in a bar. “It is a tradition in Iceland to drink the Black Death,” my burly travel guide, Odin, announced when we met at Reykjavík’s Nasa Nightclub. I’d heard of the stuff — a potent mix of fermented potato pulp and caraway seeds Vikings once swilled before pillaging villages. With a welcoming toast to my arrival, I choked down a fiery, pungent liquid that left me breathless. “Ha! That is why we call it the Black Death!” howled Odin with humorous approval and a slap on my back.

It was an oddly invigorating start for a week’s worth of outdoor exploits, entirely in character for a sub-Arctic outpost forged by fire and ice and settled by ninth-century Vikings. Near the modern capital of Reykjavík, where 60 percent of the country’s 300,000 residents live, all the charm and vibrancy of a sophisticated Scandinavian city flourish. But a short drive away, nature has the upper hand on this Kentucky-sized island. Massive ice caps, heaving glaciers, steaming lava fields, gurgling hot pools, spewing geysers and more than 200 active volcanoes dot the raw, imposing landscape. With huge expanses of wilderness girdled by a 3,099-mile coastline of chiseled fjords and black-sand beaches, thinly populated Iceland is one of the world’s ultimate adventure trips.

Getting my feet wet in this geological utopia proved easy. Much of Iceland’s natural wonders may lie in remote, inhospitable regions, but many are within easy striking distance of Reykjavík. A de rigueur day trip to the ever-popular Blue Lagoon outside Grindavík seemed a therapeutic prescription for jet lag and any residual Black Death lingering in my system from my prior night. Set among stark lava fields with billowing steam, the atmosphere is positively surreal. The iconic lagoon uses super-heated seawater from over a mile deep that powers the adjacent Svartsengi geothermal plant. Enveloped in a hovering ephemeral mist that nicely cloaked my tanless torso, I languished in the blissful 98- to 102-degree Fahrenheit sapphire-blue waters, rich with silica and other restorative minerals.

For added insight to the cultural dimensions of this eccentric country, we veered to the nearby port town of Hafnarfjörður on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The settlement sits in the otherworldly landscape of the craggy Burfell lava field, one of the essential features of an island straddling tectonic plates ripping apart along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Razor-sharp lava rocks smother the ground, making it seem miraculous that humans somehow prospered on this tortured piece of volcanic real estate lashed by the Atlantic. As a testament to the resilience of early inhabitants, it’s no wonder Hafnarfjörður is dubbed the “Viking Center” of Iceland.

Icelanders have passionate respect for their colorful Viking past, and it’s all on display at the Fjörukráin restaurant near the harbor, where lively song, period artifacts and an overall Old Norse ambience is as genuine as it gets. That includes traditional food from the Viking-inspired porrablot menu. It was here that Odin introduced me to blóðmör, or blood pudding, once a Viking staple. The blackish sausage-shaped object didn’t appeal to me at all. Neither did other nostalgic offerings such as svio (singed sheep’s head), hrutspungur (pickled ram’s testicles) and hákarl (putrefied shark) that some locals were devouring with gusto — as if they were channeling their Viking ancestors. At some point I recalled what French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin so famously wrote: “Tell me what you eat, I will tell you what you are.”

On another day trip I headed north and sea-kayaked the unpronounceable Borgarfjörður of Snaefellsnes, part of a legion of fjords separating Reykjavík from the wild and deserted West Fjords peninsulas jutting into the Greenland Sea. Beginning in April here, you can paddle in the nearly 24-hour daylight of Iceland’s midnight sun to spot quirky puffins along plummeting sea cliffs and camp on unspoiled, remote coastlines cleaving into plunging fjords. During my six-hour sojourn I glided over water so glassy the surrounding headlands were mirrored as flawless reflections broken only by my kayak’s wake. Along with inquisitive dolphins were gulls, puffins and other hardy birds of the North Atlantic, all on display in a pristine waterworld devoid of anything beyond nature.

After a day perusing the quaint shops, galleries, cafés and insomnia-inducing clubs pulsating until the following morning, we headed east on Route 1, the 832-mile Ring Road encircling Iceland. This may be one of the world’s most unusual and accessible “extreme” highways, crossing iceberg-choked lagoons, coursing over black lava fields, accessing the ice-encrusted interior and twisting above fjords and headlands where human habitations are few and far between. Just an hour out of Reykjavík, I knew I was in for a thrill when I began seeing super-sized 4X4 monster trucks with head-high wheels — the kind you see on cable TV shows where flying mud and rollovers are real crowd-pleasers.

The pace of must-see attractions had us making more stops than a school bus as we ventured into southern Iceland’s Árnessýsla County. At Thingvellir National Park, an immense green valley carpeted with summer wildflowers opens up into the interior, where the Silfra Rift has created a gorgeous river of crystal-clear glacial water flowing into Thingvellir Lake. This is where the European and American tectonic plates make their presence known. At one point I straddled a narrow section of the water-filled fissure, having one foot on each continent — another “only in Iceland” proposition.

Beyond this oddity, Thingvellir is revered as the place where settlers created their seat of government, a parliamentary assembly, in 930. For centuries it was the center of Icelandic culture. Though there is only an aging farmhouse and church here now, thousands once flocked to Thingvellir to set up temporary dwellings during the two-week assembly while medieval merchants, ale-makers and performers kept crowds entertained.

From Thingvellir we continued a short distance to Great Geysir, the namesake origin of geysers worldwide since it was first observed erupting in 1294. These days, Great Geysir rarely performs. But my luck was evident when the ground rumbled and the temperamental geyser spewed a 60-foot column of sulphur-smelling water — an event my often-impassive guide Odin even applauded.

Just six miles away is Gullfoss, Europe’s most immense waterfall, which we admired by hiking through a cleft in a hillside that deposited us directly in the rainbow-lit spray shadow of the behemoth. The deafening roar is impressive as the massive double falls tumble over 100 feet into a 1.5-mile-long scoured ravine. Heed the tourism brochure warnings that tell visitors to wear raincoats. After a mesmerizing five minutes, I realized I was soaked head to toe.

For the next two days Odin and I continued east along the Ring Road. At Skogafoss I saw one of Iceland’s most-photographed wonders, a sheer 200-foot waterfall spilling over the ledge of the ancient former coastline. It’s a real beauty, and a mossy path behind the roaring waterfall gives an uncommon perspective. As we walked, Odin told me a legend about a Viking settler who buried a treasure chest in a cave behind the waterfall. Years later a boy found it but lost his grasp, and the chest disappeared forever into the frothy waters.

We rolled past Dyrhólaey, a protected nature area where puffins nest on the side of the impossibly steep cliffs and a much-photographed scenic black arch of lava pokes into the sea. The view from these headlands is exquisite. To the north looms the gigantic Mýrdalsjökull Glacier, while toward the east the black lava columns of Reynisdrangar protrude like fingers from the sea, and utterly empty black-sand beaches sprawl west. But I found my gaze fixed directly south toward the endless white-capped waters of the North Atlantic — a sight that conjures a meditation on Iceland’s isolation.

After jockeying an inflatable Zodiac among the icebergs in the glacial lake Jökulsárlón — and witnessing an incredible splash wave from building-sized ice slabs calving from the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier — we made our way to the extreme southeast village of Höfn. It seemed this rugged, isolated outpost is from where most of the monster trucks emanate. And for good reason. This is a gateway into the formidable interior, where the sprawling Vatnajökull Glacier awaited me for a ski tour.

Climbing up a ladder into one of the monster contraptions, we took a white-knuckled, six-mile drive to Brokarbotnstindur, an austere chalet clinging to a rocky outcropping and our take-off point for Nordic ski touring — an activity that can last hours, days, even a week when supported by trailing monster trucks and snowmobiles. Ours was just a day trip, a decision underscored by the whiteout conditions that occasionally rendered visibility near zero.

With several other travelers, I ski-toured one of the most alien landscapes I’d ever seen — one with icy craters and overhanging headwalls, tourmaline-colored crevasses and rocky volcanic pikes knifing through the ice like 100-foot daggers. Our ski guides kept us on tight leashes in case one of us wandered too close to a bottomless crevasse. The sense of high adventure spiked our adrenaline like almost nothing I’d ever experienced.

The day-long tour left me exhausted. Back at the chalet where Odin was waiting for me, I babbled about our adventure, rhetorically stating, “Where else but Iceland can you experience such wild landscapes!” Pulling out a bottle of my nemesis, he must have anticipated my excitement. “Yes, Iceland is special, isn’t it? Now we will toast again with the Black Death.”

Info to Go

Keflavik International Airport (KEF ) is 31 miles southwest of Reykjavík. Flybus airport shuttles depart every 40 minutes for downtown Reykjavík ($17), where taxis are available. Hotel Frón (www.hotelfron.is) is a modern hotel in the heart of Reykjavík. Iceland Excursions offers guided day tours and self-drive packages with activities like jeep and glacier tours, horseback riding and river rafting. Guðmundur Jónasson Travel combines adventure activities with lodging, meals, transportation and equipment. Visit www.visiticeland.org.