The Last-chance Tourism of Iceland's Glacier Raves

From eclipse-viewing festivals to exclusive raves set inside a glacier, the chance to party amid natural phenomena is a new type of luxury. Weaving through the crowd, I pause next to Kali Van Horn, a 30-year-old architect from Brooklyn with glitter dripping from her eyes like crystallized tears. We share the moment as strangers, pressing our backs against the frozen wall as two DJs spin house and techno tracks in the heart of Langjökull—Iceland’s second-largest glacier.

“It’s healing, Van Horn says, as rainbow lights illuminate the ice cave’s blue hues. Surrounding us are people wearing winter coats accessorized with light-up scarves, sparkly snowflake-shaped sunglasses, and hoods lined with lavender fur. A performer sings at the Iceland Eclipse festival in remote Hellissandur, on Snæfellsnes Peninsula.

Many of the more than 3,000 attendees travel great distances to get to western Iceland. This is part of Iceland Eclipse, a festival on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, offering late-night raves, cacao ceremonies, and lectures on whale communication to 3,333 total attendees. With an energy akin to Burning Man, the vibe is distinctly hippie; guests are gnawing to get into heady discussions.

Most are here to extend their experience of the total solar eclipse two days prior, for which they’ve traveled great distances and invested even more grandly. This experience, an 11-hour, $600-price-tagged excursion called Into the Glacier”, is perhaps the most exclusive event on the lineup. More than ever, rare natural wonders and phenomena are gaining top billing for luxury travel experiences—and this one, both in ambition and vibe, is a standout, drawing just 100 attendees to commune with this 395 square-mile mass of ice.

As we drive from the festival grounds toward Langjökull, the stark landscape is punctuated by the occasional sprig of purple flowers. Spikes jut from the massive tires of our car—a vehicle bearing a Jägermeister sticker and the license plate JAGER (the owner just really likes Jager, he says)—which crunches over gravel as the Red Hot Chili Peppers blasts through the speakers, and ravers in the back seat discuss ketamine and the rise of AI. The cars climb higher on the glacier until they begin to get stuck.

Then, when they inevitably do, drivers jump out and release air from the tires, redistributing weight so they can continue. The rocks around us fade into sheets of textured ice as we drive onto the glacier, streams of clear water rushing through jagged indentations. This glacier is thousands of years old, our driver explains, formed from layer after layer of snow compressing into ice.

Langjökull Glacier, the second-largest icecap in Iceland, was the setting of the Into the Glacier rave. As we exit the vehicle, I notice a metal-wrapped entrance in the ice—a portal beckoning us to another dimension. We enter the passage, its walls carved entirely from the glacier.

I’m still dangling my crampon—a spiked traction device for walking on slippery ice—in one hand when an Into the Glacier staff member swoops in, gliding it over my hiking shoe in a single fluid motion. Cinderella treatment, he says with a grin. I follow a faint beat as I meander through a 1,640-foot labyrinth— the largest manmade ice tunnel in the world —before stepping into a wider, taller space within the ice.

It’s designed like a chapel, with wooden benches and faux flowers forming a heart on the wall. Near the exit stands a bearded Into the Glacier tour guide whose name is Hjalamroli Hjalmrsson, I learn, and who tells me his age is young and old at the same time. We’re lucky to be partying in the Icelandic Highlands, he impresses upon me: 1,300 meters above sea level, surrounded by 500 billion tons of snow, water, and ice.

The sound dances around us. It's very echoey. You feel the bass is bouncing off the icy walls, Hjalmrsson says.

The sound kind of drowns, but that's interesting. It's something that you can compare to a big warehouse. Just two days ago, when I met with Iceland Eclipse’s co-producer Fridrik Olafsson, 41, he told me that he chose not to haul up large amounts of audio or lighting equipment for the event—the setting itself does the trick, he said, spreading his hands on the table.

His wife was stenciling a drawing of a moon embracing the sun on his thumbnail. On his other hand, a crescent moon with a face howled.