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You can now swim with whales under the midnight sun in Iceland

Wild humpback whales flock to Iceland’s fjords every year – and a new tour lets you join them

Huw Oliver
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Huw Oliver
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No doubt about it: once this mess blows over, we’ll all be craving lavish, unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Things you’d never normally think of doing, let alone spending hundreds or even thousands of pounds on. Things like, say, swimming with wild humpback whales in an Icelandic fjord.

Well, you’re in luck: from next summer, one luxury holiday firm will let you do just that. Black Tomato has just announced a new trip, ‘North Iceland: Swim With Humpback Whales Beneath the Midnight Sun’. It‘s timed to coincide with the annual migration of whales from the Caribbean to the Nordic island country, where they come to feed every year.

Blue LagoonThe Blue Lagoon. Photograph: Black Tomato

The five-day trips, which take place from June through to early August, will start in Reykjavik and will include an excursion to Eyjafjörður, one of Iceland’s longest fjords. The tour firm claims it has pinpointed the perfect site for swimming and snorkelling safely among the migrating whales here. The experience, it says, will be made all the more magical for the lingering sunlight, which shines almost 24 hours a day through the summer months.

Elsewhere on the holiday, guests will be taken a jet ski tour of Ólafsvík, head out for arctic snorkelling off the island of Grímsey, wallow in the epic GeoSea thermal sea baths and take a guided hike to the Lofthellir cave. And on the final day, following the epic whale-spotting trip, they will be able to kick back at the famous Blue Lagoon Retreat.

Sure, the whole thing is insanely spenny: we’re talking a cool £7,759 ($9,843, A$14,953) a head. But if you’ve saved up a sizeable vacation fund during lockdown, what better way to properly splash out?

More incredible holiday plans:

There’s a beautiful ‘library hotel’ hidden in the Chinese mountains
You can stay on this remote Swedish island with its own lighthouse

A luxury ‘giraffe hotel’ is opening in the British countryside

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