Happy Iceland - Anne Marie Wells - A Short Summary and Review
Happy Iceland: How Icelandic Strangers Taught a Miserable American the Secret to Lifelong Happiness - Anne Marie Wells - A Short Summary and Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A Short Summary:
Anne Marie Wells arrives in Iceland with a loose plan, a backpack, and one big question: what does it mean to be happy? Instead of following a traditional itinerary, she asks strangers about their happiest memories, then travels to the places connected to those memories, letting each answer decide where she goes next. The result is part travel memoir, part social experiment, and part very improvised quest.
Her journey takes her across Iceland largely through hitchhiking, hiking, chance encounters, borrowed shelter, unexpected friendships, and strangers' kindness. She experiences breathtaking landscapes alongside cold, hunger, exhaustion, fear, blisters, terrible weather, and some extremely questionable planning. Yet those uncomfortable moments repeatedly lead to experiences she could never have arranged in advance.
Gradually, the search for happiness becomes less about finding the perfect place or having an extraordinary adventure and more about recognizing where happiness actually appears: in friendship, generosity, shared food, ordinary routines, small delights, and meaningful connection.
My Favorite Quote from the Book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My Review:
I spent a surprising amount of Happy Iceland thinking about discomfort.
Anne Marie is cold. She is wet. She is tired. She walks until her feet hurt. She sleeps badly. She eats cheap food repeatedly. She gets into cars with strangers and heads toward places she often barely knows how to find. At one point, she reflects on walking until her feet bled, being unable to sleep because of the cold, and eating instant ramen yet again, and still decides it was worth it because those uncomfortable moments brought her into the lives of people who became friends.
And I think that discomfort is part of what makes the book work. This isn't a polished luxury-travel version of Iceland where every waterfall is followed by a warm hotel room. Wells is deliberately allowing uncertainty into the trip. She starts asking strangers about happy memories almost immediately and follows those memories instead of a carefully planned tourist route. The result is messy, funny, occasionally frightening, and much more human.
What I enjoyed most, though, was the exploration of happiness itself. One of the most interesting moments comes when an Icelandic woman tells Wells that she and her husband have simply had happy lives because they find happiness in the everyday parts of living. That makes Wells wonder whether real happiness might actually be a kind of "happy boredom" rather than a constant string of exciting experiences. That idea stayed with me.
By the end, Wells arrives at a beautifully simple conclusion: happiness isn't necessarily something dramatic waiting at the end of an adventure. It can be intentionally noticing small moments of delight, a bird at the feeder, a quiet family moment, a day without bad news. She also avoids pretending happiness exists independently of circumstances; she acknowledges how much easier it is to find when basic needs, safety, freedom, and connection are secure. I really enjoyed Happy Iceland. It is funny, vulnerable, occasionally chaotic, and ultimately a lovely reminder that happiness may be much simpler than we keep trying to make it.
If you liked Happy Iceland, you may also like:
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She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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