Edmonds-based travel guide Rick Steves has launched his new Iceland TV special, his first destination-focused program since 2020. It marks the beginning of the highly anticipated Season 13 of Steves’ longstanding public television travel series, Rick Steves’ Europe. The full season, set to release in fall 2025, will showcase destinations ranging from France to Poland and Turkey.

In this new, one-hour TV special, Steves and co-host Cameron Hewitt explore Iceland’s majestic landscapes and hardy culture. They begin in the capital of Reykjavík, where Steves tastes fermented shark, gains Icelandic insights from a local guide and takes a dip in a thermal swimming pool.

A day trip to the classic Golden Circle showcases tectonic gorges, bubbling geysers, thundering waterfalls and otherworldly landscapes. Icelandic horses, descended from an ancient Viking breed, roam through vivid green pastures. Next they visit the South Coast’s black-sand beaches, glacial rivers in the desolate valley of Thórsmörk and puffins on the volcano-shaped Westman Islands.

Then the crew drives the Ring Road, looping 800 miles around Iceland on Highway 1. The journey leads through a world of glaciers and fjords to the geothermal hotspot of Lake Mývatn and finally the scenic Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Along the way, they include slice-of-Icelandic-life museums, sod-roofed settlements, whale watching and steaming volcanoes.

The one-hour TV program features the best of 16 days spent filming in Iceland, a destination that now attracts two million visitors annually. Steves previewed the show at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle on Aug. 15. He donated 100 copies of his autographed Rick Steves Iceland guidebook and 150 copies of his Scandinavia guidebook for the museum to sell in its gift store and thereby benefit from the proceeds.

To see Rick Steves Iceland, check your local public television station for airdates and times or watch it streaming on PBS Passport.

— By Julie Gangler