Islande, Entre Glace et Volcans: a winter teen camp in Reykjavik

A supervised winter stay in Reykjavik for teenagers aged fourteen to seventeen, run by the French operator Temps Jeunes. The group travels from France with its leaders and spends the week in the Icelandic capital, with one full day out among the country’s best known natural sites. The working language of the group is French; this is a travel and discovery programme, not a language course, with no lessons and no levels.

The package covers the accompanied flight, accommodation, all meals, the activity and excursion programme and the supervising team. The headline price is the package leaving from Paris: travel is part of the package for everyone, and each of the other French departure cities costs a set amount more, listed one by one in Extras. A departure city is only operated with a minimum of three participants, and the stay runs only if the minimum group is reached. An identity card or passport valid for the stay, the European health insurance card and the parental authorisation to leave the territory are the family’s responsibility.

The group stays in a youth hostel or a hotel close to the city centre, with public transport nearby.

Meals are prepared by the leaders with the young people helping, and some are taken in local restaurants so the group gets a taste of Icelandic cooking.

The stay opens with an urban photo hunt across Reykjavik, which is also how the group first reads the city. When conditions allow, lake Tjornin freezes into a natural rink in the middle of the capital. Landmarks such as the Sun Voyager sculpture and the Harpa concert hall are visited as a photo challenge, followed by supervised free time in town. A local geothermal pool gives the most Icelandic afternoon of the week, extended by a walk at Nautholsvik. The big day out is the Golden Circle, among geysers, frozen waterfalls and the landscape of the tectonic plates. The last days mix free time with bowling, an arcade, an escape game or another city walk, and evenings are given to games and quizzes with the group. Northern lights are a possibility, not a promise: they depend on the conditions.

The accommodation sits close to the centre of Reykjavik with public transport within reach.

A small group, a northern capital in winter, and one day of geysers and ice. The stay is built so that the city is explored by doing rather than by being shown: photo hunts, a rink on a city lake, a pool the locals use, an escape game. Supervision is one adult for every eight participants, with a qualified director and a first-aid trained leader in the team, and the group travels and lives together from departure to return.