When I traveled to Iceland in January 2016, the sun rose in a pathetic little arc for only about three-and-a-half hours per day, but the low light was golden and beautiful while it lasted. The darkness did make dealing with jet lag a little more challenging though. Thanks to a great resource listed below, I survived “like a boss.”

I, like many other visitors, arrived at a godawful hour (5 a.m.) on a stopover flight aboard Iceland Air. Inexpensive WOW Air flights from the U.S. also tend to arrive in the wee hours.

Thanks to a timing mistake on my part, I had a guesthouse room at Loki 101 Guesthouse booked and waiting immediately upon arrival (I will definitely make that “mistake” again in the future). But I saw plenty of others wandering around Reykjavik in the dark like zombies with check-in time hours away. While it was tempting to curl up on my cozy guesthouse bed and sleep until sunrise at 10:30 a.m., I didn’t. I followed the advice below and made it through the next few days with just a little jet lag that had me head-bobbing for a couple of hours on a tour to the South Coast.

One of the best resources I found for surviving an early arrival and the jet lag plague was via the I Heart Reykjavik blog — this article and pretty much everything on the site was so helpful before and during my stopover. I also highly recommend the Reykjavik city walking tour.

Check it out: http://www.iheartreykjavik.net/2015/11/how-to-survive-a-5am-arrival-in-reykjavik-like-a-boss/