I've never been there, except for the airport, but I have a couple of friends who are enthusiasts...I also used to know quite a few Icelanders. Many Icelanders are super-trendy, to the point of caricature, and at the same time, their most important industry, by far, is the very traditional fishing, and then sheep-farming, I think. It's like a "rough fishing village gone hipster" according to my friends. It makes for nice bars and shopping, thuogh - there are a lot of local designers in the streetwear/fashion foreward vein that are supposed to be very good. They have one of the best literacy rates in the world - expect intellectual and "intellectual" conversations. The local culture and language is extremely well protected, typically, by law, they translate or invent "indigenous" words instead of importing phrases. The women are generally
stunning - I can vouch for this - and liberated. Typically, being an unwed mother carried far less shame in Iceland than in most other Western countries, even going far back. This is supposed to be at least partly because of the nature of the fisheries - men disappear at sea, etc. Two friends of mine went there on what was essentially a trip for drinking and chasing women - and it all went a bit wrong: They'd timed their trip for just after the big start of the fishing season, where a lot of the men would be out at sea, and there would be a nice surplus of women around town. Backfire: There was a storm, and the bars were filled with pissed-off fishermen losing money by the minute...

Downside; prices are generally
steep.