If you've ever wanted to experience truly extreme terrain, a land rover adventure trip to Iceland might just be what you're looking for. As one guest discovered last year, this is the best place in the world to head off-road.

It's 23 F outside and I know that when I open the door of the LR3, I'm going to be battered by everything nature can throw at me. The heated driver seat and warm breeze of the climate control system are about to be replaced by an icy gale and a shotblast of volcanic gravel whipped up by the Arctic wind. Nature is often at its most spectacular in extreme places and at this particular moment, things are looking very extreme indeed. The accompanying blizzard leaves a picture-perfect blanket of snow settling on our small convoy of LR3s.

It's hard to believe that only four hours ago I was snugly tucked in under the soft cotton quilts of Iceland's coolest hotel, the 101. It's the place to be seen for Iceland's in-crowd. A few hours earlier I'd been a bonafide member of this exclusive club: In fact, I'd been partying the night away with Björk, who was celebrating her birthday in the hotel bar. When I say partying, it's true that I hadn't actually been invited, though as a guest I did manage to squeeze in a drink before being politely ushered to another part of the hotel. The party goers—beautiful people wearing an adventurous combination of clothes that had clearly come straight from the catwalk—were typical of the people who congregate in one of the world's coolest, if smallest (population 300,000) capital cities.

Reykjavik is a special city in a very special part of the world. Nestled just south of the Arctic Circle, Iceland is a land formed where the continents of North America and Europe collide.

Geologists call the fault line running through the national park at Thingvellir a "divergent boundary," and the area between the tectonic plates a "constructive junction." I call it the most mind-boggling, earth-shattering patch of land in the world, a mighty dark wall of rock where the landscape falls away to a broad fissured plain. It's an awesome sight, but in a country that also boasts gigantic geysers, geothermal pools, huge waterfalls and two dozen active volcanoes, it's just one more of the natural wonders. It's not difficult to see why the land of fire and ice is fast becoming one of the most popular Land Rover Experience destinations.

Just at the moment, however, I'm beginning to wish that I'd signed up for a slightly warmer Land Rover Experience trip. Having finally worked up the courage to step out of the warm confines of the LR3, I find myself inspecting the next major obstacle on our tour through Iceland's wild side. Blocking the track ahead is a snowdrift that's at least four feet deep in places, and waiting on the other side is a frozen river waiting to be negotiated.

When crossing snowdrifts like this, however, discretion is always the better part of valor, and under the direction of experienced instructors, we clear a path through the drift.

Fifteen minutes later I'm back behind the wheel, and with the LR3's Terrain Response firmly set to Snow, I head for the drift. According to our instructors, the key to negotiating something like this is momentum—even with the suspension on the car at its highest setting, the only option is to plow your way through. A blend of speed and the LR3's ingenious four-wheel-drive system enables us to slip and slide our way through the drift. By comparison, we find that the frozen river is much slower going.

Now is the time for delicate and precise application of the gas as we inch our way across the creaking ice. At last, with all of the vehicles safely across, we start to pick up speed again.

We are traveling along one of the many gravel tracks that crisscross Iceland's interior. There is only one main paved route running the 900 miles of Iceland's perimeter: the appropriately named Highway One. And that makes this one of the easiest places in the world to get off the beaten track. Once you've left the urban cool of Reykjavik's borders, you're just 30 minutes away from pure unadulterated wilderness without another soul in sight. We're traveling in a convoy, but each of the cars is equipped with satellite navigation to ensure that there is no danger of getting lost.

While the beginning of our trip was spent being pampered with luxuries found in the city, tonight we are heading for a country retreat that, we're told, will provide the ideal platform for viewing Iceland's most spectacular sight, the fabled Northern Lights.

With the snowdrifts and blizzard firmly behind us, we start to make quicker progress. The sky clears as the sun sets on a landscape that could have been designed by the children of giants, with smooth black rocks piled into enormous pyramidal cones and then discarded into wobbly forgotten piles. It's a fairy-tale place. A land where puffs of white smoke rise from behind ridges as if some troll were hiding there in order to have a sneaky cigarette. In another magical encounter, what we thought was another dust cloud turns out to be a herd of stout little Icelandic ponies.

Finally we reach our lodge. It's a warm welcome from the hosts, but nothing compared to the light show that greets us. It's 7:00 p.m., and while the darkness has smothered the landscape, the sky has revealed the most spectacular show on earth.

Whoever coined the phrase "The Northern Lights" showed an incredible lack of imagination. The massive shimmering stream of green light that now fills the sky is both wondrous and utterly humbling—an incredible natural phenomenon that you could experience a hundred times more and never tire of. The show lasts another 20 minutes before slipping back into the heavens. It's such an incredible experience that I vow to see the Lights at least once again in my lifetime. One of the instructors lets me know that dinner will be served in another hour. I check my watch, settle down on the hood of the LR3, lie back and look up at the sky…just in case.