The hotel was built on the site of Nesjavellir geothermal power station
ION Luxury Adventure Hotel - Where Everything Meets Nothing from Ion Luxury Adventure Hotel on Vimeo.
There are only two places on earth where tectonic plates are visible above sea level: Kenya's Rift Valley, and in the south west of Iceland.
On Mount Hengill, an active lava field, just outside Þingvellir National Park, the striking ION hotel stands on a craggy outcrop close to where the North American and Eurasian plates meet, drifting further and further apart, each year.
Boiling water bubbles just 25ft underground here, so when it was built on the site of a geothermal power plant, its creators had to use building materials seven times stronger than standard materials used in Reykjavík.
The 45-room hotel is an extension and renovation of the old workers' quarters of the 120 MW Nesjavellir geothermal power station, bought in 2011, with the intention of being the only hotel in this isolated - and beautiful - part of the country.
ION makes use of Iceland's unique geography in two ways: the geothermal energy is harnessed in a spectacular outdoor natural hot spring; and a glass building - the Northern Lights Bar - allows guests to admire the frequent aurora borealis displays.
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