How to pack for the serious cold (and love it)

Nobody remembers being slightly warm. Everybody remembers being cold. The difference between the two is almost never toughness; it is layers, and the discipline to put them on before you need them.

Our kit list for the far north runs to one page: merino against the skin, loft in the middle, weather on the outside, and twice the socks you think are dignified. We send it before every polar and sub-polar journey, along with the one rule that matters — cotton is a liability north of Reykjavík.

Do it right and the cold becomes the point: the air like cut glass, the silence with texture, the outrageous pleasure of geothermal water at minus five.

— Ishaan Verma, May 2026