Most swimming pools in Iceland are fed from continuously flowing, geothermally heated, natural water sources. Because the water in the pools is being continuously replaced, there is often no need for filters, recirculation pumps, or chemical sanitization agents (chlorine, bromine, etc.) As an added precaution to maintain the quality of the water, however, Icelandic pools are much stricter in the enforcement of the shower before swimming rules than other countries. Swimmers must take nude soap showers before being permitted to enter the pool - and many pools have monitors in the showers to enforce the rules. The overly modest may find this intrusive; those of us who don't particularly care for chlorine will find it a perfectly acceptable trade-off.

The sundlaugar.is/ (swimming pools) Web site lists 200 swimming pools in Iceland using a map-based interface. The introductory page provides translations of Icelandic "key words" into English, Polish, German, Dutch, and Spanish. Facility listing pages are in Icelandic and include the pool's name, address, contact information, open hours, price, Internet links, and additional information. Many also include photographs. The site's operators plan to add the country's hot springs and to make the site fully multi-lingual in 2009.

The Iceland Travel Information http://www.travelnet.is/ has a Swimming page on its site that lists all the pools in the country. There could be more detail provided, but traveling swimmers will take comfort in knowing that there's a year-round pool in just about every community on the island.