An American entrepreneur in Iceland: earning $73,000 a year and feeling “at home”! An article shares her reasons for immigrating to Iceland, her monthly living costs, and why she likes it here

Jewells Chambers is an African American and a native New Yorker. In Iceland, a country where most people consider themselves locals, Jewells’s every move reveals that she is a foreigner. Despite this, she is sure that this is the place she has been looking for.

Since 2018, Chambers has run All Things Iceland, a podcast, YouTube channel, and social media brand that explores Iceland’s nature, history, and culture through the eyes of an expat.

Hosting the show, which has more than 50,000 YouTube subscribers and 30,000 monthly podcast listeners, has been Chambers’ full-time job since 2020. The company is expected to make $100,000 in revenue this year, leaving Jewells with a salary of about $73,000 after tax and superannuation.

It’s not a lot of money, especially in expensive Reykjavik, but it’s enough for the 38-year-old to live the life she dreamed of when she was younger.

“Here, I feel safe. I feel at home. I’m really happy,” she said.

The opportunity to go to Iceland

Jewells graduated from college in 2008 with an engineering degree and about $60,000 in student debt. She moved back to New York City and won a scholarship to work in digital marketing for a diversity and inclusion nonprofit, but she could barely make ends meet.

Fortunately, her love life is more clear. In 2013, she reconnected with an Icelandic man she met in college and began dating. Two years later, the two got married. In 2016, he told Jewells that he planned to move back to Iceland, and she agreed to follow him, but on the condition that she could find a job that matched her skills.

Fortunately, Iceland is in the midst of a tourism boom, and digital marketers are in high demand. “It’s not a specialization that many people in the country have, or even realize they need,” she says.

After finding a job with a local travel company, she set off for Iceland in June 2016.

Falling in love with everything about Iceland: “My life changed”

Working at that company epitomized Chambers’ transformation into a true Icelander: challenging at first, but ultimately eye-opening.

She recalled feeling like she’d never be able to remember the complicated names of her coworkers, let alone keep up with an office full of outdoorsy types.

“They were both climbers. They had climbed some of the highest mountains in the world,” Jewells said.