Happy Trails

AXELLE DE RUSSELe Figaro Magazine

People at a café in Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland, one of the world's statistically happiest countries

Often the simplest questions have the most interesting answers. A few winters back, I was sitting over a cup of instant hot chocolate in Reykjavík, Iceland, with a fellow American, Eric Weiner. He was in town researching a book about happiness, trying to get to the bottom of why Icelanders consistently say they are content in a country they have nicknamed the "Ice Cube." I happened to live on the Ice Cube at the time, but I was taken aback when Weiner asked me, point blank, "Are you happy here?"

He has posed the...

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