Our trip: Iceland, part I
Exploring the land of 🔥 and ❄️
🐑 Overview
This trip was probably one of my favorite vacation experiences this year. It certainly checked off a few items from my life-fulfilling bucket list and I can happily say that we were really fortunate in terms of weather — which is so temperamental there! It can really make or break the overall experience.
Iceland had a few things going for it that made it so ideal for me.
- 🍃 Beautiful nature
- 💬 English/Western friendly
- 📸 Photographers’ paradise
- 🌌 Northern lights
Thom had a little trepidation with vacationing in a colder climate but I had wow’d him enough with google-searched images and ideas of “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences that he couldn’t possibly say no!
🗺️ Itinerary
- Day 1: Fly into Keflavík International Airport, get rental car, drive into Reykjavik, crash at hotel, site-see the city at night
- Day 2: Site-see in Reykjavik for the morning. Drive out to the Blue Lagoon and enjoy the afternoon there. Drive south to Hella.
- Day 3: Join tour and hike Landmannalaugar for the whole day. Stay again in Hella.
- Day 4: Leisure drive from Hella to Skaftárhreppur. Stop along and see a ton of waterfalls. Stay around Skaftárhreppur.
- Day 5: Join a tour and ice climb near Skaftafell for the day. In the evening, drive further South to Diamond Beach and Glacier Lagoon. Stay around Skaftárhreppur again.
- Day 6: Begin heading back towards the Blue Lagoon. (About a 4 hour drive) Stop along the way, see more sites and hike. Stay around the Blue Lagoon.
- Day 7: Wake up, have a nice breakfast, head to the Keflavík airport, fly home.
I’m going to talk about the first two full days in this post which are bolded above in the itinerary.
There’s just so much that we saw and experienced that I could easily write up a post on each day/experience that we had. Instead, I’ll opt for two manageable posts and link the second half of the trip when I complete that.
This was one of the few vacations where we actually did a lot of pre-planning and research. Spending only a week there, our goal was to maximize the most for each day in what we were going to see and do.
Preparation
In this section, I’m going to talk about three main topics related to our preparation for our trip:
- Food 🥪
- Airline ✈️
- Clothing 👚
Each were really important in making for a good experience while in Iceland. The little tips and tricks that we learned and picked up along the way, I’ll try and highlight here in this post.
🍽️ Food
Besides the weather, most people that have gone to Iceland nearly always warn about just how expensive the food is there. Luckily I had a plan...
Yes, that is an entire carry-on suitcase full of food.
Yes, we ate nearly all of what was in there.
Yes, it saved us a lot of money.
In addition to our food suitcase, we also intentionally stayed at hotels that provided “complimentary” (is it really complimentary if you pay a hotel money to stay there???) breakfast. All snacks and lunches were taken care of by the food suitcase and we only purchased meals for dinners.
Another frugal tip that we received was to eat at any of the gas stations along the main route that circumnavigates Iceland. There, one can purchase to-go and/or pre-made food to heat up and eat. The speciality food, of course, being hotdogs. We ate many a 🌭 both in and out of Reykjavik.
While in the city, we tried the famous Bæjarins beztu pylsur, which really lived up to the hype for me. It reminded me of a similar dog that I had tried in Berlin, where you get a nice creamy, savory, salty bite with these great little fried onion crunchies.
Yum..
We did choose to have one nice meal at a wonderful place called Max’s Restaurant. It was conveniently attached to the hotel where we stayed during our last night in Iceland. Having tried the fresh lamb and fish, I can see why both are highly recommended and praised as superior on the island.
And to drive my point home on how expensive meals can really be, this cafe sandwich below (where I caved and bought the first morning we got in) cost about $25. Multiply that by two and you have a lunch that cost ~$50.
Tasty but expensive!
🛫 WOW Airlines
While getting to the Oakland airport, our Lyft driver kept pronouncing WOW like “whoa”. Having flown the direct flight from Oakland to Iceland, I would also set my expectations for more of a “whoa” than a “wow”.
What can I really say? It was a budget airline where everything, water included, is for purchase only. No entertainment too.
It👏is👏an👏absolute👏no👏fuss👏airline.
The flight was so cheap that, even I exclaimed, “Whoa, there are no reading lights or air vents above our seats”. 🙄
We purposefully chose a red-eye flight in hopes that we would sleep through most of it and wake up refreshed, ready to go in Iceland the next day…glad to know that my own naiveté still surprises me!
Unfortunately, our flight had two screaming/crying babies directly behind us. I cursed myself for intentionally leaving my noise-cancelling headphones at work but managed a few hours of restless sleep before waking up in Iceland.
Initially the flights could have been around $400 a person but since we opted to check luggage and pick our seat, it ended up being around $600 a person.
A+ for cost, F- for experience.
⛷️ Clothing
Thom is going to read this post and laugh at this point because, confession! He was certainly the smarter packer of the two.
While I opted for layers and look, Thom opted for practical wool winter wear. If the weather were any colder than what we had experienced, I would have had a week full of chilly regrets. Thankfully I was just comfortable enough with what I packed.
I had purchased these great Columbia hiking boots and broke them in prior to the trip. If you end up hiking in Iceland, just make sure that you do really have durable shoes/boots since the landscape is so diverse and quite rugged. I ended up wearing my hiking boots during the entire trip.
Along with my boots, I had a cheap Uniqlo puffer and wind/waterproof Topo jacket; which I wore in layers and could easily remove one or the other depending on temperature. Thom had purchased some IceBreaker apparel and brought his winter jacket. We both brought the random assortment of warm socks, hats, and sweaters.
Our biggest mistake was not bringing any waterproof gloves. I had brought flimsy cotton gloves, but after one slight rain shower or spray from a waterfall, they were always soaked and cold. Our lack of gloves might have also felt more regrettable because we ended up doing a glacier climb as well. 😬
📱 Miscellaneous
We didn’t purchase any international data plan and/or switch out our SIM cards while in Iceland. Since we knew where we’d end up each day, we utilized a downloaded offline Google map of Iceland. Even without reception, you can get directions between locations on an offline map.
We also did not take out or convert any cash. We utilized our Chase Sapphire chip card the entire time.
Iceland is very English-friendly and all road signs were easy to understand. Businesses there also have a preference for card over cash and even in the most remote of areas, we found that we could easily purchase anything we needed.
🐈 Day 1: Reykjavik
Reykjavik is a fun city. I enjoyed being able to walk around both during the day time and at night. There’s a good amount of construction happening all throughout the city and there were some signs of new housing and businesses. I imagine that the tourism boost has really helped to place Iceland on the larger global stage for potential business locations/havens.
The city still has a small town vibe which made for a charming and quaint feeling. Most of the main touristy areas weren’t as bombarded with globally known franchises like I would have expected. The downtown area still holds a decent “local” Icelandic vibe — where many shops boast the various goods and wares that one can only find in and around Iceland.
I was surprised to find a good amount of families in the city. There were several schools and children walking to local delis over lunch time. The smaller neighborhoods that surround downtown have a well-established feel to them. True to all the photos, each building could be found in some vibrant assortment of color contrasted by its neighbor. We also found many city cats each way we looked which was a fun surprise. Dogs, we found out, were historically banned from the city in order to prevent the spread of a specific parasite that can transfer from dog to human. Dogs are no longer banned but the major cat presence is still strong in the city. 😸
🎨 Murals
Thom was excited to see some of the many murals that are scattered around the city. The first full morning in Iceland, we spent walking around the city and admiring the art.
💦 Blue Lagoon
Certainly one of the top suggested places to visit while in Iceland, it’s of no surprise that we made room in our packed schedule to check out this popular geothermic site.
I’ll admit, the thought placed in handling hundreds of guests each day was actually impressive. Right away, when you arrive at the Blue Lagoon, the entire parking lot is segmented for those that drove by car and those that came by the bus load. There’s a luggage drop off for anyone going or just coming from the airport. (Only 15 minutes away)
Each person that comes walks up the only pathway into the lagoon and organizes into a series of lines based on your reservation time and experience. When you get to the front, you are greeted with a towel and wristband. The electronic wristband not only provides you access into the Blue Lagoon but also the ability to purchase food, drink, and spa essentials once inside.
The women's locker room boasted about 20 semi-private locker rooms (enough for about 30 people a room) each with a private area for changing and vanity station. Near the end of the locker rooms, there’s an entire shower station where guests must wash prior to entering the lagoon.
We enjoyed stewing in the hot water and applying silicon mud masks. The extreme temperature difference between the hot water and cold outside air was perfect enough to bob in and out.
Because of my low tolerance for large crowds, I don’t think that I’d go back, at least at the time that we went. (Just after lunch time)
My brother-in-law had gone during an evening hour and he had a completely different experience where there were little to no people around. Perhaps under those circumstances then!
🥾 Day 2: Hiking in the Highlands
Our next experience brought us towards the center of the island to hike part of the famous Landmannalaugar trail. Considered by National Geographic as one of the world’s best hiking trails, Thom and I were both really excited to experience a part of it via an 8-mile out and back.
We decided not to try and drive/hike this one by ourselves. I had paranoid thoughts of twisting an ankle in an area with no cell reception and the F-Roads (unpaved) weren’t doable with our rental car. We ended up booking an excursion with Artic Adventures and I’m glad that we did. Professional, knowledgable, and laid back; I seriously can’t recommend them enough. And since they were able to pick us up in Hella, the price was about $40 USD a person.
BTW, Hella is pronounced like “heck-la” not like “that’s a hella big burrito”. Who knew? 🤷🏻
The weather wasn’t the greatest when we hiked but considering that we were at the end of the hiking season for the highlands, I think that we couldn’t ask for “better” weather. The skies were certainly overcast and the winds would gust every now and then. We dealt with a lot of drizzle, fog, and freezing rain. Except for cold hands, we were luckily quite dry.
On our way to the highlands, we got to witness a seasonal Icelandic event called, Réttir. The Réttir event is where farmers gather their very free-range sheep all across Iceland to be safely stored in their barns over the winter months. We were fording through a river when we caught site of the sheep gathering.
Hiking through the highlands was probably one of my best lifetime experiences. The amount of color and changing landscape was just surreal. Moss covered the hard lava rock which really softened the landscape and the streaks of blue/green/red in the mountains was as vivid in the photos as in real life. The glacier-fed rivers were so clear and the geothermic vents gave the landscape a smoky, alien look. It was just phenomenal. Even with the cold weather, we really couldn’t help but smile with every new thing we came to.
After coming down from the hike, our group had the chance to warm up in the natural hot springs which form and mix with the icy, cold glacier waters fro above.
I would come back to Iceland just to trek more of this iconic 50 mile trail.
🧭 Part I Conclusion
The time and energy that we placed into preparing for this trip was really well worth it. I’m glad that we got to figure out a lot of the high level ideas and just “coast” along each day. Budget travel always has weird quirks but makes for an interesting challenge that I can appreciate. Our first couple of days on the Iceland were some of the best and I’m glad to have these lifetime memories captured so well in photographs.
Catch part II of this adventure here. There, you’ll read more about gas station waterfalls, ice climbing, the Northern Lights and more. <Insert puffin emoji here >
