Iceland 2015

The Trip

From July 28th to August 12th - 2015 my sister, Tess, and I made our way to and then around the fabulous country of Iceland. Our plan was to cover lots of ground and see much of the country via the Ring Road - a (mostly) paved narrow two lane road that, indeed, goes around the whole of Iceland. We hoped to mix in lots of hiking and camping along the way. We were not disappointed! A few parts of the country require some pretty skillful 4x4 class driving (The Highlands and The West Fjords) but many of the outrageous views and hikes of Iceland are accessible within a handful of hours drive off of Road 1 (aka Ring Road) in a standard vehicle. We chose to proceed along the Ring counterclockwise and deviated from the typical routes whenever we were inspired to do so. Our 3,000+ km journey was ridiculous. 

I wanted to put together a little travel blog to share some of our experience and the resources we found helpful. Scroll through for a splattering of different info. Scroll all the way down to get straight to images with cute captions.

Enjoy -
Andrew

Thanks for stopping by to look over our adventure.

Resources

• Spirit Airlines - www.spirit.com - Short and cheap flight from Chicago to Boston ($30-100 usd)

• WOW Airlines - www.wowair.us - Super cheap flights (around $90 -160 usd) to Iceland

• Viking Cars - www.vikingcars.is - Car sharing service (SAVED us around $500 usd compared to rental companies)

• AirBnB - www.airbnb.com - Room share service for accomodations in capital city

• Alex Cornell’s Travel Blog - www.alexcornell.com/iceland-travel-guide/ - we checked out how Alex got around Iceland and found his advice helpful

• Expert Vagabond Blog - http://expertvagabond.com/ring-road-trip-iceland/ - Also noted some suggestions from this site

• Lonely Planet Iceland - Travel Book - kind of generic but we brought it. My usual take is that if something is in Lonely Planet, I probably don’t want to do it. But the book was helpful with finding campsites and “addresses” of specific things  we were hoping to check out.

• Local People - Talk to them! Tourism isn’t new in Iceland, but many locals don’t really “get” what some people (like us) want to see/do (Whatever Icelanders do!). We asked a   number of times for local farmer’s opinions on get-away spots and off the beaten path hikes. Talking to a local is what saved our butts when we discovered our tent was fully busted and also what led us to my favorite hike of the whole trip.

• SIM cards - Buy at the airport. One of the three company options provides free intra-network calls, 45 min talk time and 1 gig data for around $20 USD - Google maps on the phone will prove useful.

Random thoughts, facts, tips:

• There are around 330,000 citizens of Iceland as of 2015.
  
  
• For the last several years, over 1 million tourists have gone through the country each “summer season”
  
  
• This means that most of the drivers on the road are NOT Icelandic and are therefore not overly familiar with the rules, laws and layouts of the road. Keep that in mind!
  
  
• You can TOTALLY hitchhike Iceland or at least hitch to some of the sites that your car/bike can’t get you to.
  
  
• You can TOTALLY bike the Ring Road. If you’re a cycle enthusiast, this trip would be a GEM! But I hope you passionately love exposure (no road shoulder) and wind.
  
  
• Bring a canister fuel powered stove. ***They sell both threaded and non-threaded canisters at many gas stations.
  
  
• You DO NOT need a giant gas guzzling 4x4 car to see Iceland - you DO need to be a good driver. Some places will be out of reach unless you’re confident driving in insane weather conditions and there are certainly some roads a front wheel drive car shouldn’t be on (many, actually. F roads). It really depends on the goals of your trip. Factor in fuel cost (around $7 usd per gallon) and ask yourself if it wouldn’t be a better thing to offer a local a few dollars to drop you off/pick you up in some of those uber remote places you want to go.
  
  
• If you’re a student, let folks know. Campsites, restaurants, museums have special rates.
  
  
• Like many places where ecotourism is a thing, but is not necessarily a thing understood by all - some small town locals will not really get your desire to explore ice-climbing, rock climbing, skiing, etc in their neck of the woods. They’ll often not think of the amazingly gorgeous peaks only a few miles from their home as anything special because there is just so much friggin’ beauty everywhere in Iceland. Thus, be prepared to ask for directions or about game trails for access to peaks more than once if you’re looking for adventure in less touristy places.
  
  
• If you’re planning to camp - and I mean actually camp, like, up in the mountains - consider bringing your own 3 or 4 season tent or bivy. Many of the tents and equipment for rent/sale were not bomb proof.
  
  
• It is a FELONY to drive “off-road”. Seriously. They mean it. But you can walk all you want.
  
  
• Most folks speak some english.
  
  
• Icelandic words are hilarious and long. Come up with a system for communicating locations or names with your travel partners because road signs are rarely announced in advance of the turn off (our system was to refer to a place by the first three letters of the name or word).
  
  
• Iceland is home to Europe’s largest glacier - it covers 8% of the country.
  
  
• Ya’oughta save yourself some shekels and utilize the great town campsite systems which often includes showers and wifi ($6-12 usd per tent or per person).
  
  
• That fence you’re thinking about jumping in order to cut across some grazing land and save yourself several hours of cross country hiking in the rain… yeah… it’s probably electrified.

First on the To Do List = Pack. This is it. Everything I needed. Tess packed a similar sized bag.

Itinerary 

(Please forgive grammatical issues, Icelandic names can be difficult to produce on an American keyboard)

* = personal favorites

A note: Timing might seem a little funky, but keep in mind we’d wake early, take naps during the “day” and then push on until the late hours. You can see a lot in a day in Iceland.

Day 1
We landed at 4:30 am local time and met the fella who brought our car to the airport. After a few details (stove fuel, grocery, GPS orientation) we carried on. With the sun on our side (it was light 24/7) we ended up clocking 36 hours of awake time for our initial day (including air travel).

Chicago O’Hare->
Boston Logan International ->
Keflavik  (airport) ->  
Grindavik (to begin heading East) ->
*Skogafoss (waterfall, hike) ->
*Seljalandsfoss (hikes leading to series of astonishing waterfalls and potential 4 day trek start) ->
Solheimasandur (remote plane crash area) ->
Reynisfjara (Lots of puffins and black sand beaches) ->
*Dyrholaey - Gorgeous coastal rock formations along the beach
Vik - campground / supplies

(Click below to open the gallery and scroll through the images)

Day 2
Vik -> Hof (our rented tent was busted. Had to drive 3 hours to get one of                    the two tents left at a small hardware store)
*Hof -> (back west to see what we missed) ->
*Jakulsarlon Lagoon (iceberg lagoons) ->
Hrollaugsstadir (campground about 9 km East of Hali farm)

Day 3
Hali farm ->
*Vathajokall glacier trek ->
Skaftafell (major known nature area) ->
*Djupivogur (oldest port town in Iceland)

Day 4
Djupivogur great run around the bird sanctuary and black sand beaches, lunch at cafe ->
****Dyrfjollbakkagerdi - drove all day over terrible roads to get here,                                              100% worth it. Jaw-dropping. Not all the cars                                            made it, however -

Day 5
****Dyrfjollbakkagerdi - big hike, all day -> 

Rallied after dinner and drove to Myvatn and found campgroud

Day 6
Myvatn - went to the geothermal baths and did several lava field and                         volcano area hikes ->
Drove to ***Akureyi - walked around ogling at the city

Day 7
***Akureyi - Ran, Coffee and Cafe time, Walked the city, Whale watching

Day 8
Woke 4 a.m. with the tent almost floating after major storm soaked us. ->

Set out on the way to the Westfjords 

Blondus ->
Hvammstangi ->
Holmavik (witch museum) ->
Reykjanes (strange and expensive concrete hotel with geothermal bath, we                  didn’t stay) ->
Backtracked and cut over a 4x4 pass in a storm, which, in the Westfjords,                      is quite something ->
Porkskafjardarjeidi ->
Reykholar ->

     (All of the above was us simply looking for a shelter to stay in (farmhouse, guesthouse, hostel, hotel) as the storm was so strong camping was out of the question. 

Vadalfjoll (finally found a hotel with “sleeping bag accomodation” + Coffee!)


This was a long and strange day. We had heard so many incredible things about the Westfjords and were pretty confused about our experience there. The storm certainly impacted the views and my self-state (as I drove almost the whole day in truly astounding rain and winds) but, even factoring that, we weren’t sure why everybody seemed to love the place. There are hardly any people settled in the Westfjords (cool) and only 14% of Iceland visitors ever go. We found out later that just beyond Reykjanes (where we turned around to backtrack) there is a ferry one can take to the far northern end of a fjord which is, reportedly, where the real beauty starts. I figure that the ferry wouldn’t have been running in that weather anyway and we would have been stuck sleeping in the car as the storm would have easily devoured the tent. Something to do if we ever go back, I suppose!

Day 9
Drove out of Westfjords ->
West Iceland peninsula ->
Snaefellsjokull national park (beach hikes with glacial views and birds                               attacking us) ->

??? Somewhere in here we found the Harkal Museum and ATE HARKAL!!!

Fossatun (slept in little hut at the quirky estate of a well known Icelandic                   children’s author - apparently all of his books are about trolls!)


Day 10 
*Fossatun (looked around the estate)->
Borganes ->
Golden Circle Areas (major tourist attractions) ->
Pingvellir (where American and European tectonic plates collide) ->
Geysir ->
Secret Lagoon Geothermal Baths ->
Fludir (final camp)

Day 11
Gullfoss (major waterfall, subject of eco-activism against dam project) ->
Eyrurbakki (beach hike) ->
***Stokkseryi in order to eat at ***Vidfjorubordid - best lobster bisque and                       tails of my life! ->
Reykjavik (capital city of Iceland) met AIRbnb hosts, returned car to bus                     terminal, walked city

Day 12, 13, 14
Reykjavik  

Had a lovely time getting to know our hosts - discussions for hours each morning over coffee and toast. 

Many long walks, cafes, museums, euro-movies, famous hot dogs and fish & chips

While we had fun, two days in the capital would be enough. We’re not big bar or dance scene folks so the infamous “killer nightlife” was a bit lost on us. 

Day 15
FlyBus service from Reykjavik to Keflavik International Airport ->
Boston

We spent a night in Boston and I caught up with a buddy. The next day Tess flew out to Nashville and I returned to Chicago. 

Final Thoughts

Super accessible ecotourism in a friendly and thoughtful country. There are lots of ways one could explore Iceland - on the cheap or ritzy all the way. If you go, just be sure to get out of the populated Western areas... we were way less impressed with the better known regions than we were with the roads less traveled. 


Thanks for reading! =)