10 Days in Iceland

January 2016: It had been 4 years since I had left the US to travel. Since moving down to Georgia in 2012, I hadn’t traveled to a foreign country and I was aching to get away. After filing my taxes from my job at the doctor’s office, I saw that I was getting a pretty decent return and thought that it was the universe’s way of saying, “Get out of Georgia and see something new!!” Iceland had been on my bucket list for a while now, and I had been seeing those WOW Air advertisements that say you can go to Iceland for $99* one way. Whenever I saw those ads, I would just disregard them as click bait. One day at work in early January, I went to their website and found out that those prices were 100% legit. I almost had a heart attack. I immediately texted Sam after plugging in some prospective travel dates and told him that I could get us both to Iceland ROUND TRIP for under $500. I could barely get myself a flight to Columbus, OH for that price! We live about an hour outside of Atlanta, and we would have to get ourselves to Baltimore (WOW Air only flies out of select US cities) but we had a car, loved the idea of a road trip, and knew that it was still by far the cheapest way for us to get there.
                Later that day, I bought our tickets and put in my time off request for work and we were set to go! I booked our rental car through the Budget website and all of our hotels and hostels on booking.com where you have the option to reserve select rooms for no money down and free cancellation until 3 days before your reservation.

 Our travel dates were March 28, 2016 - April 6, 2016 and this is what we did:

Day 1: Getting to Baltimore

We left our house at 3:30AM to get to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. It was about a 9 1/2 hour drive. With me being paranoid that we would break down or get a flat tire, I insisted we leave our house 16 hours before our flight, which was departing at 7:00PM, and have the car parked in long term parking by 4:00PM (We did hit about an hour and a half’s worth of traffic in D.C. making it a total drive time of around 12 hours, so it was totally worth leaving early, although Sam was still grumpy about it).

Day 2: Arriving in Iceland

Sun Voyager

We landed in Iceland at 5:00AM. After getting off the plane, we were groggy and feeling lost. We followed a few fellow passengers to get to customs and got confused when we saw an officer sitting at a window, drinking his coffee with a newspaper, with no line in front of him. We timidly went up to the officer after standing there for about 5 minutes to ask for directions to customs. Barely looking up from his newspaper, he said, “Do you have anything to declare?” Sam and I looked at each other and said “um, no sir”. As he looked back at his newspaper, he mumbled under his breath, “Welcome to Iceland” and pointed at 2 sliding glass doors. We were thinking, “Ok, this is probably where they scan our bags and all the regular stuff”, but when we walked through the doors, we were next to the car rental station.

Snowy streets of Reykyavik

 We walk up to the Budget rental car kiosk and got our car paid for and taken care of. We landed in an unexpected snowstorm and the sales lady talked us into upgrading to a bigger car with tire spikes because of the harsh weather. It was an unexpected expense, adding around $400 to our trip. That seems like a LOT but it was only about $50 more a day (we had it for 9), but that’s why we brought our credit card (for unexpected changes and emergencies). Thinking back on it now, we should have been planning on the upgrade from the start because we were going to be in Iceland in late March, but live and learn!

Inside the Harpa Concert Hall

We drove from the airport to Reykjavik (~30 minutes) and stopped for some breakfast at a café with Wi-Fi. The hostel that we stayed in emailed me at 8:00Am that our room was ready and gave me the entrance code to the building. We found our room door with the key in the handle, took a nap till around 11AM and started walking around the city. We went almost everywhere we could that afternoon and found ourselves at a pub with tired feet, sipping on Icelandic Micro Brews.
We made it back to the hostel, ate some dinner nearby and got a lot of rest.

Day 3: Driving to the East Coast.

Driving from one side of Iceland to the other takes about 5 ½ hours, so we decided to head out of Reykjavik around 8:30AM. For this road trip, we didn’t use the GPS on my iPhone and forgot our Garmin at our house. I didn’t call my cell carrier before we left about international data, so every time we were in Wi-Fi, I would use the maps app and take screen shots of our route and it worked out perfectly! (I mean, there is only 1 main highway in Iceland anyway..) We made a few stops here and there but tried to resist because it would take away from our trip back.

In Skaftafell National Park

We did make one stop at Skaftafell National Park and Sam asked me to marry him near the base of Skaftafellsjökull. It wasn’t on our itinerary but surprises are always welcome. We made it to the little fishing town of Höfn in the late afternoon, got set up in our hotel, and had a traditional dinner of langoustine (Icelandic lobster that is more like a giant lobster sized crawfish than a Maine lobster) and lamb chops. Food is pricy in Iceland, but unlike the US you are not expected to tip (because the servers get paid a living wage).

Day 4: Ice Caves in Vatnajökull, Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, and Skaftafell National Park
The main reason we decided to drive across the country on our second day in Iceland was because we wanted to go on a tour of the Ice Caves in Vatnajökull with “Guide to Iceland” and we went on the last tour of the season.

Walking around the Ice Caves

 

Finding rocks in Jökulsárlón

Something that I didn’t consider before purchasing our flights was that there are a lot of tours in Iceland that are seasonal. Be sure to check all tour websites to see when they are running their tours!

After our Ice Caves Tour, we walked around Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and made our way back to Skaftafell National Park.

Waterfall near Skaftafellsjökull

There are many different hiking trails, including one that leads to a beautiful waterfall in the basalt columns and others that take you to traditional turf houses that are preserved through the Park Foundation.
After about a 6 mile hike, we found our way to our hotel in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, which is 45 minutes east of Vik. We had Icelandic hotdogs for dinner and got 2 bottles of local beer and called it an early night.

Day 5: Vik, DC-3 Plane, and Skógafoss Waterfall

Today was cold and windy as we drove in to Vik. We stopped to eat some breakfast in town and upon further research on the maps app, we could not find the iconic DC-3 plane that was on our "top 10 things to do in Iceland” list. We spoke with a local shop owner about where we could find the plane and we were told that it was TECHNICALLY closed to the public because of disturbances to the natural landscape leading up to the plane. The shop owner still told us that we can walk to the plane from the road side but it’d be about a 3 mile walk one way.


the walk to see DC-3

We thought it was totally worth it and drove to the location nearest the plane and started walking. There were a few other people walking up to the plane as well, and this made us feel a little better about going.

Skógafoss Waterfall

After seeing the DC-3 plane, we went back into Vik and went to the beach. As the weather passed, we went up to the cute little church at the top of the hill that overlooks Vik, got some lunch, and kept heading west across the country to the Skógafoss waterfall.
Skógafoss is one of the largest waterfalls in Iceland with a drop of 60 m (200ft) and 25 m (82ft) wide. We just went to the base of the fall, but there is a walking path along the side where you can hike up to the top. After that, we made our way to Hella where we stayed the night.

Day 6: The Golden Circle

Today we went on the popular Golden Circle route that takes you past the Kerið Crater, Gulfoss Waterfall,the Geysir  and Þingvellir.

Kerið



Geysir

Gulfoss

We managed to dodge a lot of the tour buses so we got a nicer experience at these tourist spots with fewer crowds. 

(Sam and I usually prefer to explore on our own.) If you are driving this route yourself, the road signs are very noticeable, and we didn’t even use our screen-shot maps until we were heading back to Reykjavik!

We stayed the night in a Guesthouse in the city. That night, we knew that, if it was a clear night, we would be able to see the Aurora Borealis. I stayed up until about 11PM just staring out our window to see if I could spot the lights in the night sky, and I did! Once I spotted them, we jumped in the car and headed outside of the city limits to a spot with minimal light pollution. We found a place to park, walked up a hill, and watched the ribbons of blue and green light dance above of us from a little ditch out of the wind.

Day 7: Driving up the West Coast

View from the cliffs

Today we started making our way up the west coast to Hellnar to see the Snæfellsjökull Peninsula. The beaches in this area are famous for their arch rock formations.

A Little Church in Hellnar

We hiked around the beach and up the cliffs to find beautiful views of the Icelandic coast. We had lunch and continued on to Grundarfjordur where we stayed the night at a guesthouse that used to be the towns post office.

Day 8: Stykkishólmur and Lier 7

We continued on to Stykkishólmur which was only 35 minutes away from Grundarfjordur. Along the way, we made an unexpected stop.  

Hanging with some shark meat

Dressing up like fishermen.

 
We had heard of the Icelandic delicacy of fermented shark and also heard that there was a museum where you can see how they make it. The museum was probably one of the highlights to the trip. We paid 10 Krona a piece to enter the museum. We watched a video on how they fish for the shark and the whole process on how it is fermented. We got to try a piece, and one taste was all I need in my lifetime. The owner of the museum (who spoke zero English) said, from what we gathered that the property and the fishing business had been in his family for generations and he had the original fishing boat and gear that his ancestors used on display. He then proceeded to dress us up in fishing clothes, put taxidermy seals in our hands and wanted to take our picture. He was the best.

After the museum we arrived in Stykkishólmur and explored the area. After exploring, we had lunch at a restaurant that uses dishes made from a local potter who uses pure Icelandic clay for all of her pieces.

Lier 7 (her studio) was right around the corner, so after lunch, we headed to the studio and she offered to take us on a private tour. She is the only potter in Iceland that harvests her own clay from the area!   

After buying some pottery, we said good bye to Stykkishólmur and headed back to Reykjavik to check into our AirBnB.

Day 9: The Blue Lagoon

This was our last full day in Iceland and thought it would be appropriate to spend the day relaxing after all the driving we had done. Honestly, this was the most relaxed I’ve ever been in my life. They have a bar in the water were you can get drinks, a café inside the building, and no time limit on your stay in the lagoon! We were there for probably 5 hours and only left because we had to do some packing for our flight home and we hungry for a big dinner! Before we left Iceland, we wanted to have a dinner that we could only get here. We found a restaurant with a Dinner for 2 special that included a smoked puffin appetizer, Minke whale steaks, Skyr yogurt dessert, and a bottle of wine, and we thought that was perfect. After dinner, we walked through Reykjavik bundled up in our coats and made our way back to the AirBnB.

Day 10: Flying Home
Today we go back to the US. Our flight was at 3:30PM, so we finished packing and went by a bottle shop to get some liquor and beers that we couldn’t get at home. *Note: the Reykjavik airport has LOADS of options for beer and liquor so I would wait to get everything there. Plus, you don’t have to check it in your bag because the shops are after customs! We got to Baltimore at 6:00PM and drove through the night back to Georgia. It was a long trip home, but it was worth every minute. As soon as we got back to the house, I researched real estate in Reykjavik for when we retire, because when I go back to Iceland, I’ll never want to leave.


*Click Here for a sample itinerary and budget breakdown for this road trip through the southern coast of Iceland!