One of the most beautiful, freezing, adventure-filled trips I have been on thus far! The 17th country to check off my bucket list was Iceland for Thanksgiving!
This trip was very difficult to plan since the names of things are hard to read/pronounce and there is actually very little information about Iceland that I actually found helpful, so I hope mine helps someone!
Let's start with: Iceland is very expensive! So here is how this teacher managed it on a teensy budget!
We flew into Reykjavik where we took a bus into town. To take a taxi was about $200, so needless to say, we too the bus for about $45! The red eye flight got us in very early and by the time our bust got to town to was about 8am...to my surprise (and disappointment) it was still dark. Nothing opens and it is still dark until about 10:30-11:00 ish! We WALKED through the dark, unknown town, bags in hand, feeling like creeps haha! Mind you, not only is it dark and looking like a ghost town, it was FREEEEZING!
We were supposed to start our road trip around the country...yes, road trip! I will get to that....but I saw this awesome hostel that was a POD! So, of course, we had to check-it out! We stayed one night at The Galaxy Pod Hostel and explored Reykjavik all day. Hallgrimskirkja is a gorgeous church and you really can't miss it and there is a beautiful view of it in the distance from the Skolavordustigur rainbow road, painted for pride. There is a nice little walk along the beach where you will find beautiful scenery, an old Viking ship art piece, and a yellow light house to name a few. There are many stores, shopping and restaurants all around!
The following day we woke up bright and early to catch a shuttle to the Blue Lagoon!! I booked the Blue Lagoon tickets along with the shuttle and it picked us up FROM OUR HOSTEL! AMAZING! They delivered us back to the bust stop we initially arrived at the day before, where we boarded a large charter bus that took us to the Lagoon. It costs to check your bags, so don't take them if you don't have to. I am so glad we went here, I was honestly debating it because it is SO EXPENSIVE! But it is just as gorgeous as it looks in photos! Very relaxing and just a very cool experience, personally. We arrived before the sun came up so we could experience it in the dark morning and watch the sun come up...and also not to waste our day. We took the 10am shuttle to the airport to start the next leg of our journey.
We didn't fly anywhere, but the van we rented to drive around the country had free shuttle service from the airport! What a deal! The bus took us to the airport and the next pick-up shuttle arrived to take us to Happy Campers...eliminating the need for us to pay for a taxi!
Happy Camper is the company we used for our road trip, it is a small van with a fold up bed in the back, a small, sink, portable stove, and THREE HOUR GENERATOR! I would NOT recommend this company. There were others we met along the way whose stayed on all night, while we froze our butts off the rest of the night when the generator stopped. However, the company did provide sleeping bags, bedding, pillows, propane, etc....we did not have to bring those things, but we were still unprepared for the Icelandic winter with no heat!
More about our van situation: I thought it would be so affordable because you just pull over and sleep in your van. False. They require you to stay at specified locations, which also seems fine, but what they DO NOT TELL YOU is that you have to pay PER PERSON! So, that was a bummer and a little misleading...so prepare for that. They also do not tell you your van is a Manual unless otherwise specified. So we arrived to a 2WD Manual van, no other options were available. Sometimes, you can upgrade for a price, but they were all booked out in our case. Fortunately, I can drive a manual...but some people would be SERIOUSLY out of luck!
From the Happy Camper lot we took off to the nearest Costco...they have Costco =] We bought some snack foods, PB&J items, and instant pancake mix to hold us over and avoid needing to prep/store anything major!
Our journey began around the entire country, even up North! During the winter this can be very dangerous and parts of the North will be closed or off-limits, so be sure to check with your rental company and also road closures from various sites! We hit all of the stops we planned, aside from the ones we weren't allowed to go to, in 5 days! This is a very fast trip and most people would need more! We are very quick, in and out of most places...so keep that in mind.
I have posted my map of all our stops if you'd like to use it! I just plugged in all of the places I wanted to see, saved them in Google Maps, and we started driving....stopping along the way when one of my saved locations came up! Thank goodness our van had Wifi, this was a very easy way to plan our trip!
I am not going to try to name all of the places we went, but check out that map and if you have questions...PLEASE ASK! I am happy to help =] This is a VERY brief overview....but I hope it at least gives you a good start!
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