With my roadie, best friend, and wife Jackie
Iceland Images with my baby
Honestly, I don't have any complaints! People bring up how expensive it is there but that's nowhere near the first thing or second thing I bring up when I tell people about my experiences there. I loved it! And that's despite it being expensive and my spider senses going off on high level alert when I thought I'd have to fight some drunk guy in Reykjavik!
We flew Wow airlines there. Definitely a cheaper way to go – maybe. My MO was to just get there, but according to other reviews you may be nickeled and dimed depending on your normal flight expectations lol. We arrived to Iceland on time, but coming home was a bit of a delay while waiting for takeoff on the plane. About a two hour delay. Personally I'm glad they caught whatever needed to be fixed while we were still on the ground, but I did learn from my seat neighbors that one of them did miss their connecting flight going to Ireland – for which Wow put her up in a hotel in Reykjavik – and my other neighbor almost missed her connecting flight to Scotland for a wedding. Iceland, for me, was a direct flight and I didn't have any tours scheduled so as long as we made it there we were good. But maybe I look elsewhere if I have to connect somewhere in the future.
We arrived in Iceland very early in the morning. It was about an hour drive from the airport into Reykjavik. We wanted to kill a bit of time hanging in the city because we wanted to wait for the grocery stores to open. You should know that I am not a public bathroom kind of guy at all! I'm more like a hold it until you get home by any means necessary kind of guy. But I was thoroughly impressed with the public bathrooms in Iceland. Even out in the country by the campsites I was very comfortable!
Jackie and I are plant-based in our diet so getting groceries was a must, but they had some pretty good vegan options as far as restaurants go. While waiting for the grocery store to open, we found a nice bookstore to hangout in to look out over the city and have a drink and treat. It was here that my eyebrows first raised a bit over prices. Looking through the books, I checked a back cover of a book where you see the US/CAN prices and that was well enough, but the sticker on the front of the book that showed how much is was in Iceland Króna – after my mental computation – was a bit crazy.
The weather when we went was like our fall season. As you will see below we rented an SUV and slept on a tent on top of the vehicle. The vehicle was F-road rated which allowed us to travel on the F-roads of the Highlands.
If you plan on stopping in Seljalandsfoss in the South, consider whether or not you plan to stay there overnight first. Initially it was a place where we were just going to stop by but we wound up staying there. Seljalandsfoss has a parking lot admission that you can avoid paying if you plan on staying there by just driving 45 seconds further down the road to stay at the campsite. Didn't know that, so we payed for the admission, and then paid for the campsite.
The campsite is right on the grounds of Seljalandsfoss falls. We literally went to sleep, and woke up right by the falls. An amazing memory. It was in Seljalandsfoss that my eyebrows raised up a second time because of price. It was getting close to time to put some gas in the vehicle because we were about to be doing some more traveling. The SUV was not on empty but the final readout after I filled up computed to like $68 or something crazy like that.
We wound up missing a days worth of plans because of me. I decided to sleep a bit longer than planned on day two, and when I did wake up I decided to climb up to the top of the falls and explore a bit. Time flew so we decided to sleep at the campsite another day. It wasn't until later that I realized I wasn't going to be able to travel as deep inland as I planned because of that change of plans. Even though we missed a day we had some amazing hikes, stops and views. You can check out some of those images in my Scouting Iceland Part I blog.
It was a five day trip in total. On the last day before departure we drove back to Reykjavik from the highlands. We used the last day to stay at a nice Airbnb in the city. It was on the last day when I had my third eyebrow raising experience. There was an Indian restaurant that we wanted to try out before we left. Essentially I got a couple of orders of Somosas and some Chana Masala. In America, maybe $25 tops in my town. In Iceland $60 something. I had to count slowly for that one.
It was on the same day when God saved me from being on the Locked Up Abroad show. My wife and I were standing in the city getting a bag of fries for $8ish. A random stranger comes up to me aggressively asking where I was from. I calmly told him where I was from, to which he replied that he was going to f&*% me up. Spidey senses. I don't remember what I said but I was definitely planning what I was going to do to this man if he tried to swing on me with my wife standing right next to me. At some point he starts laughing and hugs me smh. He utters something unintelligible and may have told me he loves me. I don't remember lol. I guess he was drunk. No harm no foul.
One last thing that may throw you if you go. The water smells crazy! Or at least the hot water. So much so that I had to do a google search to make sure everything was ok. Apparently they have the best water quality and the smell was normal – sulfur over eggs or something like that.
With the several eyebrow raising moments due to prices, and almost getting into a crazy situation, I miss Iceland tremendously. We both do. The only reason I even brought up the prices is because people mention it, but I hardly ever bring it up in conversation. The experience was wild and beautiful, and I look forward to going back again, and again.
Enough words for now, but if you have questions feel free to ask away!