ICELAND
Welcome to the most magical place in the world! I've been dreaming of visiting Iceland for so many years and it was definitely well worth the wait. Your in for a long post, so brace yourself.
There is so much to see in Iceland, but we decided to stick to the south coast and stay for 5 jam packed days. After a bit of shopping around, our location of choice was this shabby chic hostel in the capital, Reykjavik.
As basically everything is exported to Iceland and every trip is so extreme, it can be quite an expensive trip so here I am to help you do it on a budget. We looked at hotels and Air Bnbs but they were either over priced or a bit of a dive at the time we were booking. So getting a hostel ended up being the perfect option for us, and here's why:
1) It was super cheap, why spend 5 times more for a simple room in a hotel.
2) There were kitchens to make breakfast and the occasional packed lunch for our road trips (which also saved us a bit of money to not have to eat out for every meal)
3) Unlimited recommendations and help from the staff, which we definitely made the most off.
4) We had car hire in reception, so that made renting super easy and you don't have to stress out about being ripped off.
5)There was the cutest bar which had great happy hour (hour actually meaning 5-10pm) offers, can't be buying an £8 beer every night.
6) Load of places to chill out when you've had the longest day and just want to sit around with a drink.
There are so many great hostel offers to chose from, we stayed at The Bus Hostel, which I'd definitely recommend - it's about 10-15 min walk from the city centre.
DAY 1
We landed in Iceland at about 6am so we needed a bit of a chilled first day. We spent the day exploring the capital, scoping out any good places to eat. I always try to eat traditionally when I'm in another country, however the only Icelandic restaurants (that we saw) were full of fish. We're both veggie so that was a no go.
Culture aside, we ended up in the coolest diner, The Lebowski bar. It's all themed around the film 'The Big Lebowski' - which is bloody great film if you haven't seen it. This milkshake was around £8 but was sooooo worth it. (we may have also gone back there for dinner another night, surrr cultured).
I managed to loose my glove on the first day, which was just TYPICAL of me. We re-traced our foot steps, but it was no where to be seen. I was just starting to come to terms with the fact that I was going to loose a few fingers to frost bite, when we stubbled across a lost glove gate.
As we walked towards it, there was my little glove propped up on the gate, waiting to be found. I've legit, never been so happy to see a glove in my life. Yet another reason to love Icelandic people.
After a day wandering the city, we went back to our hostel to find out about Northern lights tours.
We'd been up since 2am and wanted to sleep so badly, but after hearing that the recent storms had cancelled the last few tours, in fear of missing out we booked it up for out first night and went for a nap.
We woke up to such a heavy snow storm, but luckily the tour was still on so we headed into the national parks away from the light pollution. We were driving around for a few hours before we saw anything, until suddenly we were were told to jump out of the bus.
As soon as we got out, I looked up at the sky but all I could see was what looked like a cloud. Other people from the tour were gasping at the sky while Ash and I looked at one and other confused and underwhelmed.
Luckily, they got stronger and green lights started to dance around the sky, it was a little cloudy and snow was falling so they weren't quite as strong as they show on photo, but nonetheless, it was amazing! Apparently they can last for a couple or minutes to a couple of hours, I think we were there for about 20-30 minutes. I've never been so cold in my life, no one could stop themselves from shaking, but it was well worth it.
The northern lights are so hard to capture without the right equipment, but luckily we had an amazing photographer,
Chiara, on board who took the photos below for us. Thanks again if you're reading this!
If you're wondering, the tour we went with was 'Bus Travel Island' - the guys running it were great, you get a hot chocolate and another free go if you don't see them.
DAY 2
Before arriving in Iceland, we had an idea of what we wanted to do but nothing was planned or booked, except this day. I'd heard a couple of weeks before that the Blue lagoon is often fully booked, so we got straight to it and booked in an early slot (we went for the 'comfort' option). If you're planning on going, book your spot before hand, it's a must see! Book up
here.
After an early start and stressful journey, we arrived within our hour slot and found out that you could stay as long as you wanted once you were in - so we made sure we got our moneys worth. It's around 40'C inside the water, luckily as in the 3 hours we were there we had sun, cloud and hail!
Once you've done a quick dash from the changing rooms through the icy air, it's so heavenly in the water. They give you a big lecture about using the conditioner and not getting your hair wet, but because I think I'm 'ard, I went in with my hair down to get a good shot before I fully submerged myself. Obviously that was a stupid mistake, the water got deeper than I thought so my hair got wet which left it feeling crunchier than kettle chip
Word of warning, put hair up.
With the pass we chose, you get a free drink, so we swam over to the bar to take full advantage. There's so many options to choose from, smoothies, slushies, alcohol, hot drinks etc etc. It may have been 10am, but like all alcoholics say, it's 5pm somewhere - It had to be a cider.
Although I totally forgot that cider is SO bloating and I was wearing a tight swimming costume, so that was not the best idea - luckily you can't see through the water, where my big guts hiding away.
Cheers to that.
After we started turning into prunes, we went and checked out their selection of face masks - the silicone one was my personal favourite.
But just as we put on our fancy shamncy face marks, it started to hail - typical.
I was crossing my fingers for it not to rain, but it's actually such a cool experience to have rain/hail falling on your head while your swimming around in 40'C. Just pretend you're in scene from the Notebook.
The weather changes every 2 seconds anyway, so chances are that the sun will be out right after.
DAY 3
After a bit of planning the evening before, we decided to rent a car for the rest of the trip. we wanted to visit everything in our own time and stop off where ever we pleased - It's also a lot more fun driving around other countries. (You can do everything that we got up to with tour companies if you're not a confident driver in the snow, but it's a bit more expensive.)
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| Every where we visited is highlighted above |
When thinking of driving around in the snow, I had a big truck in mind.. but no, we ended up with a tiny little Toyota Yaris, which you could feel blowing around in the wind.
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| Expectation |
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| Reality |
The great thing about having your own car is that you can stop off whenever you spot an amazing view (which is basically every 10 minutes).
On the day of our longest trip, we didn't end up leaving till after 9am due to sorting out the car. We then ended up on tight schedule, so this was probably our down fall.
It was more expensive to insure 2 people, so Ash did all the driving (not because I'm a reckless driver or anything...).
And, because all arguments start in the car, we also got a sat nav. Not to mention that a road map was nearly the same price at £15 per day?! That map better help you find your destiny at that price or it's not worth the agg.
First waterfall stop of Iceland was Seljalandsfoss - don't try saying that with your mouth full.
The most amazing thing about this waterfall, was that you can walk all the way round the back.
After visiting, we realised that this tended to be the last stop off on tour companies itineraries who doing the same road trip as us, and there was definitely a reason behind this.
That waterfall has a hefty drop and you get WET. Not like a little splash at a sea lion show, we were WET.
I practically walked the whole way round with my eyes shut and came out the over side like an episode of 'Stars in your eyes'.. Tonight Mathew I'm going to be a Racoon.
.. best to make this your last stop of the day too if you're visiting.
On the bright side though, it was such a cool experience walking around the back of a waterfall, especially in this weather, as every blade or grass and droplet of water has turned to ice.
We headed back to the car with wet jeans and crispy hair, and I regretted that time I spent curling my hair this morning as I looked in the mirror.
Great start to the day *Sarcastic thumbs up*
We blasted the aircon to dry off while I fed Ash a sandwich and flicked through the radio stations on the way to the next stop, Skogafoss. A little tip, If you're planning on driving in Iceland, make sure you bring an aux cord or some CDs unless you like the sound of white noise.
We didn't make the mistake of getting so close to this waterfall. Luckily the sun came out and we even saw a rainbow - look at that money shot.
There's stairs that lead you all the way to the top so you get to see this amazing view over looking the falls. You need to climb quite a lot of stairs, so you also get some buns of steal - jackpot!
A few hours on the road and half way to our final destination, we reached the town Vic. This is the point we started to get a little worried about time, we still had hours of driving to go and the sun already looked pretty low in the sky.
We made a quick stop off to gaze at the town from above before heading on the road again. Quite close by you can visit the black beaches which is definitely worth a stop, but we didn't realize we had passed it till it was too late. We were already behind schedule and getting slightly stressed, so we carried on to the glacier lagoon as it was our top priority.
If you don't fancy such a long road trip, you could just take an all round trip to Vic and still see so much, like the waterfalls before.
It's so weird driving in Iceland, because the weather literally changes every 5 minutes. Don't ever be worried if it's forecast to rain because the sun will be out straight after.
At this point in our trip, we were driving on straight roads for hours on end going a bit crazy as we watched how long we had to go on the satnav and how dark it was getting.
I wish I'd had a dash cam filming, it was amazing how much the landscape changed around us - from flat white sheets of snow for as far as you can see, to bumpy dry roads which looked like the moon and windy mountainous paths filled with thick snow as a storm went on around us. It's safe to say, it was an exhausting trip - and I wasn't even driving.
7 hours later from when we first headed off from our hostel, we made it to the Glacier Lagoon just before sunset! THANK F*CK.
It was absolutely worth the drive, everywhere I looked was beautiful! The lagoon is so big, so we wandered around the edge and up a few hills to take it all in and get too many photos.
As it was getting late, by the time we arrived it was pretty empty and the little cafe and toilet was shut - the worst news when you have a 6/7 hour drive ahead of you. (Luckily we came across a petrol station on the way back which happened to sell veggie burgers, so it was a win win.)
A few hours into the drive back, I was drifting off (yeah i'm a great passenger) when I saw a little glow in the sky like the night before. The sky was so clear, revealing every star and we were in the middle of nowhere, so it was the perfect settings to see the northern lights and the milky way.
After a while, we could see the lights moving around in the sky as we drove along, I spent the next couple of hours gawking out the window at them and the stars. Meanwhile Ash, probably hating on me, was driving us home trying to stay awake and not listen to me saying 'wow' every few minutes.
1am and we finally made it to our bed.
DAY 4
We took a trip along the most famous route near Reykjavik, The Golden Circle - this drive is a lot easier than to the glacier lagoon. We weren't on such a tight schedule today, so we could stop as much as we wanted - woo!
This first little stop off was a massive frozen lake which was covered thick snow. We only stopped here because we saw loads of cars at the side if the road, but it was pretty cool.
The first actual stop on this trip was to The Great Geysir. If you step out the car and can smell eggs, you've made it.
The area is full of hot springs and boiling mud pits so smoke is flying everywhere - It would be a cool place to film a music video, maybe Kanye was already on that idea when he shot in Iceland.
Every 7 minutes or so, everyone gathers about the Geysir to watch the boiling hot water explode 30m or so in the air.
My picture of this is a bit pathetic because my bloody phone kept dying, but you get the gist.
Gullfoss waterfall is the most beautiful place i've ever seen! It was so cold, that I had to walk backwards to stay out of the wind, but I'm still so thankful that it snowed, because it's even prettier surrounded by a sheet of white.
Another un planned stop, but I couldn't just ignore the cutest horses at the side of the road. Look at their little ginger heads, they look like their wearing toupes.
The last stop was Keriò crater which is filled with a lake at the bottom, currently frozen over. This was the only place we had to pay entry for, but it wasn't very much.
We walked all the way around the top, looking out at the most amazing views. From there we spotted people walking on the ice, and I've seen far too many films to know that's a bad idea.
I think my exact words were 'what fucking idiots stand on a frozen lake, that's so dangerous'...
...Yep, we stood on the frozen lake.
It's still a stupid thing to do, but we could see so many people wandering around on it and the ice was so think, so why not! We're still alive to tell the tale, although i did fall over doing a bit of figure skating.
DAY 5
We spent the evening before talking to one of the guys from reception, who was recommending us places to go for our final day. There were so many things to do, such as other lagoons, hikes and black beaches, but everything was quite far and we needed to have the car back by 3pm.
We ended up going back to the golden circle area to the Pingviller national park (if you've not got many days and you fancy this, you could squeeze this in on the same day as the rest of the golden circle route) - personally I think that's a better option as there isn't much to see.
We walked all the way around, not sure what was going to be at this park until we came to this treacherous icy hill. I filmed Ash walk the whole way up because I was sure we was going to slip - no such luck.
Then it came to my turn, and typically I got stuck half way up as my shoes had no grip at all. Luckily the nicest girl in a sturdy pair on Timberlands came and helped me up as ash shouted down, 'naa she's aright' as he watched me struggle up...
After all that, there was nothing but a car park at the top, so that was a bit fat embarrassing waste of time.
I always try and book an evening return flight to make the most of where ever i'm visiting, so we had some time to kill in the city once we got back. Of course, we had to end our trip with a big celebratory meal and a drink.
Iceland was amazing, and I'm sure I'll be back. It's definitely one to add to your bucket lists.
