Iceland - Day 1

I never finished posting about our Iceland trip! You can see the first post here.

We flew in to the Keflavik airport at 6:30am. There's a 5 hour time difference, so our internal clocks said it was actually 1:30am. We each only got a little sleep on the plane, so we planned to head toward our room to take a nap. Our check in time wasn't until 2:00pm, but our awesome host said we could check in early! We had a couple stops to make on the way.

First, we needed to get gas. SadCars does things a little different. You get a car with very little gas and you return it the same way. We stopped at a gas station, filled up and racked up on some snacks since we knew we wouldn't find anything open for breakfast for a while and we were both hungry.

Here are our snacks


The Viking Snack is dried fish. We were not big fans.

We were about 2 hours away from where we were staying, but we stopped at a geothermal park and stayed there for quite a while. It smelled horrible from all the sulfur, but it was SO cool! Even if it stinks, it was worth it to watch boiling mud! We got there just a few minutes before a tour bus, so we had a little bit of time alone. They came and went and another one came. I really liked having a car so we could go where we wanted and stay as long as we wanted. It was just great to be on our own schedule. We thought we would just get out and take a couple pictures. There was a huge hill and we decided to keep going to check out some more of the park. There were some slippery parts and I was definitely not dressed for hiking up slippery hills at this point, but we still really enjoyed ourselves. I was able to keep my balance and somehow I didn't leave with a muddy butt - just muddy boots.

How cool is this?!?

 Look  at all that steam!

 So pretty! This pic really doesn't do this place justice. If I wasn't so tired, I would have wanted to sit by this little stream forever.

At the top!

The tour bus and parking lot from the top! And we thought we would just spend 10 minutes here. Haha.

Next, we saw another area we wanted to stop. There were mountains in the background and we were right by the ocean (which meant it was really windy, which made it feel really cold).

Sidenote - we bought new rain jackets before we went to Peru. We did lots of research and decided to splurge on a Gore-Tex jacket. That was a good choice - I'll probably make a separate post about our jackets at some point, because we love them. They were AMAZING at keeping the wind out, so they played a HUGE part in us keeping warm without us being bundled up like Eskimos!

There were lava rocks all over. There were information boards about the wildlife that I enjoyed reading. Somewhere nearby, there was an old village that had been destroyed by lava. We couldn't find it at the time. We found out later, that it was on the opposite side of the road and we would have had to hike to it for a bit. We decided to keep making our way toward our room to get some rest. We managed to get lost on the way to our Airbnb...and just about every time we drove after that. It's not that there are lots of roads or turns - there's really one main road. The directions were just not right sometimes. We would be looking for a roundabout in 2 miles, then we would either reach it in a half a mile or 5 miles. The road names were also impossible to pronounce. My navigation skills, while still lacking for sure, improved a lot on this trip! By the time we finally made it to our place, it was almost noon! Time was already flying!

We stayed our first 2 nights at a really cute horse farm. The owners had converted a farm outbuilding into a 3 bedroom apartment. It was basic, but it had everything we needed. We REALLY enjoyed our time here. They had a really friendly dog. I did get to go say hi to the horses, but since it was dark and I didn't want to spook them, we didn't take any pictures. The first night we stayed, one other French couple stayed. The second night, 2 other couples stayed. It was cool to talk to everyone and learn about their travels. Some of us were just traveling for a short time and others were traveling the world.

Back to the farm! We finally pulled into the farm, which was probably 20 minutes from the nearest small town. I had read that it was normal for babies to sleep outside in Iceland, but I didn't expect to actually see it. Sure enough, we pulled up to the house to check in and there was a stroller (or a buggy, as they would say in Iceland) on the front porch. I read a little about this when we got back. If you care to read about why babies nap outside in Iceand, here's an article.


 They had just harvested turnips


Such a sweet dog! Perfect for when I miss Bailey!

Anyway - We got checked in, took our things in and laid down for a nap. We were only going to sleep for an hour, but I set the alarm for 30 minutes later when I woke up, then fell back asleep for another 15 minutes when I turned the second alarm off. I woke Josh up and we got ready to head out to start some sight seeing! We both felt much better after resting and I'm glad we did, because we ended up staying out pretty late that night!

We grabbed a snack, changed and headed out for our adventures!

We decided we would drive a portion of the Ring Road (which actually goes around the whole country - we would love to go back and drive the whole thing at some point!) to make the most of our short time. The plan was to visit a couple waterfalls and a black sand beach, then grab some food and head back to our room to get some sleep.

Our first waterfall was Seljalandsfoss. You're supposed to be able to see this one at night too, but we didn't stop on the way back through. You can walk behind the waterfall and it's so pretty! It was raining and windy, so it was difficult to get a picture without water being all over the camera lens.

Our next stop was Skogafoss. This one has a trail you can hike and I would love to go back and do that some day. We knew we didn't have much daylight though, so we made this stop pretty quick.


After this, we headed toward Vik, which is a little coastal town with black sand beaches. This was COLD. I'm not going to not walk barefoot on the only black sand beach I've seen in real life though, so I did it.

It was getting dark by the time we made it to Vik, but it was still a beautiful place!

After the beach, we were starving, so we found a place to eat. We decided on a place we found in our Lonely Planet book, Sudur Vik, and we were very pleased. Josh got a fish soup, which I was very interested in, but I wasn't sold on the idea of fish soup, so I passed. It was delicious! I got a steak sandwich, which was also very tasty.

We started to make our way back to our room and I was watching the sky for the Northern lights. It had been rainy earlier in the day, so I was hopeful, but still convinced we wouldn't see the lights on our first night. We did notice a large glacier on the side of the road that we hadn't noticed on the way through the first time. Josh stopped to take a picture and it has turned out to be one of my favorites from the trip.

 This is a map showing the glacier that we saw. Very cool!

Josh had told me about a tip he read in a book about photographing the Northern Lights. If you photograph the sky and you see green, there's a pretty good chance that you'll see the lights! I kept staring out the window, looking for anything unusual. At one point, I saw a funny, hazy looking cloud. I stared at it for a couple seconds and realized it was moving, so I grabbed Josh's camera and snapped a picture. Sure enough, there was some green! I was SO excited (this has been way way high on my bucket list for a long time)! I told Josh, "Babe, they're gonna do it!" Of course he had no clue what I was talking about, so I had to calm down enough to tell him the lights were coming out to dance! He didn't believe me, but he pulled over. He finally saw the haze too, so he set his camera up. The lights gradually got stronger so that we could see them with our naked eye. It was SO awesome! It was freezing out, but I didn't even care! Here are a few of the shots we got.

After seeing them for a good while, we decided we should make our way back to the farm and we would try to get a few pictures there too.

These are some of the ones he got on the farm.

At some point, I'll have to have Josh edit some of these so I can do something cool with them!

I say this was a very successful first night in Iceland!

My Nordic Birthday!!!

I have SO much to catch up on! It may take me a bit, but I'll get there. I'll start with my very favorite - ICELAND! I'll break it up into a few posts so it's not so long and picture heavy. This one will be more of an intro to our trip, without many details.

Iceland has been at the top of my bucket list for a long time. It's one of those places I've really wanted to visit, but I didn't know if we ever would. Josh was interested, but he's more into Spanish speaking countries. Well, in January, Josh called me while I was at work to tell me he found really cheap tickets to Iceland and asked if I wanted to go in October. I told him I couldn't think of a better birthday present, but I didn't think we would REALLY go. We were already planning to go to Peru within the next year and we were going to be moving soon, so I was waiting for him to say it wasn't in the budget or something very Josh-like. ;-) BUT, he was super spontaneous and told me to go ahead and buy the tickets now before they sold out at that price. I didn't waste any time and I bought the tickets right away! 15 minutes after calling me, we bought plane tickets to Iceland!!!

So, we were off to Iceland from October 22-26. Not QUITE my birthday, but the trip is still the best birthday present I've ever received!

In case you're interested, we flew with WOW airlines. They don't fly out of very many US locations, but they are cheap flights and we had very few complaints. We drove to BWI and flew from there. They fly to several European locations and every flight has a layover in Reykjavik. Ummmm...yes please! We'll definitely consider flying with them when we go to Europe! My only complaints were that it was hot on the plane. I'm ALWAYS cold on planes, but definitely not this one. They do advertise being Iceland's most punctual airline, but both our flights were delayed. This wasn't a huge deal for us, but it may be for some. It wouldn't stop me from flying with them again, but I would plan to have an extra hour or so than I think I need if we had another connection. Another little quirk was that we had an overnight flight and they did not make it easy to sleep. Typically, they dim the lights and keep it quiet on late or overnight flights. They left the lights on and there were announcements for on board duty free shopping at like 3am. You don't get a carry on or checked bag for free and you have to pay for all your snacks and food, but as long as you're prepared for it, you can still save a LOT of money. Both of us flew both ways for $670 and that's after paying for a checked bag both ways. Woohoo! Such a great deal!

We also went the budget route with our rental car. I don't really remember where we first read about SadCars, but I'm really glad we found them! The cars are not pretty or new, but when you're driving on gravel roads in Iceland, that's probably a good thing! Their service was great. They pick you up from the airport, show you where to get the cheapest gas and send you on your merry little way off to explore Iceland. When you bring the car back, they check over it quickly and take you back to the airport. The only tiny complaint we have is that typically, cars have snow tires on them in the Winter. Most other cars we saw had snow tires, including other SadCars, but ours didn't. They would have been useful, because it did snow, but we were fine.

This is our SadCar, Patty. In this picture, we were on our way to the Blue Lagoon, which we were late for...that's a fun story for later. Anyway, she's not cute, but she got us around and she kept us warm. I loved her as much as one can love a Yaris.

So, car and flight are covered...for our lodging, we used Airbnb. Great experiences all around! Now, when we're researching for a trip, we always check Airbnb before checking for hotels. If you've used it, you probably love it too, if not, you're missing out. You should give it a shot. Use my link and we'll both get a $20 credit.

Other tidbits about Iceland before I get around to posting more detailed posts:

1 - I'm in love with it. Like, for real for real. It is definitely on our list of places we would love to visit again SOON. Tourism is growing pretty quickly there, and I'm afraid tourists will ruin some of the things I love about it, so if you suck...please don't go. K, thanks!

2 - It's basically magic. If I had seen a unicorn, I only would have been surprised because unicorns don't like cold weather. Everything is breathtaking. Even the city is clean. It didn't smell like a city at all. It's just an amazing place.

3 - The people are SO nice. I mean, everyone. The closest thing to a rude person we ran into was a french couple we were sharing our first Airbnb with and they weren't even rude. They just didn't speak much because they knew limited English. 

There's a lot more, but they require a little more detail, so I'll share them later with more posts and pictures. :-)