A perfect just the two of us getaway to Iceland!! This was a bucket list trip for me and we made it even more amazing by renting a camper van and travelling around in that. We thought it would be too cold for the kids, but I think they would have enjoyed a lot of it (it really wasn't that cold). There were some things we did that they may have complained about -- we did do a lot of walking! We keep saying we want to go back! We loved it so much!
We rented our camper van through Happy Campers and even got free wifi for agreeing to post pics on Instagram. Easy bonus!
There was beauty everywhere. You could pull over anywhere and be mesmerized!
The drive......rain or shine........rainbow or no rainbows......breathtaking
We first went grocery shopping to stock up our camper van. We knew ahead of time we were going to take advantage of having this and cook all of our meals as Iceland is very expensive and not many restaurants around unless you're in a bigger city. After we were stocked up we started on our adventure right away. The first days agenda was the Golden Circle. We decided to travel clockwise as it benefited us the best for our next days travels. So the first stop was to Thingvellir National Park where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly drifting apart. To be honest, this was our least exciting stop and we didn't know how much time we'd need to get to our our stops and find a place to stay for the night so this was a super quick stop.
Our next stop was the geothermal area of Haukadalsvegur where the main attraction is the massive geyser, Strokkur. It errupts every 2-10 minutes......although when trying to capture a selfie in front of it you can pretty much guarantee it will be more towards the 10 minute mark.
Last planned stop on the Golden Circle was Gulfoss Waterfall.
I had told Derek if we ever saw any Icelandic horses while driving to pull over! Well, we found some!!
Finally found our first night camping spot (the only night we actually paid for camping (and the least beautiful)....we learned quickly that we were traveling at a time where we could sleep pretty much wherever we wanted and no one was going to say anything)
Day 2.
Seljalandsfoss
Waterfall.
Gljufrabui
Waterfall
This is a waterfall that is hidden back in a gorge. I think it's becoming a more popular find as there are now signs posting the direction to it from Seljalandsfoss. We got there and there were a bunch of people standing back taking pictures. We were like "We're here.....we're going in!" We had it to ourselves for a couple of minutes and then a swarm of people followed. #trendsetters
Next stop: Seljavallalaug a "secret" hidden pool/hot springs tucked back in the valley of the mountains.
Then Skogafoss
Next stop was the 4 mile walk to Solheimasandur US Navy DC-3 crash site.
The last stop of the day was in Vik at the black sand beaches and basalt columns.
And a quick beautiful pull off on our drive to our pit stop for the night.
The stop for the night was in the visitors center parking lot of this National Park. The campground was closed, but there are some guided tours that start here. The guides said we could just sleep in the parking lot for free......and we definitely weren't the only ones!
We were so soaked from the day, especially Derek as his boots were not completely waterproof....so he humored me.......
Day 3. We got up early and hiked to Svartifoss Waterfall. It snowed over night and we were the first out on the trail. Something about walking through freshly fallen snow. Leaving our tracks. It was so beautiful!
Then we hiked to the glacier that was right there.
Then we drove to the beautiful Jokulsarlon National Park -- first stop Diamond Beach!
As you can see by the number of pictures, we had a lot of time to kill here before our 6pm Ice Cave Tour.....it was the perfect place to have time to kill! So stunning!
Ice Cave tour -- walking up we saw the snowmobiles. We debated between snowmobiling on the glacier or going inside the ice cave. The ice cave was neat, but I do think the snowmobiling would have been so fun!
Up to this point, we were having such a great time. Like the BEST time! We were loving Iceland so much we were willing to do whatever it took to try and see all that we could. This meant a change of plans. Our original itinerary had us turning around at this point and heading back in the direction we came from and basically just spending some time in the capital of Reykjavik before our final stop at the Blue Lagoon. The people we had rented our camper van from had said we could drive the entire ring road in 15 hours -- we were willing to do it, especially since there was a greater chance of seeing the Northern Lights up north on the island that evening.....and we had yet to see them and I was dying to see them! So, we changed plans and decided to go for it! We had 22 hours before our scheduled visit to the Blue Lagoon. The east side of the island was much different from everything we had seen so far. Completely sunny and no snow in sight. It had more dirt and trees and the coast was always in sight. It was getting dark and we passed some beautiful places to pull off for camping. I think there was something deep inside me that just knew we should keep going. But we did. It was getting dark and I was getting tired so I started to fall asleep. Next thing I know I wake up because Derek was freaking out because the roads were getting icy and we were going up these snow/ice covered gravel mountain roads. Pitch black so we couldn't see anything around us. The roads were turning into switchbacks so we knew we were climbing high up. Now I was freaking out! We finally made it to a town. Pulled over for gas and grabbed some famous Icelandic hot dogs (which were SO good!).
As we were in there we talked to the people working about the weather and they said if we kept going the direction we wanted to go there was a blizzard ahead! Derek and I just looked at each other and didn't say a word. We went back out to the van and started looking up the weather. Why did we not think to do this before hand?! So now we were faced with the unknown blizzardy roads ahead or going back the way we came, which was getting super slick as the night fell and the wind picked up. We were already half way around the ring road at this point. I was so scared and what made me even more scared was I could tell that Derek had no idea what to do either. I ended up deciding that we needed to turn around and go back the way we came from. So we started off and my heart was thumping so hard I couldn't watch so I ended up closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep. Next thing I know, Derek is slowing down because he thought the turn was coming up......and we get stuck! The only good thing about this was I got a glimpse of the northern lights! They were out, but there was quite a bit of cloud coverage so it was spotty. I tried to capture it with my camera, but with the clouds it was hard to do. You could see it much better in person.
At this point, we knew there was no way we were ever going to get enough speed to make it up the hill/mountain we were climbing so I decided we needed to somehow turn around on this tiny road and head back to the village we just came from and go back to the gas station for hopefully...maybe some advice on what we should do. We managed to get turned around, and back to the gas station..........but it was closed! Turns out we made it there earlier within 10 minutes of closing time! We decided to sleep in the parking lot. We were both freaking out. Did a lot of praying and I did a lot of hyperventilating. I was so so so scared. I did not think we were going to make it back in time before our flight out (at this point we still had about 36 hours before our flight home). I don't think i slept at all that night. It was a very windy night, the van was shaking and all I kept thinking was that everything is just going to be even icier. Derek woke up at 6. The sun was rising and looked to be a sunshiny day. He was ready to tackle the road again. I was nervous and thought we should wait for the gas stations to open up, but he wanted to get going as they don't open until 9. So we went. I was still shaking.....but we made it! The sun was doing it's job of melting the ice pretty quickly. We could see now and were able to get just enough speed to find the spots were the ice had melted off the gravel and grab those areas for extra traction. Good thing no one else was on the roads though because we HAD to stay in the middle. Once we got back to the east -- we were so relieved and it was beautiful to just pull over, cook some breakfast and enjoy the view and give our thanks.
We even saw real life reindeer!
And found another waterfall
We stopped off at Skogafoss one more time......since it was right there and covered with snow this time.
And we made it to the Blue Lagoon with an hour to spare.....just enough time for us to have dinner before relaxing all of our stresses away.
Seriously, even with the one scary evening, it was our favorite trip while being in Europe. It's the one we still talk about and want to take our kids. If we ever come back, we will definitely be making another trip to Iceland!
And for fun, some of our camper van food.
