Iceland

My wife and I have just returned from a 5 day trip to Iceland.

I'm blogging about this because quite a few people have told me they're considering a trip out there, and would like advice or suggestions on what to do.. Hopefully this will come in handy!

We have quite a lot of things to say about this beautiful country, so this almost certainly won't cover all of it but I'll give it a go - and if you can't be bothered to read all of it, skip to the end where I've bullet pointed the main things.

1. The People

As English speaking people, we were very lucky. It seems everybody in Iceland speaks English, and not one person misunderstood a word we were saying. There was no language barrier whatsoever, to the extent where we started to wonder whether English was actually their first language. It almost felt a bit like cheating, but there was simply no opportunity to test out our Icelandic - and even when we said 'Takk' as thank you, it was met with no response.

We were given the impression that Iceland is full of lovely, polite and happy people. Whilst this isn't entirely inaccurate, we also discovered a different type of person whilst on our trip.
Customer service, in general, is pretty poor. They make little conversation, don't say please or thank you and essentially do the very basics of the job without so much of a smile. Though this isn't the case in all places (the restaurants we went to were full of exceptional staff), a majority of our transactions felt like we were being served by a grumpy teenager. I recall one particular girl who was initially chatting to someone else at the till, took the item we were buying, scanned it, took payment, pushed it back towards us with no eye contact, no smile, nothing. It felt rude, but I think this is just the way some of them are..

2. The Prices

It is no lie that Iceland is very expensive. 1,000 Icelandic Krona is essentially £7.00. If you're looking to treat yourself in a restaurant, a starter may be 3,000KR, main course 6,000KR - so before you've even had a drink or dessert, you're looking at over £60.00 per person. The food and drink is particularly expensive as farming in Iceland is very difficult, yet there is a ban on imported goods. Sea food is usually well priced (lobster included), but anything else may feel like a rip off. The same is the case in supermarkets, especially if you're looking for bacon!

That said, there is one supermarket that offers reasonable value. Bonus! is the go-to place if you need to stock up.. Unless you're loaded, you'll need to rely on eating at home and Bonus is the ideal place to get some supplies. We managed to cover food for the trip for less than 5,000KR which really isn't all that bad at all. 

If I were to go again, I'd take very little cash with me. People in Iceland use credit cards for just about everything, and it's very difficult to get rid of any change you get. The exchange rate is probably more expensive than the small charge you'd receive for using your card abroad, so I wouldn't worry too much about changing over those pounds.

3. The Temperature

We visited Iceland in November, and the temperature was constantly around 0 or -1. The morning we left it was as low as -7, so wear plenty of layers and make sure you have some decent gloves. It's not actually too bad, but when the wind picks up it can get pretty unpleasant so be prepared for that.

4. The Smell

There is a bit of a smell that can't be ignored. Iceland is very good at using renewable energy sources, and so any hot water used comes from the geothermal power stations that pop up around the country. The drawback of this is the high levels of sulphur in the water, which creates a rotten egg smell.. It's still perfectly clean, but it comes along with any use of hot water.

5. Transport

We hired a car in Iceland, so I don't have any advice regarding public transport - but I will say that I was delighted to hire a car for the freedom is gives.

The first surprise, however, was that the company we used (Greenmotion) are not actually based at the airport but a short shuttle bus journey away. Though this isn't a major issue, it left us feeling a little lost when we landed. They had Europcar and Hertz at the airport, and in future I would probably book through one of those.

The service at Greenmotion was slow, but the staff were at least informative.

I've hired cars many times before, and know that you need to leave a deposit. In England it's usually around £200, which I thought would be manageable - but apparently I missed some small print somewhere (which I still can't find, though the lady assured me I would've known) that told me the deposit would be more like £2000! This absolutely caught me by surprise, and meant that I simply couldn't afford it. This forced my hand into purchasing the full insurance cover at £130 with no deposit. At the time I felt a bit conned as I wouldn't be getting that money back, but in hindsight I feel it was the right decision anyway.

The law in Iceland states that you and passengers must wear a seat belt at all times, and you must always drive with your lights on. That's because even in daylight, the sun can be pretty low in the sky and so visibility can be compromised.

The roads in Iceland are mostly in good condition, the majority of people drive safely and the speed limits are sensible. The weather is the main reason that I think full insurance is a good idea. We drove out in the dark to a national park in an attempt to get a view of the northern lights, and it was windy! It had also snowed and at times visibility was non existent. It took a lot of focus, and though it was exciting it could've been rather dangerous. The main roads are not icy, but if you turn into a quieter road it can be very slippery. Iceland is prone to the occasional snow storm, and with the strength of the wind it could be easy to bend the doors back when opening them, or the snow can even cause damage to the side of the car if you sit still.

The main benefit of having a car, as mentioned, was the freedom it gave. A tour to go on a boat to view the northern lights, if they come out at all, is just shy of 10,000KR per person. That's £70, and you might not even see them. At £130 for insurance, we got to drive out every night to a nice quiet spot, at whatever time we wanted... and that brings me nicely on to my next section;

6. The Sights

Iceland is BEAUTIFUL. Seriously. I've never been anywhere so stunning. If you can handle the cold weather, you can be treated to some seriously amazing scenery. I'll run down a list of things we saw...

• The Northern Lights.
• Everyone wants to see the Northern Lights when they go to Iceland, and we got the pleasure of seeing them twice. You need a certain amount of things to fall into place for this to happen, but essentially we broke it down to being a clear sky, pitch black, and limited light from the city. When we were there, the ideal time for the northern lights to appear was between 8pm and 2am. 
• I will admit that the lights themselves were a little underwhelming. The excitement of them appearing and sitting in the sky was thrilling, but once they were there I couldn't help but wish they were brighter! There's a scale that goes from 1-9, and our first night seeing them was rated a 3, the second night being a 5. The 3 was exciting at first, but our camera didn't really pick it up. The 5 was incredible, but the best parts of it were appearing whilst I was driving out to a quiet spot. By the time we'd parked up, they'd faded and we felt like we'd missed out a little bit.
• We were told that they can be in the sky from anything between 10 minutes and all night. This is true, so if you get the chance to see them, take it in while it lasts. You might never get the opportunity again.
• As for viewing spots, we used two. There's a lighthouse in Reykjavik that is secluded from the main city. It was pretty popular, though, and quite a few cars had pulled up where we were. With ideal conditions, you could potentially get a view of the lighthouse and the Northern Lights beaming over the top of the city. The main spot we used, however, was Þingvellir National Park - there are many places to stop here, and we found a great spot (coming in from Reykjavik, drive for about 40 mins, when you go past an Information Centre look for a space about 7-10 minutes up the road on your right hand side, and there's a little parking area with a bench on the top of a hill).

• The Golden Circle
• The Golden Circle is essentially a ring road of amazing natural sights, and we got to see most of it before daylight came in. Here's how we found it;
• Hveragerði - There's a little geothermal area in this town that costs 300KR to enter (£2) where there are natural hot springs, pools and streams which is nice enough but in hindsight, it took time out of our day a bit unnecessarily and we could've skipped this stop.
• Kerið - Potentially my highlight of the entire trip. For 400KR, you can go and see this volcanic crater lake, and you can walk down right next to it. It's beautiful, and with the sun quite low in the sky is a great area to get some good snaps. I loved this stop, but we had to move on whilst there was still sunlight. Definitely something worth viewing.
• Geysir/Strokkur - This is the reason why the first stop was a bit of a waste of time. These natural springs are far more impressive, and the very first Geysir ever named is here (called Geysir, the one all others are named after). Strokkur is actually a geysir that is more impressive, shooting water up to 20ft! We didn't spend long here as daylight was fading, but it was exciting and a fantastic piece of nature to witness.
• Gullfoss Waterfall - As waterfalls go, this one is pretty impressive. It's essentially two waterfalls, the first of which is 17m high, the second being 20m. The views around this place are incredible, and this is another great stop. There's also a little cafe here if you need a little break before turning around.
• Þingvellir National Park - Despite coming here on three occasions, we never got to see the national park in the daylight. I'm sure we missed out on some awesome sights, and wish we'd have got here earlier in the day.. That said, still a great place for a Northern Lights viewing session.

• The end of daylight ended our Golden Circle tour, and it was a truly amazing day. The volcano was just immense, and the other sights were pretty special too. If you're gonna do this, give yourself enough time to fit it in, because although it can be done quickly, to really take in the sights you need a good 5-6 hours, and whilst we were there, daylight hours were between 10.30-16:30.

• The Blue Lagoon
• On the Monday it was our anniversary, and I'd booked us in at the Blue Lagoon from 14:00, with a table reserved at the restaurant there for 19:00. I actually thought that we'd have loads of time to spare, but knowing we had a few hours to relax just made it more enjoyable. We upgraded our tickets when we arrived, mostly because the upgrade included free sparkling wine at the restaurant - knowing how much food a drinks cost, this seemed a sensible idea.
• The Blue Lagoon itself is a geothermal spa, using natural heated waters from nearby. There's a pool bar and a face-mask bar, as well as a sauna and multiple areas for simply wandering around in the warm water.
• We had read beforehand that some tourists find it awkward as it is a rule for a person to shower thoroughly before entering the pool. This means getting naked in front of other people whilst there is a shower guard to ensure you do clean yourself properly.. In our experience though, this wasn't the case. There was a chap in the gents, but there were also shower cubicles with doors for privacy if need be and he didn't seem particularly strict. Personally, I'm quite used to showering in front of other people at the gym or swimming pool anyway, so this didn't phase me either way. The one thing I will say though, is to take your towel/bath robe with you to the pool as you can't go back to the changing rooms whilst you're still wet. The bathrobe came with the upgrade we purchased, but towels are given out to everyone
• On the subject of towels and bathrobes - ours got taken. There are numbered pegs for you to leave your stuff, but with all robes and towels looking the same, and people having a poor memory, I had my robe taken and Jackeline had her towel swiped. It was annoying, but there's a cafe who will give you a fresh towel or robe if need be - I think it's a pretty common issue.

• Other things
• There were a couple of things we missed out on that we wish we'd have seen or done. Firstly, whale spotting was something certainly on our list - however, at around £65 per person, and it being the low season for it, we didn't want to waste our money. We were told there'd be around a 60% chance of seeing anything, and that just didn't feel certain enough to part with £130.
• Glaciers. On our final day we had time to kill and I found a book in a shop about glaciers in Iceland. There's one that looks to be about a 60 minute drive away from the capital where you can go inside, have a glass of champagne and get information on how nature works. It looks very impressive, but we simply didn't consider this as an option until it was too late.
• Snowmobiling - again, something that didn't cross our minds at all. Looks like fun, though is probably expensive! 

An Overview

1. Hire a car (ideally with Hertz or Europcar)
2. Be prepared to go over your budget, and don't make any promises to anyone about bringing back souvenirs
3. Stock up on food at Bonus!
4. If you get the chance to see the Northern Lights, don't pass it up
5. Drive the Golden Circle (ensure you see Kerið, Geysir/Strokkur & Gullfoss Waterfall)
6. Visit the Blue Lagoon
7. Wrap up warm!

Overall, Iceland is a beautiful country and well worth a visit - but if you want to keep to a budget, you do have to plan carefully.

Thank for reading.

Joe :)