I’m not a great traveler. But Iceland is so consistently beautiful, and its people so consistently kind, that I only needed a few good choices to make the trip amazing.
1. I stayed in San Francisco the night before leaving and the night after returning.
I was talking about the parking situation around SFO with my hair stylist, when another client—tin foil in her hair and all—came over and told me about the El Rancho Park and Fly. It turned out to be brilliant advice. I reserved a room for the night before I left, and arranged to leave my car with them for the 10-day trip. There’s some silliness about how they advertise their price—they say there’s no charge to leave the car, but the free parking is only available when you pay a higher rate for the room. But in the end, the room for that night plus car storage for 10 days or so cost just a few dollars more than the cheapest airport lot would have cost.
The room wasn’t stellar, but it was clean and comfortable. I slept well and caught an early morning shuttle to the airport, arriving just as the desk for WOW Air opened. No stress at all.
When I returned from Iceland, I decided to book an extra night at El Rancho. I hadn’t planned on that, but upon landing I was pretty beat, and the three-hour drive home, coming as it did at the end of probably 12 hours of travel, seemed a bit much. A good meal—there was a wonderful hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant across the street, where I could get noodles and beer—and a good night’s sleep made a big difference for the drive the next day.
2. I rented a car.
Several blog posts about Iceland travel talk about ways to get by without needing to rent a car. There are, for example, lots of tours that will take you from Reykjavík to various places around the country. I’m sure many of those are quite good; I saw several of them—big buses at the waterfalls and lighthouses—and the people seemed happy enough. But I really enjoyed the flexibility of having my own vehicle, and I’d recommend that.
This was true even with the sketchy weather. In the end, I got pretty lucky—the weather was unpredictable, but most of the bad weather—the weather that would have been actually dangerous to drive in (as opposed to me just being nervous about it)—happened at night. The one exception was the wind the morning I left Borgarnes. But even then, the wind had died down enough by the time I needed to leave, so the delay didn’t interfere with any plans.
If I’d known better, I’d have rented a bigger, heavier car. The Jimny, I learned, has a reputation of being brilliant in snow but dangerous in wind, especially on ice. I was lucky not to deal with both at once: I certainly felt buffeted by the wind, but that rarely coincided with ice. (I also think I was a little paranoid; watching the rental-car guy as he drove me to the airport made me realize that I had been a bit timid.)
Anyway, I chose the car basically by price, aiming for Cheap Jeep Rental’s least expensive four-wheel drive vehicle. It worked as advertised. But given what I know now, I’d have spent the extra money on a heavier, more powerful car.
Honorable mention: Google Maps was amazing. The whole time, which included driving on fairly out-of-the-way areas, it was only “wrong” in two places: driving to my first guesthouse, it tried send me the wrong way down a one way street; and on the drive north, it told me to “stay left at the fork” where there was no fork. Aside from that, it was perfect.
3. I reserved all the rooms in advance.
I had originally planned to be spontaneous (can you imagine me being spontaneous?), to book only the first two nights’ room and then play it by ear from there on. Fortunately, I came to my senses and booked all the rooms in advance. It turns out that was a good idea; all the places I stayed at were full, and since it’s the “off-season” for tourists, a lot of places aren’t open. It would have been both stressful and significantly more expensive had I not chickened out.
I’m not saying that all my advance choices were perfect; I wish I hadn’t put the two-night stays back to back. But even that decision turned out fine; the first two-night stay allowed me to see the Kálfshamarsvík lighthouse, and the second was at the home of a really nice family—one of the only places I was able to connect with actual, live Icelanders.
I booked all but two of the rooms (the first guesthouse, and the converted sheep barn in Borgarnes) through Airbnb, which worked brilliantly. Every place was clean and solid—small, often, but I’d usually chosen the least expensive places in the area, so I’d expected that. The one drawback: many of these rooms were really just guesthouses being advertised through Airbnb, which means the hosts lived somewhere off-site. I’d expected to stay with locals in the house as a way to meet people, but in most cases I only met them long enough to get the key and some suggestions for places to visit.
Of course, it’s me, so a part of me was relieved that I didn’t have to actually talk to people….
4. I arrived on New Year’s Eve.
Most of my stay in Iceland was quiet. Most restaurants were almost empty, as the locals aren’t crazy enough to pay the high prices. Most of beautiful spots were in wide open landscapes. And much of my time was spent on the road. Even when crowds gather, they’re not very loud; the only obnoxious people I met were the Asian teens at Gljúfrabúi, and I’ve already admitted that I wish I’d embraced their attitude.
But the hour and a half’s worth of fireworks were loud, and the streets were really crowded. I think I’d have left with a sense that Iceland is largely unpopulated if my winter visit had not included the New Year’s Eve celebrations; for much of the trip, most of the people I saw were tourists like me.
Further, the experience far exceeded anything I’d seen or heard about it. I mean, I’d seen pictures of fireworks scattered across city skylines, and the guy at the rental-car place had told me about how amazing it would be. But as high as my expectations were, they didn’t even come close to capturing the energy and craziness that I experienced.
5. I brought insulated, waterproof hiking shoes.
I’ve never owned waterproof shoes before, let alone insuluted ones. I’ve had snow boots, but those aren’t really conducive to daily walking.
And, while I’m sure this is obvious to experienced travelers, I can’t overstate how important walking turned out to be. It was especially important in Reykjavík, as the long walks I took helped me make sense of the city and dispelled the disorientation I felt from the aimless driving that first morning. But it was also important in the more remote outdoor spots—the walk to the glacier, or the lighthouse in Kálfshamarsvík, or even through Borgarnes in the rain.
And it was wonderful that I didn’t even think about my feet. (I only think of it now because I recently stepped in a puddle and suffered the whole workday in wet socks…)
6. I went to the the Blue Lagoon at the end of the trip.
So many bloggers have written that the Blue Lagoon is a must see, so that of course made me not want to go (so predictable!). Several of them suggest going there on that first morning, as a way to pass the time before check-in at the hotel—arriving flights set down at 4:00 a.m., and buses shuttle people to arrive at the Blue Lagoon’s opening time.
I’ve written about how disoriented I was that first morning, and a trip to the Blue Lagoon certainly might have helped alleviate some of that. So I have to admit that I think these bloggers have a point. I even tried to reserve a spot right before I left the rental car place, since I had no idea what I should do at that point, but it turns out that reservations fill up days in advance.
That said, I’m glad that I wasn’t able to get a reservation that morning. Visiting the Blue Lagoon the night before my flight left turned out to be a good choice. It wasn’t quite as relaxing as an actual salt-water float (like Revival Float in my home town), but it was still very relaxing. I slept really well, and I felt the effects of the relaxation through the next day, with all the usual hurry-up-and-wait of international travel.
[In Part 2, I’ll talk about the things I could’ve done to make this already excellent trip even better.]
This is one in a series of six posts about a 10-day trip I made to Iceland in early 2018. The first four describe the actual trip; the last two reflect on my experiences:
- Iceland: New Year’s in Reykjavik
- Iceland: South and back
- Iceland: A Taste of the north
- Iceland: The last leg of the journey
- Reflections on my Iceland trip, part 1: Some good choices
- Reflections on my Iceland trip, part 2: Some room for improvement