Hotel Skogafoss is located so close to Skogafoss, in fact, the view of our room is the waterfall itself, now I could get used to that! The restaurant of the hotel shows a panoramic view of the falls and the area. We hiked all the way to the top and saw lambs on the hill! We’re still wondering how they manage to not fall and roll over, they’re super round and chunky, they remind me of tsum tsum!
view from our room
The restaurant of Hotel Skogafoss
Skogafoss!
the closest we could get to the waterfall without freezing
Skogafoss from the top
After like a hundred photos, we drove to the nearby Skogar museum to see the old Icelandic turf houses. They’re really cute.
Driving up next to Vik! Love, love this tiny town. There is an Ice Wear factory outlet here and the prices are really low compared to the ones in Reykjavik. We contemplated on buying Lopapeysa, but we really couldn’t justify the cost, plus, its not like we’ll be able to wear them often.
View of the drive going to VikView of the drive going to VikCute and tiny town of Vik , and the other side of Reynisfjara beach on the left
Vik’s famous church on the hill
We had lunch at a local diner, I had Icelandic fish and chips and G had grilled lamb – so good, he clearly won that round, but forgot to take a picture of it pfft.
Icelandic fish and chips
Next we went to Reynisfjara black beach and saw the basalt columns by the beach and the cave as well.
Reynisfjara black sand beachand the famous basalt columns
Last stop for the day is the Fjadrarglifujur canyon. Ever since we booked this trip and started creating our itinerary, I’ve become obsessed with this canyon. So this was on the top of my list for the day. We sacrificed Dyrholaey and seeing puffins for this ! It was so worth it! I wanted to cry when I saw the canyon. It doesn’t seem to mind the bad weather at all. The water was still blueish-greenish and it looked and sounded so peaceful!
you’d see a lot of views like this around the whole country, couldn’t help but stop for a bit and take pictures. **please keep in mind that you can’t just stop anywhere, there are designated stops for taking picturesFjadrarglijufur canyon
Drive going here was crazy wild. We saw moss covered lava fields then after a few minutes it was as if we were transported to a different world. A lot of one lane bridges too so beware.
The cute and charming little town of Kikjubaejarklaustur
We retired for the day and stayed at Hotel Skaftafell, which is situated at the foot of a glacier! We even saw the glacier tongues on our way here, gaaah!!!
view of the glacier tongue from the ring roadmoss covered lava fields
We woke up early even if we lacked sleep – we were up by 3am because it was already around lunch time in Manila. We called the kids and showed them the house. We miss them already!
G trying out cured/fermented sharkour airbnb in Reykjavik
Agenda for the day is the Golden Circle – it is a known and popular tourist route in southern Iceland. It contains most tours and travel-related activities in Iceland.
We started the day at the Thingvellir National Park – a UNESCO world heritage site and a key location in Icelandic history as the oldest existing parliament in the world first assembled there in 930 AD. It lies in a rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates – you can even actually go diving or snorkeling in between these plates! It is a huge park, we were also lucky to see the lovely autumn colors in the park.
Next was Geysir. It was raining when we arrived, and since it was already time for lunch, we stopped by the diner to have soup and bread for the cold rainy weather.
Geysir
The moment you enter the park, you’d think that someone made a big fat fart! Or someone just brought a lot of rotten boiled eggs. Haha! Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit. Though the Great Geysir is less active these days, its neighbor Strokkur did not disappoint. Strokkur is one of Iceland’s most famous geysers, erupting water 100ft into the air, once every 6-10 minutes. It was amazing to see how it spouts the water so high!
Next was Gullfoss.The drive going here was breathtaking. It was like driving in garden dream.
Didn’t realize as well that it was massive! We went closer too see it and saw the canyon where its water flows down. It was amazing. This was probably the most crowded site we’ve seen, so many tourists! Its funny because you can really separate Asian tourists from others even from afar because of their umbrellas!
Gullfoss
restaurant and boutique beside Gullfoss
Next stop – Seljelandsfoss, my favorite waterfall in Iceland – magical and breathtaking. You can even walk behind it. We were lucky to see it during the golden hour, which added more charm to its already marvelous beauty.
Finally, my turn to drive!
Hotel for the night was Hotel Skogafoss. Even though it was already dark when we arrived, we could still see the famous Skogafoss from the road, amazing!
Keflavic International Airport to Reykjavik – pickup car rental from SADCARS
Check-in at Airbnb in Reykjavik
Explore downtown Reykjavik and Laugavegur – shopping street in Reykjavik
After 3 time zones and 26 long hours, we finally arrived! We got picked up by our car rental guy who happens to be a Pinoy and Visayan named Sugar Ray! He told us how he and his family moved to Iceland, and how happy he is to be living there.
London-Gatwick AirportG in scotch heavenSandwich anyone?Yay! Now boarding for IcelandWelcome!Touchdown! I’m sleepy.Our wifi packet from SADCars
We were greeted by our first rainbow on our way to the car garage, and we’ve seen 3 others on our way to Reykjavik.
The car rental – SADCars – has “empty to empty” policy, so we received our car with an empty tank, so we had to go gas up right away. And this is where our adventure officially begins! To start off, we were greeted by an automatic gas station, where you just swipe/tap your card and fill the car by yourself – G’s nemesis. Funnily, none our cards would work, and it was so windy I could see the lamp post swaying! G who was only wearing his fleece jacket, I could tell, was freezing. After trying about 89 of our credit cards (nyek nyek), we decided to try one of our debit cards, the one without the “pay wave” capability, and poof! It worked!
G at the windy station
We arrived at the house and had a hard time putting in the keys because my hands were shaking – it was so windy and cold and we weren’t wearing warm clothes yet. We had the whole house to ourselves, and it was big! Don’t you just love Airbnb?
One of our first rainbows in IcelandApproaching ReykjavikCould hardly put in the keysOur home in Reykjavik
The place was walking distance to Laugavegur – the shopping street in Reykjavik. Nothing was cheap! After walking the whole strip, we decided to take a turn to see the Hallgrímskirkja church from afar – well it wasn’t too far, just a few blocks away. It was beautiful!
Teehee!
After our very long journey, we thought we deserved a nice dinner. We weren’t ready yet to try Icelandic stuff, so we chose a french restaurant, but still ordered Icelandic fish- salmon for G and cod for me. We both got beers, wine was expensive. The food was good, and we realized it’s our first date in Europe, yiheee! We were both dozing off though after the soup and a few gulps of beer. Hey, you can’t blame us, we’ve been awake for almost 2 days! (Actually, I slept well in the plane, I always do. I even miss the meals sometimes because I just always want to sleep some more)
The Ring Road or Route 1 (Hringvegur in Icelandic) is a national road in Iceland that runs around the whole island and connects most of the inhabited parts of the country, Iceland has just around 320,000 inhabitants, by the way. Its total length is around 1300 km – so we have definitely driven a little bit more than that. I just don’t know how you can get the total distance driven after plotting the route in google maps, but if anyone knows, please teach me! So anyway, I am just putting our itinerary’s route here:
The Ring Road – allot extra 3 or more days if you want to explore the highlands or the West Fjords (image generated from google maps)
After studying all the travel itineraries offered by several tour companies, and after months and months of reading, here’s what we have come up with (I actually had a draft ready a week after we purchased our tickets, now who’s excited? :P).
The items in Bold are the ones that we were actually able to visit, other ones are in lower priority so we “sacrificed” them in place for the ones that we really liked to see:
Day 1: Arrival
Keflavic International Airport to Reykjavik – pickup car rental from SADCARS
Check-in at Airbnb in Reykjavik
Hallgrímskirkja Church
Harpa Concert Hall
Árbæjarsafn – Icelandic open-air museum in Reykjavik
Explore downtown Reykjavik and Laugavegur – shopping street in Reykjavik
Day 2: Golden Circle
Thingvellir National Park
Geysir
Gullfoss
Seljavallalaug – oldest swimming pool in Iceland
Seljalandsfoss
Plane crash site at Sólheimasandur
Skogar
Day 3 : South Iceland
Skogafoss
Skogar Museum
Vik
Dyrhólaey
Reynisfjara black sand beach
Fjadrarglijufur
Kirkjubæjarklaustur
Skaftafell
Day 4: Southeast / East Iceland
Skaftafell / Vatnajokull National Park
Jokusarlon Glacier Lagoon
Hofn
Seydisfjordur
Day 5: North Iceland
Seydisfjordur
Myvatn Nature Baths
Námaskarð hot springs
Jökulsárgljúfur canyon / Ásbyrgi canyon
Godafoss
Akureyri
Day 6: North Iceland / Reykjavik
Akureyri
Reykjavik
Day 7: West Iceland / Snæfellsnes Peninsula / Reykjavik
Grundarfjörður / Kirkjufell / Kirkjufellsfoss
Stykkishólmur
Olafsvik
Arnarstapi / Hellnar Beach
Reykjavik
Hallgrímskirkja Church
Harpa Concert Hall
Baejarins Beztu Pylsur
Laugavegur shopping
Day 8: Departure
Tip: In plotting out our daily itinerary, we applied what we have learned during our wedding planning – listing down non-negotiables and negotiables.
We both listed all the possible sites to see, then we listed our top 3 sites per day, if we ended up listing the same item, we get to add one more, yay! And then we just prioritize and rank whatever is left on the list for the day. The reason why we did this is, so we know how to plan the day well, and how to change our planned activities, if needed. If we end up having more time even after finishing off the top ones, then we get to check off more sites from our list for that specific day. Like what I’ve already mentioned in the previous post, Iceland has a very unpredictable weather, and your plan for the day really depends on it. In plotting the itinerary, we have even taken into consideration and listed down the following:
Daylight – time of sunrise and sunset per day
Driving time – length of drive from one site to the other
Do not forget to take into consideration possible storm/rain, snow, road closures, etc. One important reason why we did this, is mainly because even though this is a very short trip, we still didn’t want to rush ourselves by allotting only a few minutes per site – that’s the main reason as well why we don’t join packaged tours 🙂 We want to be able to spend as much time as we want in a particular place and just really enjoy, because that’s what a vacation is really for!
If you need any help in planning your itinerary, just holler!
What to pack? Ok, so we’ve read a lot about this because we did not want to pack a lot of stuff since we will be moving from place to place every day. Coming from a tropical country, obviously, we have a different definition for cold. That’s why we had a bit of a hard time packing, also because unlike the other cold places that we’ve been to, we know that this time we will be spending a lot of time outdoors – not just outdoors, but doing short hikes and treks, going to beach sides and lagoons with icebergs, walking behind waterfalls, and all the other cool stuff that Iceland has to offer.
Iceland in early October was still pleasant when we went. It wasn’t that cold really, unless, you know, when it rained while we were on a hike or when the wind decided to make us feel its strong presence – which happened a few times a day, almost every day.
The key (based from all the blogs I’ve read as well) is to layer. Here’s a list of what I packed for the trip:
all images downloaded from google
Bobble hat – to keep your head and ears warm, plus it is cute!
Gloves – G and I both got E-tip gloves from The North Face. They are perfect because you don’t need to remove them even when you have to use your phone
Scarf – choose the warm kind
Thermals – very important
Layering Tee – since the weather changes quickly, it is always a good idea to layer
Long sleeves / Turtlenecks – to wear on top of your tees or thermals
Fleece – something that you can use for mid layering if it gets too cold
Down Vest – I got a super light and packable down vest from Uniqlo, I wore it as middle layer during colder days
Light Coat – for walking around towns and when you get tired of your hiker look.
Heavy Coat / Parka – I prefer wearing my parka during windy days because I felt it kept the wind from hitting my face that hard
Waterproof jacket – must have! Whether or not it rains, walking behind and beside waterfalls will surely spray water on you. You can’t afford to get soaked because you will get really cold after
Leggings/Denims – I prefer using leggings because they are warmer
Wool Socks – life saver! Aside from the ones we got here in Manila, we also got pairs from Icewear, they feel so good!!
Swimwear – Iceland has a lot of natural hot springs and geothermal baths, it would be nice to try at least one.
Boots – High boots or winter boots to go with your other city outfits
Hiking Boots – another must have! You will be walking and trekking a lot, you need a comfortable pair that has good ankle support as well. If you’re going to go walking on glaciers, make sure the ones you get would be compatible for putting crampons on.
Shades – of course 😛
Backpack – I prefer a backpack for this kind of trip instead of a handbag or shoulder bag. It is easier to carry especially when you have to put extra clothing inside, a bottle of water, and bunch of other stuff. Better if you get a waterproof one as well.
Thingvellir National Park – when my boots were still clean
We purchased our tickets 6 months before the actual trip, and lucky us, because we got a huge discount since the airline had a promo during that time. I’m a fan of skyscanner and that’s where I’ve been monitoring air fares.
We have been eyeing this trip for quite a while that I think I have already bookmarked all the possible websites about Iceland! Kidding aside, since I have been reading about the place for months even before we purchased our tickets, the actual planning wasn’t that tough. And besides, planning for a vacation is always fun! (To be honest though, this was the very first trip that I planned, ever! I usually just choose one or two sites that I want to see and just let G do all the planning, and I just usually go with the flow and enjoy)
Here are some things that could be helpful when planning and things that are good to know before going to the land of fire and ice:
VISA
Iceland is part of the Schengen area, and since we were only visiting Iceland for this trip, we lodged our application at the Norwegian Embassy in Manila (they represent Iceland in the Philippines) through VFS. Application and processing time was quick. We submitted our application on a Tuesday and we already received an email and an SMS 2 days after saying that the VISA has been approved. To know more info, including the list of requirements, click here.
GETTING AROUND
Skogar, South Iceland (Photo by me)
Since we were planning on going around the whole country via their famous Ring Road, we rented a car from SADCARS. They have a branch in Reykjavík and in Keflavik – about 10 minutes from the airport. You can choose to get your car from KEF, and they will pick you up from the airport and bring you to their garage to give you the car. Returning the car will be the same – bring the car to their branch/garage and they will bring you to the airport for your departure.
We opted for a 4×4 to give us the flexibility in driving, you know, just in case we want to explore more or add another site to our list and veer off from the ring road from time to time. Not all cars are allowed to drive on every road, and not all the roads are paved as well, there are a lot gravel/rough roads especially if you want to explore the highlands or West Fjords.
Fuel in Iceland is expensive. And apparently, some cards are not being accepted on some gas station terminals. So to be on the safe side, get one of those prepaid gas cards that you can top up on almost around the whole country.
ROAD SAFETY
The weather in Iceland can be pretty wild. It could be sunny when you wake up, and could already be stormy by the time you finish your breakfast. Before heading out to drive, be sure to check this website, it will give you an updated report on road and weather conditions. Here you can find the necessary emergency numbers and other useful information, they even have web cameras!
Take road signs and speed cameras seriously too, we got flashed a few times, still not sure up to now whether or not we got tickets for those. Coming from a country where road signs and traffic rules are merely suggestions or “friendly reminders”, driving in another country was pretty tough for me at first.
Watch this video of Elfis to learn more about driving safely in Iceland. It’s important to keep your eyes and focus on the road, not just because the views along the ring road are absolutely breathtaking, but also because horses or sheeps or deers might suddenly cross the road, seriously.
CONNECTIVITY
To avoid expensive data roaming charges, we got a wifi bundle from SADCARS, and we just carried it along with us wherever we went. You can also top it up online, which was very convenient by the way. The SIM that came with the wifi box is from this telco called Siminn – check out their website to see how easy it is to topup your data credits wherever you are in Iceland.
CURRENCY
Current is ISK (Icelandic Krona), 1 ISK = .42 PHP.
We actually didn’t get the chance to have our cash exchanged, I forgot why we failed to do so. But it turned out we didn’t really need cash anyway. Credit cards are accepted wherever you go, even on vendo machines 🙂
Just trying this out and let’s see how it goes. Ok? 🙂
So apparently, I’ve created this domain a few years back, I have actually forgotten what’s its for, to be honest. I just thought of trying this out again because my husband and I just came back from the biggest trip we’ve done so far – the ultimate Iceland road trip, the number 1 on our bucket list! And I just wanted to share how amazing it was, and maybe share some tips as well for anyone who’s thinking of doing the same trip.
Who knows? Maybe after writing about the trip, I will also get to write and share other stuff here too.
Train With Tin 