Our Icelandic Adventure: Summer 2017

Jonathan Young
Nov 13, 2017
9 min read

Intro & Quick Tips

Ohhhhhhh Iceland how I miss you already. After wanting to tackle this one on the bucket list since High school, my fiance Ellise and I finally made it there this past summer. Before we get to the adventure, here's some quick tips prior to your trip:

Time To Visit: There's a lot of debate around the "best time to visit", but it honestly just depends on what you're looking for. We opted for the Summer time since there is essentially 24 hours of daylight (no northern lights), warmer weather, and it gave us more time to explore the beautiful wilderness of Iceland without having to worry about our adventures getting cut short from nightfall. It definitely added to a more stress free adventure by being able to take longer drives around the island and just generally having more time to explore (also pretty damn cool hiking during the midnight sun).
Getting Around: Driving around Iceland is super easy and nothing to stress over. I had added the Verizon travel plan for $10 a day and was able to use GPS about 80-85% of the time. Really the only time we didn't have service was out in Skaftafell National Park and the Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon (wait til you see those pics).
Lodging: As a nice travel trick, I always book ALL of my rooms through Hotels.com whenever possible (www.hotels.com). For every 10 nights you book, they take the average cost you spent over those 10 nights and give you a free booking!
Car Rental: If choosing to rent a car, I highly recommend renting your vehicle in advance. We had pre-booked a car rental through Budget Rent-a-car (www.budget.com). Summer time brings a lot of tourists and many folks were getting turned away due to no vehicles being available or forced to rent very expensive 4 x 4's (if you have the money the more power to you, and it certainly opens up the window for more intense drives that we couldn't handle in our VW Golf).
Planning Is Key: We mapped out all of our drives ahead of the trip and it totally paid off and helped us maximize our time and the amount if sites we saw in Iceland.
Photographers: Prepare to bring a wet bag for your camera!

Thursday 6/29- Arriving in Iceland

Our first night we stayed in downtown Reykjavik at Rey's Apartment. Really cool little place right in the heart of the major attractions of the city. Brace yourself as the rumors are true, food and drinks in Iceland are EXPENSIVE. There's ways around it that I'll get to shortly. Our first meal we ate at the infamous Plysur Hotdog Stand. The deep fried bacon wrapped dog was gooooooood AF! After that we checked out the Sun Voyager right along the water and visited the Hallgrimskirja Churche, 2 right of passages when in Reykjavik.

For Dinner we ate at Svarta Kaffid to try out there top notch bread bowls (arrive early as once they run out of soup they close up shop). They have different soups each day, but they were awesome and well worth it. Enter our first round of drinks in Iceland and immediately reminded us of why we brought 2 bottles of liquor and 2 bottles of wine in our checked luggage, it easily saved us a few hundred bucks throughout the week.

Friday 6/30- Let's start the adventure

We woke up and took the 1hr trek to Thingvellier National Park. It was pouring rain our entire time there, but it didn't stop us from checking out Oxafoss and walking between two tectonic plates, because who doesn't want to be able to say they walked in between the Eurasian and North America Tectonic plates?!

Heads up "foss" translates to "waterfall" and holy hell they are EVERYWHERE in Iceland, it's a photographers paradise. After roaming the trails for about 3 hours, we stopped at the visitor center and managed to spend $44 USD on two waters, a powerade, 2 two airport style sandwiches, and a coffee. True story...see for yourself:

From there we drove to the famous Strokker Geyser which was only about another hour away on the way to Gulfoss. The Geysir was cool and there's no reason not to stop there since it's a part of the drive, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was underwhelming. It kind farted more than like an Old Faithful eruption. Nevertheless, we got some cool pics and kept it moving.

On to Gulfoss. Pulling up and getting out the car you could already hear the thunder that is Gulfoss. This was the part of the trip where I started to say "alrightttttttt Iceland, I see you". This waterfall is so massive and powerful it frankly reminded me of a bigger and stronger Niagra Falls. Between the rain and the mist from the falls we got totally drenched.

After Gulfoss we drove out to our AWESOME Air BnB for 2 nights out in the countryside in Hvollsur (excellent lodging area based on everything your about to read). On the way there we went to the grocery store and for $65 we got breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 days! Our cottage was fantastic and Erla was such an amazing host. The major volcano eruption from Eyjafjallajökull was right in our backyard.

Our cottage had a CD player with some old school CD's from Eric Clapton, Michael Bolton, and Simon and Garfunkel. Needless to say, the liquor we brought came in very handy these 2 days. Anyone say Jaymo shots?

Saturday 7/1-The Adventure kicks in to the next gear

So one of the coolest things about Iceland is that no matter how much planning you do, some of the most epic sites we saw were completely unplanned and/or recommended from people we chatted it up with during hikes. Enter Gluggafoss. This gem of a triple stacked waterfall was 10 minutes from the Air BnB and it was one of the most memorable moments of the trip.

After a pit stop, we continued on for a 3-4 hour drive to Skaftafell. Our original route was unknowingly a gravel road that was too much to handle for our little VW Golf. We tried for about 2-3 miles and after realizing we were driving 8 mph and a fiance that looked like she wanted to shank me, we luckily met our Icelandic guardian angel who was roaming around her property in the middle of nowhere. She gave us an alternate route via the road more traveled so we back tracked and added about 45 minutes to the trek.

The drive to Skaftafell took a lot of discipline because within the first 45 minutes of the drive from Hvollsur to Skaftafell (along the ring of fire) you pass so many hot spot destinations that you want to pull off and see. Fear not, I'll provide my two cents on the best way to tackle it ALL, just like we did the very next day! Continuing the 3-4 hour drive, you pass some amazingly beautiful scenery. From seeing the coast, to dozens of waterfalls running down the mountains, to looking like the moon, this drive provided the full breadth of diversity the Icelandic landscape has to offer. After arriving in Skaftafell, we took a hike out to one of the tongues from Jokull Glacier.

After hiking back to the main visitor area, we embarked on another hike to Svartifoss (crazy looking geometrical falls). It was on this hike that low and behold, we meet three Houstonians from Rice who were chemical engineers (Ellise and I live in Houston). They encouraged us to go to Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon so we quickly added it to the list since it was only a 30 minute drive away and were already about 5 hours from Reykjavik and 4 hours from Hvollsur.

We got to the Jokulsarlon Glacial lagoon and I don't think I've ever been so mesmerized (and I've done my fair share of traveling). We spent about 3 hours there just casually walking around and absorbing the incredible view. Between the massive snow covered mountain back drop, another tongue of the Jokull glacier, and the bright blue icebergs floating around, it felt we could have just stared for hours. We made the 4+ hour track back to the Air BnB, got home, grabbed a bottle of wine and some food, and enjoyed the midnight sun back at Gluggafoss before calling it a night (At this point it was almost 3am, but again, here are the benefits of constant daylight, you can squeeze every second out of your trip!

Sunday 7/2- Hitting all the spots we drove past on the way to Skaftafell

Packing up our Air BnB and hitting the road, our game plan was to drive out to our furthest destination of the day and work backwards. To be clear, within one hour from Hvollsur and heading away from reykjavik, you hit the following sites (in order): Seljalendfoss, Skogafoss, Black sand beach with the crash landed 1973 US Navy plane, and Dyrohaney. We drove 1 hour out to Dyrohaney to see the infamous cliffs of Iceland, but unfortunately missed the Puffins migration by about 2 weeks.

As we started the trek back to Reykjavik, we stopped at Black Sand Beach and walked two miles to the crashed 1973 US navy plane. It was very mysterious and ominous setting, but nevertheless we got some really cool photos, hung by the ocean for an hour, and kept it moving.

Living in Texas for 5 years now, you gain an appreciation for "Blue Bonnets". Iceland on the other hand, is like blue bonnets on steroids. We couldn't resist and stopped to snag a few pics of the bluebonnet fields.

Continuing back towards Reykjavik we stopped at the almighty Skogafoss (about 30-40 min from Hvollsur). This. Was. Epic. After admiring the view from the bottom of the falls, we hiked to the top of the Waterfall and continued along the Skoga River for about 1.5 miles before turning around. The views were just insane and it was such a beautiful day we just kind of zoned out.

Continuing back towards Reykjavik, we stopped at Seljalendfoss and got totally soaked (both from the rain and falls), but what an awesome site to see (ADD PICTURES). After the short trek back to Reykjavik, we checked in to Hotel Odinsve. Really swanky little hotel with a fantastic Locals restaurant spot called “Snaps” connected right to it. We shared the Garlic Shrimp, mussels, and salmon and it was all delicious.

Monday 7/3: THE BLUE LAGOON

That morning we had breakfast right across the street at “C Is For Cookie” in downtown Reykjavik and excitingly hit the road for a one night stay at Hotel Silica and to spend time at the world famous Blue Lagoon. We were super pumped to celebrate our engagement and stayed in room #34 with our own little lagoon and balcony.

Real quick: Some key info to share with you guys is that all the pictures you always see of the Blue Lagoon are from the public lagoon that requires a pre-booked appointment and as cool as it is, it’s quite chaotic. Hotel Silica on the other hand is on the same property as the famous lagoon, but hotel guests get access to their own PRIVATE lagoon! Included in your hotel fee is also a free entry to the public lagoon, so that way you can get the best of both worlds!

It was at this point we traded in our hiking boots from the last 3-4 days, threw on a fancy robe, made some Moscow Mules, and headed to the blue lagoon at Hotel Silica.

After hangin’ at the hotel lagoon for a while it was time to check out the main lagoon. We walked the path over to the “Lava Restaurant” at the main famous lagoon area, ate a wholeeeeee bunch of fish, and enjoyed the unique ambiance.

From there, well, everyone has their own experience at the “famous lagoon”. For us, it started by getting changed in overcrowded locker room and was a complete fiasco. After the royal rumble, we went out to the public pool. I mean the blue lagoon, sorry. After swimming around/walking in between dozens and dozens of people, we grabbed our free drink (part of the admission), changed, and went back to the awesomely secluded, private, and more natural lagoon back at Hotel Silica. Call me biased, but it was fannnnnntastic! We swam at the private lagoon and chilled as we watched the midnight sun.

Tuesday 7/4- Whale Watching and back in Reykjavik

The next morning it was back to Reykjavik for the final leg of the trip. We were staying for 2 nights at the “Icelandiar Hotel”. Place is right by the water and in an awesome part of the city.

We ate at Reykjavik Fish and both had the fish and chips.

After much anticipation and planning, it was time to go on a whale watching tour! We saw whales from really far away, a boat load of puffins, a few dolphins, but great weather and some awesome wine.

Wednesday 7/5- The Last Day of Adventure

If you've made it this far, you're a trooper! We woke up pumpedddddd this morning after meeting a few folks the night before that told us to hike out in Reykadular Valley. After eating a quick and FREE breakfast at the Icelandiar hotel (awesome buffet with all kinds of $hit!), we drove about 45 minutes to the Reykadular natural hot springs park where we hiked for about 45 minutes uphill to get to the river-like hot spring. Well worth it, highly recommend this trek!

After a great adventure, it was time for our farewell dinner and we decided to splurge at The Market Grill and it did not disappoint. The restaurant had a super chill vibe and the food was amazing. I had gotten the steak and Ellise got a meat sampler with lamb, beef, and duck. We split a bottle of white wine, headed back to the hotel, and hit the road in the morning for the long travel day back to Houston, TX.