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I’m back from Iceland!

I’m back from a fantastic holiday in Iceland. The scenery was outstanding!

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We saw amazing waterfalls, bubbling mud pits, and lots of geothermal activity.

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We hired a 4×4 and drove ourselves clockwise around the entire country, making several trips right into the centre. The highlights (shown in the photos on this post) were exactly as I expected, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the large amount of desolate land. It is possible to drive for hours across empty lava fields and the vast majority of Iceland looks like the photos below:

 

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Once you’re out of Reykjavik (and away from the major tourist sites) it is possible to go a long time without seeing another human being. Most of the major roads are paved, but some of the best sites can only be reached by driving for miles down bumpy tracks. We all enjoyed splashing through the muddy puddles!

The Icelandic people were all very friendly and the only negative aspect of the trip was the cost. We knew it would be expensive, but were still a bit shocked when we popped into a supermarket on the first day to buy a few things for lunch and the total came to over £50, for what would have cost about £15 in the UK.

We saw very few children on our trip, which we thought was a real shame. Iceland is the perfect place for a family holiday as there is so much to do. Our boys loved seeing whales, swimming in geothermal pools, horse riding, skidooing and seeing all the natural phenomena.

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We highly recommend Iceland to anyone who enjoys being in the great outdoors!

 

25 replies on “I’m back from Iceland!”

I’ve wanted to go to Iceland ever since I read Smilla’s Sense of Snow, but I had no idea it was so expensive! I know that Norway was completely obnoxious as well. Love the pictures and the info, since you just don’t hear of many people visiting there!

Sandy, Is Smilla’s Sense of Snow set in Iceland? I haven’t read it, but thought it was set in Denmark? I’ll have to read it if it is set in Iceland…
Glad you found the info interesting 🙂

I’m SO jealous! You did the whole island including trips into the interior? How adventurous and wonderful. So, did you book hotels beforehand, or did you camp?

Your pictures look amazing. I had no idea you could see so much ice and snow in summer.

Judith, It is gutting you didn’t make it there earlier in the year. I hope you make it soon. Yes – we did the whole island. We drove clockwise round the 1 and did a few day trips into the centre. We booked all our accommodation beforehand with Iceland Farm Holidays http://www.farmholidays.is/ and we mainly stayed in little self-catered cottages. They were fantastic and I highly recommend them.

There isn’t really much ice/snow at this time of year. The photos are of a glacier that is there all year and icebergs that come off the glacier as it melts. There were pacthes of snow above 1000m, but not much really. I look forward to hearing all about your trip – let me know if you would like any more information before you go 🙂

Thanks for the link, Jackie. I’ll save it and will consider it – actually, after we booked our trip to Iceland, we thought it might also be fun to go a bit longer another time, and do the island tour. So, I think that’s what we will be doing when we finally get there.

Iceland is one of our dream destinations at the moment, Jackie, so this post just served to whet our appetite! It looks absolutely incredible and I really hope we can wrap up our trip there, though I don’t doubt that the price of everything will be excruciatingly painful. Looks like it was well worth it, though!

I had a co-worker who traveled to Iceland with her husband several years ago, and they also rented a car and drove around the island clock-wise. It seemed like there were a lot of cool outdoors activities to do.

Great photos of Iceland — I’m glad you had a good trip. Now it makes sense why you’ve reviewed so much Icelandic fiction recently!

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