Iceland had been one of our most anticipated trips of all time. We (husband and I) planned it for over six months. We stalked several travel blogs, followed all Instagram accounts featuring Iceland and read every article out there about Iceland. What I can tell you from my research is that even a month in Iceland is not enough, as that's how much that country has to offer, however, about a week would be good enough to get a taste of the country. In the end, we decided to do a 5 days/5nights road trip. Sharing my itinerary below.
We landed around midnight and headed directly to SADcars to pick up our rental for the trip. I had collaborated with SADcars for this trip and I couldn't be happier. One of their representatives (shoutout to SugarRay) picked us up from the airport. We reached the car rental in about 15 minutes where our car was ready and we were on our way to the hotel soon after. We had deliberately picked an Airport Hotel which was close to the rental as we wanted to hit the bed ASAP and start our day early.
Next day we were up and ready by 9am. We had our breakfast and made our way into the city (Reykjavik). We explored the city center and clicked pictures (like duh!). At about 1PM we had booked an air tour of the National Park which was departing from the domestic airport close to Reykjavik. You can check out the views in the above video. The highlight of the tour was viewing the bright colors of the national park and actually seeing the tectonic plates.
After the air tour, we made our way to checkout the glacier. More about the glacier experience in this post. After which we head back to the city, grabbed dinner and drove to Borgarnes which was our mid spot for where we were headed next.
DAY TWO
This was the coldest and windiest day of all. We woke up early (ish!) had our breakfast and made our way towards Snaefellsnes Peninsula. While the drive and the scenery was absolutely breathe taking, the wind and rain made it extremely difficult for us to take pictures and spend as much time as we would have liked out appreciating the nature.
The best decision however, was to do the road trip as even though the stop were affected by the weather, we were at least free to make as many stops as we desired. We stopped to see the seals at Ytri-Tunga, to view the scenic views (in spite of the wind; re: video) at Arnarstapi and various spontaneous points to view waterfalls, creeks, and mountains. For our night's stay we drove to Akureyri.
Third day of our trip was the longest, most eventful and most tiring (rightfully so!). We checked out the most marvelous waterfalls we have ever seen this day:
After hiking to all the waterfalls and getting drenched in our heavy winter coats, we made out way towards the Mývatn Natural Baths to end the day. On our way we made another spontaneous stop at Námafjall which is a mountain close to a volcano and geothermal area. As cool as it all was, I really couldn't stand the smell of sulphur. You can checkout my stinking face in the video.
A fter a relaxing time at the natural baths we made our way to Hofn, which was the most scary drive ever.
It is hard to pick a favorite day but if I was put on a gun point I would pick this day, mostly because it was a nice sunny day and I didn't have to face any winds or rain. We woke up to one of the most stunning views ever. I wanted to keep making videos but eventually realized that the camera was not doing any justice to the actual beauty. We checked out Jökulsárlón which is a glacier lagoon where you can see floating pieces of ice. Next we made another spontaneous decision to check out Svartifoss, which ended up being a long hike we hadn't anticipated.
Next we were headed to Fjaðrárgljúfur which was another (shorter) hike but the views of the canyon where unreal. Last but not the least we made our way to Reynisfjara, the black beach which probably is one of the most popular spots in Iceland. And it did not disappoint. We made it there right at sunset which was perfect. The sunset was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever viewed in my entire life.
We then headed to Hotel Anna, which was our last night in Iceland. We had anticipated that this would be the day when we get to see the northern lights and IT WAS. While, unfortunately, I was not able to capture it on video, I will soon share the pictures we were able to take. Honestly, the trip could not have gone any better.
Last day in Iceland. Le sigh! We checked out (another!) waterfall: Seljalandsfoss (it is a country of waterfalls, what can I say!), Geysir (hot spring), Gullfoss ( located in the canyon of the Hvítá river in southwest Iceland), Brúarfoss (the most spellbinding of them all!).
Once we had completed everything on our itinerary, we made our way back to Reykjavik, hung out at a local pub and reminisced about the most epic (road) trip we had just completed. We then made our way back to the SADcars, returned the rental and then we stopped us back to the airport for our next adventure.
And that was the run-down on the five days we had spend in Iceland. While I will share more specific experience we had there in coming posts, feel free to ask me any thing specific you would like to know in the comments below.
Thans to SADcars for collaborating with me on this trip. If you are headed to Iceland, definitely check them out for your car rental needs: Website | Instagram
