After many years of dreaming about traveling to Iceland, I finally made it happen with my husband, and let me tell you;

If you want the adventure of a lifetime, you absolutely HAVE to go here too.

Take time off from the everyday grind, rent a 4×4 camper, and explore.
Drive around, see the popular things, but for sure, see the obscure things.

The things only found off the beaten path, or at least off a path that is not traveled so frequently. (They frown upon going too much off the path if there’s moss on the ground and you are not allowed to actually drive off road)

I’ve never seen so much beauty before in all my life and I can’t imagine any other place like it. The diversity in the landscapes alone will knock your socks off. Within a short 30 min drive you’ll see rolling hills of black sand covered in grass, then volcanic rocks covered in moss, then barren rock, snow and ice, but then oh…. what’s this? shrubs, and then trees…. Can’t forget streams, lakes and WATERFALLS.

OH MY.

The waterfalls will have you in awe continually. Did you know? Iceland has over 10,000 waterfalls! Below is the stunning Goðafoss.

My husband actually said near the end of our trip, that he was experiencing a “visual overload”. And it’s true, every where you look, the landscapes in Iceland are….. inspiring, breathtaking, other worldly, hauntingly beautiful, and sometimes all of these wrapped up into one.

It’s 100% a photographers dream. If you are a photographer or explorer extraordinaire, and you can swing 2-3 weeks….. I highly highly recommend that you do.

My husband and I went for 11 days and it wasn’t even close to enough time. We saw a lot, but we just scratched the surface for most. There were several hiking trails we only went on for about 30 min – 1 hr. And that includes turning around and going back. Iceland has some of the best hiking trails in the world, but they often take the better part of a day or more to complete.

Before we experienced this intense place, it took months of planning and research. This is essentially a trip of a lifetime, and so I wanted to make sure it was done as right as it possibly could be.
We considered everything and during my research some things were very apparent:

1. The weather is unfavourable 10 months of the year, and fickle for 2.
2. Everything is expensive.

These two considerations helped us decide how to plan our trip.
It didn’t take long to realize we absolutely had to explore the unique, harsh and often barren parts of the highlands. If you’ve yet to read about these regions, the highlands are located in the inner island and accessible through the use of F-roads with a 4×4 vehicle. These F-roads are very crude and are quite dicey to travel on a good day. Because of this, they are actually closed for the majority of the year so naturally we had to go to Iceland when they are open. Which is summer.

This leads to the other issue; because the weather is nicer in the summer, this also means it is the highest tourist time and thus most expensive for flights and vehicle rentals. It’s also the busiest.

In an effort to balance the good with the bad, we went mid June, before the highest tourist time but late enough when the F-roads are SUPPOSE to be open.
Unfortunately, this 2018 year had a slow start to spring and subsequently summer. It seemed to have effected many places, Canada felt it and so did Iceland. Multiple locals actually commented on how long the rain season was dragging on for. This prolonged spring halted the opening of those F-roads closest to the glacier, so we sadly weren’t able to explore those locations as we had planned.

We were told however, that as the summer rolls around, the insects get a lot worse. For us, they were almost unnoticeable (2 areas were slightly bad with tiny Icelandic flies) so that is a positive aspect to spring.

As for the expense of the camper… yes, it was a pretty penny, as they say. But it was our vehicle and accommodations rolled into one. If you don’t require or care to have 4×4, you can save a decent chunk of change. I will mention that my husband absolutely LOVED having the 4×4. He was a little upset at first that we had to reduce the amount of F-roads and wondered if we should have even bothered at all. As our travels went on though, he mentioned that it was nice to have it, even had we not done ANY F-roads at all. This is because many normal roads are surprisingly fairly rough and steep.  Having a 4×4 provides a little more “oompf” for those tricky situations.

After paying for the camper, we spent roughly $40 cad a night at various camp sites, and of course the gas to run the beast. Gas in Iceland is roughly 3x the amount of what it costs in Canada. *Cue gasps*
All in all, the campervan was our best and most economical option. It comes packed with everything you need to make food, a surplus of water, a heating unit equipped with an auxiliary battery and wifi (free depending on what model you book). Having wifi was amazing. While it’s not terribly tricky to navigate Iceland, seeing as there’s not a ton of options for roads, having wifi allowed us to make changes to our daily plans last minute by using none other than Google maps. Renting a GPS costs extra on all models and you don’t get the benefits of Google like the reviews, or similar locations suggestions.

Something to keep in mind; bring cash with you. Don’t just rely on credit cards. There are some campsites that don’t accept them and some southern sites charge extra for hot showers which is paid by a coin operated machine.

Just get cash out right at the airport. You’ll regret it if you think “meh, I’ll deal with it later if I need it”.

You will need it.
And it will be annoying to find a machine.

ALSO!!
BIG MONEY SAVING TIP:

Go grocery shopping and bring some key staples with you! My husband and I brought a mega box of oatmeal, and protein bars. We also brought peanut butter, and some trail mix.
From the grocery stores in Iceland, we bought hot dogs, buns, fruits, various snacks, and of course; skyr! We kept it super simple. But the alternative would be to spend about $20-40 bucks each for something basic to eat at every meal.

We did eat at some restaurants/stands; a meal from Ikea. (highly recommend this option if you find yourself around Reykjavik when peckish),  traditional meat soup, lamb chops, char, and lobster soup. All quite delicious, and it was nice to break up the monotony of oatmeal and hot dogs.

Another completely unique aspect about visiting this magical land in the summer…. midnight sun! This is something that I was expecting but really had no idea on what it was actually going to be like. The first photo below was taken at 10pm and the second at 12am!

I went to Iceland giddy with the thought of being able to take twilight photos of architecture until the wee hours in the morning. To my complete shock, it doesn’t even get dark enough for street lights to turn on!
This was a slight disappointment, but I got over it quickly.
My husband and I used all that fabulous daylight and did quite a lot of sightseeing until 1-2am most nights!

Staying up this late wasn’t always planned..but we did have a huge list of things to check out, and since it never got dark, it’s like our brains were tricked into thinking it was still early. We often would say “oh shoot… it’s 1am already! We should probably go to sleep soon”
And then find the nearest camp site to pack it in for the night…er..morning?… I don’t know anymore.

Time to get to the specifics: A day by day recollection of our goings-on. Specifically sharing those ultimately, amazing experiences that you should check out, if you find yourself in Iceland too.