My plan started when I was just browsing into my Instagram when I saw this beautiful photo of Iceland. This wasnʼt the first photo I see of this country, but something inside me was telling me “this is it, now is the time for you to finally go and experience, instead of just watching Instagram”. The next minute I was checking the plane tickets and luckily the two-round ticket from the UK to Iceland was only 25£. Can you believe it? This happened in December 2018 (I flew to Iceland one month later - January 2019).
I said to my boyfriend and a couple of friends “Hey, guess what? What do you think about going to Iceland next month for 25£?
Of course, they were in. I booked the flights, I booked the Airbnb. Everything arranged.
note* I just love organizing trips and making a plan for them!
I did some research about all the places and how far they are from the place, where we were staying. The only problem was that it was winter time and there were only a few hours of daylight. Ahh, these long nights and so much to explore during the day. The first thing we did, when we arrived was to rent a car. And the first thing that the lady, who arranged all the documents about the car, said to us: “You have to be very careful, when you drive in Iceland, because of the weather.” Then she showed us a picture of this car, that had a smashed side door. We looked at each other absolutely shocked and a little afraid. The lady then explained to us, if we enter a winter storm (and that happens every 10 minutes) we must not stop the car and never try to get out. She said we just have to keep driving because the wind is so strong, it can blow the car away.
Anyway, we took the car and our adventure began.
I had some kind of a plan about the days and what we were going to do (we stayed for a week), but then I just thought itʼs not always good to follow a certain plan, sometimes you just have to “go with the flow”. And you know what? This is the best plan you can make.
The first day we headed up to chase some waterfalls. After all, you canʼt go to Iceland and not see these beautiful waterfalls. There was just one little, little problem. We didnʼt take any raincoats or umbrellas. The weather was pretty bad. Cold and raining. We went to the first waterfall called Skógafoss with a width of 25 meters (82 feet) and a drop of 60 m (200 ft). So I guess you can now imagine, going closer to a waterfall in windy and rainy weather. Well… letʼs say this was not the best idea, especially for my camera. But we didnʼt quit and we enjoyed our first Icelandic adventure, as much, as possible. We then headed up to the next few waterfalls around. We took amazing photos and we met really nice people. On our way back (around 4 pm., because this is when the sun starts to go down) we enjoyed this incredible sunset. The sky suddenly became very clear.
We then had to go back to our Airbnb, had some rest, cook, and get ready for the next day's adventure.
One tip if you think of going to Iceland: get some food from the store and if you have a chance and enjoy cooking like me, cook by yourself. The Icelandic products are so fresh, amazing, delicious and they are not coming from anywhere outside Iceland. That means itʼs all grown there. It was the best food I have ever tried. How good is that?
The next day we went exploring the south part of Iceland. On our way, we came across such crazy weather. It was literally changing every 5 minutes. From wind, storm, rain, mist to the nice clear and sunny sky. We also entered a really crazy icy storm, which made our driving so hard. The only car on the road was ours. I seriously thought we were gonna die. Not even joking. The wind was just blowing our car like it was so light. There was no visibility on the road at all. The only thought in my mind was that picture that the lady showed us when we were renting the car. Half an hour later we managed to go to a small village called Vík.
Vík lies directly south of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, which itself is on top of the Katla volcano. Katla has not erupted since 1918, and this longer than typical dormant period has led to speculation that an eruption may occur soon. An eruption of Katla could melt enough ice to trigger an enormous flash flood, potentially large enough to obliterate the entire town.
The town's church, located high on a hill, is believed to be the only building that would survive such a flood. Thus, the people of Vík practice periodic drills and are trained to rush to the church at the first sign of an eruption.
A little further of the village is the famous black beach Reynisfjara. Yes, the black beach. The sand on that beach is pure black and itʼs attracting many tourists every year. It really is worth seeing. We explored the whole beach area, we tried a really good coffee. Oh yes, that coffee. Definitely the best coffee Iʼve ever tried back then.
We had a little fun getting wet (again) on the beach.
Our adventure for that day had to go to an end, as the sun was going down and the drive was quite a lot. On our way back we enjoyed absolutely stunning views.
Later on that day, we decided to go chase some Northern Lights. We went to the pier of Reykjavik where it was darker and stayed there for a couple of hours, but we didnʼt see anything. The next day was full of more adventures and crazy weather, as we decided to explore the northwest part. Long driving and not much time, but we tried to see as much as possible. Our goal for the day was to go to Kirkjufell mountain. Unfortunately, it was very misty and windy, so we didnʼt stay too much, but we were stopping every few minutes to take photos of the amazing landscape. And of course, we just had to do some photos on the road. Canʼt miss such a chance lol.
The next few days we were exploring as much, as possible, but we couldnʼt go to the center or the east part of Iceland, as the roads were close, due to weather conditions. So yeah, we couldnʼt explore the glaciers.
We really wanted to visit The Sólheimasandur famous plane. If you havenʼt seen or heard about it - The Sólheimasandur plane wreckage is a famous site in Iceland where a plane crashed in November 1973. The US Navy airplane - a Douglas Super DC-3 - was forced to crash land on Sólheimasandur beach. The crew all survived the impact, but the plane was abandoned and still lies there after 4 decades. So until today this plane is still there, crashed in the middle of nowhere in Iceland. And again we were stopped by the bad weather, so we missed the plane also (another reason to go back to Iceland).
Some nights we spent outside, exploring the capital, tasting the best food ever.
*note - Iceland is an expensive destination for eating and drinking out. But trust me it is worth trying the food.
The rest of the trip was full of incredible views, mountains, endless roads, and wild horses.
The last day we decided to enjoy some of the Icelandic natural pools. Long drive and no plan at all for where exactly we are going we just ended up in the craziest storm and we barely made it to some small place, which I donʼt even remember how itʼs called with hot water, really nice people and amazing view. We spent our day there just chilling in the hot pool, while it was snowing. Yeah, that was an experience. Feeling your body so hot, but your head absolutely cold and icy. Haha if youʼve never been to a pool like this, I definitely recommend visiting one. We took some pretty dope shots with the GoPro. When we finally came back to our Airbnb we realized, that we forgot the GoPro over there. Guess what?
We had to go all the way back to go and get it. That was fun.
Sadly it was time to go back home. The date was the 16th of January (my birthday is on 17th). At midnight we were already on the plane and something really awesome happened. As we didnʼt see the northern lights the whole time, while in Iceland, we finally saw it. From the plane. Yes. On my birthday I saw the northern lights so clearly. All the people on the plane were so excited, they even asked the plane crew to turn the lights off. As they said they are not allowed, somehow a few minutes later the plane went dark. Even the plane staff were enjoying this breathtaking view. The whole sky was green, blue, pink. It was like magic. It was dancing. Some people said they never saw something like this. Especially from a plane, where, trust me the view is way better than from the ground.
And so on our Icelandic trip went to an end. I will never forget how stunning this country Is and I will definitely go back again (surely in the spring/summertime this time).
If you have any questions about Iceland and if you would like to know some more tips, do not hesitate to contact me. I would love to tell you more.
