Weekend Getaway to Iceland
We take a lot of short trips. If I waited until I had a full week to explore, I would only take a handful of trips a year. Being flexible and breaking past the idea that one needs a full week to see a region has resulted in the fact that I’ve been able to visit over 100 areas. Had I waited for a full week, many of these areas would still be unknown to me. One example was our trip to Iceland. We explored Iceland over Memorial Day Weekend. On September 6 (about eight months in advance of travel), we paid $534 a piece for airfare on Icelandair and left from Toronto. The flight left late at night so we were able to work a full day, drive out to Toronto, and make our flight.
It was very important that we made a route and knew how many hours of driving were ahead of us. We broke up the number of hours of driving by the time we had there so we would know how far we would have to go in one day. The total journey around Ring Road takes almost 19 hours. We rented a camper from Rent Nordik and although it was a bit pricey ($610 for three days) it gave us a lot of freedom because we didn’t have look for hotels. In Iceland, one can pretty much pull over anywhere and sleep as needed. The bonus is in that time of year, the sun doesn’t set which allowed us all the time we wanted to take in the beauty. Fueling the camper proved to be the only issue. Read Freddy’s post on how to prevent this headache here.
The camper was equipped with WiFi, GPS, sheets, pillows, blankets, curtains, a sink, pots, pans, dishes, refrigerator, heater, pop-up table, and a gas stove. We ate in restaurants which proved to be rather expensive.
View inside the camper from the front.
We started our route with the south end of the Ring Road. About an hour east of Keflavik Airport, the first sight we saw was a gorgeous waterfall.
Within a few hours of there, we arrived in the town of Vik. Vik is famous for its rock formations and basalt columns that are similar to the ones at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
This was as far as we got the first day.
If you are planning to go to the Blue Lagoon, reserve online in advance. It would be a shame to have it on one’s itinerary only to arrive to a sold out site. Children are admitted for free ages 2 to 13. Make sure you print out your ticket before leaving on your trip. A standard entrance is just over $40. You will be given an electronic wrist band which is used to lock and unlock your locker where you will store your belongings. In addition, the wrist band is used to count how many drinks one has. There is a three drink limit per person. I assume this is to stop people from lingering or to discourage urinating in the thermal waters.
~Bella
