We were fortunate to visit Iceland in August of 2022 for a couples road trip. This weeklong trip was absolutely magical! Tune in to hear our favorite experiences from this trip and where this trip lands on our list of favorites (hint: it’s pretty high up there). Also, check out our full Iceland road trip itinerary for more info on our experiences and recommendations!
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Transcript
Rod: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. My name’s Rod. And I’m Jess. And today we are especially excited to bring you this episode, which is all about:
Jess: Iceland!
Rod: This is a place that we have had on our bucket list, at least it’s been on my personal top of my bucket list, just because the combination of the different mountains, the outdoor activities, the waterfalls, the food. Everything to me just made it seem so magical.
And I had these super massive high expectations, which I thought was unreasonable. However, once we went, I knew that this was my favorite place.
Jess: This trip was different than most of our trips because normally we travel with our kids. And this time we left our kids with my mother-in-law, so thank you to her.
And we did a couple’s trip, which is something we don’t do all that often, but I think that was, at least for Iceland, great for us because it allowed us to do a lot of different things that just, there were age restrictions on that maybe our kids could not have participated in so we did have a little bit more freedom than some of our other trips, and we’ll try to, as we talk through what we did in Iceland note, which ones might not have been as kid friendly.
Rod: And in terms of the time of year that we went, there’s a lot of seasonality when visiting Iceland, we went in August. So, what that meant for us, it was a ton of daylight. kind of peak summer we had sunrises were at like [4:00] AM and sunsets were at [10:00] PM so these were really, really long days.
That gave us a lot of opportunity to explore and see different things.
Jess: So, the number one thing we had to decide when planning our Iceland trip was RV versus hotel. This was a debate between Rod and I…
Rod: It actually got pretty heated. I think we had moments where we were just kind of mad at each other because I was on the hotel side.
Just thinking. I’m not the best driver of RVs, or I guess I don’t enjoy it as much, especially when it is a manual transmission, which I do admit that I don’t like to drive manual and I’m very bad at driving manual. So that’s primarily what they have in Iceland, and that’s why I was veering more towards the side of, let’s check out hotels, let’s rent a rental car that we can kind of move around easily throughout the island.
And then whenever we want to make stops, let’s stop at a hotel somewhere. Spend the night there and keep on going.
Jess: For me, I was Team RV because I think an RV offers a lot of flexibility in that you don’t have to get to a certain destination each night. You can kind of park. Granted now in Iceland you can no longer free camp.
You have to actually make it to a campsite, but you don’t need to reserve an advance. So, you know, if you get sidetracked and like an area a little bit more, you could just find an RV campground in that region. So, I just thought, you know, maybe you want to want to take a nap after a really long hike. I liked the flexibility idea of it all.
So, we went back and forth. We debated; we also booked our trip really late. We procrastinated weeks in advance. It was like two weeks beforehand. I don’t recommend that strategy because one, there were very few RVs left. So our options were very limited and there were also very few hotels left in the regions we were looking at.
So, if you are planning a trip to Iceland, whether you choose to RV a hotel, try to book a few months in advance, especially if you’re going in peak summertime.
Rod: And we actually ended up deciding on the car and hotel route just because…
Jess: Rod won guys, Rod won!
Rod: Well, I think the big pro of doing the camper van or the RV trip is typically it ends up being cheaper, but since we were booking so close to the time that we actually went, the prices were pretty expensive, terrible, and for the limited inventory that they had, so it wouldn’t have been cost savings, very much if at all, if we did the RV trip. So, what we ended up doing is we rented a rental car.
The other, question or decision point in terms of a car is do you want, two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive? So, there’s a lot. Of the majority, I’d say at least along the Ring Road, kind of the outside edges of Iceland, where there’s a lot of the tourist sites, those are all paved roads, which don’t require four-wheel drive.
But once you start going into kind of the inner highlands of Iceland, there’s a lot of unfinished roads. There’s a lot of glacial water runoff where you do need four-wheel drive. For our trip, we, we only did two-wheel drive this time and that did limit us from being able to plan some of those highland excursions and experiences.
Jess: Yeah, next time I would do four-wheel drive. I think that also comes down to planning. It’s more expensive to rent a four-wheel drive vehicle. We were trying to pick and choose what was a bigger priority to us this trip. And so, we wanted to spend money more on different excursions and nicer hotels. We did the two-wheel drive.
I think it worked out great. I think there was only one or two times. I’m like, dang it, I wish we could do something on the four-wheel drive road. And as far as the RV goes, I don’t, I ended up being very happy that we did the hotels. We don’t have firsthand experience on the RV journey. We did hear from other travelers that some of the RV sites were a lot more basic than they wished.
Sometimes at night that wind picks up guys and they were like, it’s hard to sleep with the howling wind and the shaking of the RV and Rod and I are light sleepers, so maybe it was a good decision. Hopefully we’ll get to go back and I will get to do the RV experience one time so I can give you a fair analysis.
Rod: So we went for a full week and instead of giving you the day by day rundown of what we did, we wrote a blog post about it instead. So, if you want to check out that blog post to look at what our itinerary day by day was, you can go to the https://www.thejetsettingfamily.com/icelanditinerary, and you’ll be able to see it there.
But I think today for this episode, what we wanted to do is highlight our top experiences: we have a list of seven things here that we really enjoyed, and I think we’ll start with number seven and go down to our top experience.
Jess: So for us, the Golden Circle, which this is a controversial one to rank lower on our list because it is the highlight for most people’s Iceland journey in the sense that if you don’t have a lot of time, or if you’re more wanting to do a simple itinerary, the Golden Circle is a famous route. It takes about just the whole full day and it encompasses a lot of things. So, the cool thing about the Golden Circle is you get a lot of diversity within one day and it’s very easy to do.
In that circle you have things like the Gulfoss waterfalls, which were absolutely beautiful. They had the geysers, which were cool as well to see steaming hot water and see them shoot up was pretty cool. You have Thingvellir which allows you to walk between a canyon between two different continents, which was really cool.
Rod: There’s a crater, like a volcanic crater where you can walk around the rim of the crater and then go into the bottom just to see the little lake area that kind of formed within it. So, there’s a bunch of different activities. I think our main issue. It’s not even really an issue. I think Golden Circle was a great day for us.
It’s just in comparison to the other things that we did outside of the Golden Circle area. It just didn’t compare very well, mostly because it, it did have a very much touristy flare everywhere. Everywhere that you go, there’s busloads and busloads of people that are getting dropped off and you don’t get a lot of the quiet serenity of like being in the outdoors as we did in some of these other places that we have visited.
Jess: Yes, it’s a lot of more, like you park in a parking lot, there’s a roped trail, you follow the roped trail around. So, I think that was the biggest downfall for sure of the Golden Circle. It’s definitely the touristy spot of Iceland. With that being said, there are beautiful things to see on it. If you have a limited amount of time, definitely recommend it.
You’ll see a variety of things in one day. It’s just like Rod said, like it’s not, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like we were out in nature as much. We were just amongst. Tons of people. One of the things not to miss though, if you go on the Golden Circle and to make a reservation in advance, I’m probably going to botch this name, but there was a really cool restaurant I personally loved.
It was called Fridheimar. But this is a cool restaurant because you eat, it’s an indoor greenhouse of how they grow tomatoes. And you eat inside this greenhouse. They had really cool different tomato beers, different things to try, and I thought it was a beautiful experience.
A lot of tour buses, if you do that route, include that on their stops. Very touristy as well. But we just popped in. We couldn’t get a table to try all the food, but we were able to grab a seat at the bar.
Rod: Super cool. You’re sitting literally right next to a row of vines where tomatoes are growing and they’re pretty much picking off the tomato and going to cook your meal. So, it’s super natural, delicious. We had the tomato soup. We had some of the beers there too, which was really good.
Jess: And the other highlight of the Golden Circle for me was, we’re not going to talk a lot about hotels, but my absolute favorite hotel of the trip was there, it was called the Geysir Hotel.
And it was gorgeous, aesthetically gorgeous, amazing service. You could wake up in the morning, walk to the geyser. I recommend that as well.
Rod: Yeah, one of the coolest things or experiences at the Geysir Hotel is we met some local Icelandic people there who gave us some really awesome recommendations for places that we should go to, things that we should do, and all around just really, really friendly people.
There, so that was, that was a highlight, but onto our number six. So, number six is another day trip that we did. This is the Snaefellsness peninsula. This peninsula is about, I think it’s like two to three hours away from Reykjavik the capital city. So, we did this on one of the last days of our week there.
And the big, big draw here is there’s a bunch of different sites similar to the Golden Circle, just not as touristy. They’re more spread out though. So, you’re kind of driving around this peninsula where there’s a glacier mountain in the middle. So, you’re driving around this mountain and then there’s some really nice scenic views of the coast.
There’s some cool lighthouses. There’s these two little coastal towns that you can walk from one to the other, via this beach and little cliff sidewalk. They had a cool waterfall there that we saw towards the end. And overall, I think it’s a, it’s a great day trip if you have the time to go. I don’t know if this would be what we would plan a trip around.
I think the biggest draw of Snaefellsness, and that’s the first thing that we did was, going to Kirkjufell Mountain. That’s the mountain that was made famous by Game of Thrones. So, it has this really iconic pointy look. And there’s some waterfalls under it. It was probably, that was the biggest tourist draw that we saw while we were there, but it’s still beautiful there.
Jess: If you love scenic drives, I recommend going to the peninsula, but if long driving days aren’t your thing, we did find it a little harder to just like pull over and hike because it’s a lot of private farms. A lot of stuff is fenced in. There were regions you could hike, but it wasn’t as hiker friendly as some of the other places we went.
But if you love a scenic drive, the sunset there absolutely was gorgeous as well.
Rod: That’s one thing that we kind of wish we would’ve done is we drove counterclockwise. So Kirkjufell Mountain, that’s kind of on the northern side of the peninsula. We started there and drove around, counterclockwise until we came back south to Reykjavik.
One of the people we met, a couple, towards the end of our kind of round trip around the peninsula, they were going the other way. So, they were gonna go to Kirkjufell Mountain. They showed us some pictures of what they expected, the sunset view of what it’d look like, and it looked super spectacular.
So, yeah, I think one recommendation is probably do plan if you want to see Kirkjufell at sunset, then maybe start going clockwise, start with the southern part of the peninsula, and then move north to finish off there. But then at that point, you might want to stay at one of the nearby towns if you, you don’t want to make the drive back to Reykjavik at night.
Jess: Next up is actually the city of Reykjavik guys. I thought the city was really pretty. It has beautiful colored roads, like the famous Rainbow Road. They have cute little roads, there’s tons of shops, amazing food. We found a lot of different places to eat food and have coffee. And then there were some highlights to see within the city as well.
I think spending a day in the city, depends if you are just going to Iceland to hike, obviously, maybe skip that part. But I thought the city itself was beautiful. It was very clean, very friendly people. And I enjoyed just getting up. You can get a little scooter or just walking around,
Rod: There’s a couple of coffee shops there. Some of the more popular sites that we saw, there were, the big church, that church I think it’s called Hallgrimskirkja. It has a very tall, pointy, triangular structure with some cool statues.
You can go inside as well. A lot of the roads in that downtown area are painted over.There’s one that’s painted in rainbow colors. There’s one that’s painted as like a race course, which was kind of fun. That’s right outside one of the breweries. and we sat down, had a beer, and we were watching people race up and down this mini race track.
And then there’s, oh, our favorite, one of our favorite places. So, Iceland is very well known for its cuisine. A lot of the food that they serve is very unique. They serve fermented shark. You can eat, I think whale meat. There’s all kinds of other food, but our favorite was this little sandwich shop, close to this like downtown plaza.
It’s called Hlollabatar. We showed up there when we got in late to Reykjavik and it was like [10:00] PM. Everything else was closed except this little sandwich shop, and we ended up getting these hot sub sandwiches with chicken, bacon, this really delicious sauce. And we actually ended up going back the day after just because like that was such a delicious, delicious sandwich.
Jess: It was so good. And it was so cheap. And if we botch the name, we’re sorry. It’s very hard to pronounce the Icelandic words.
Rod: Oh, yeah, yeah. General disclaimer. We may or may not be pronouncing any of these names correctly. So we apologize for that, but we’re trying.
Jess: The next place.
Rod: Yeah. Number four on our list.
That is the Blue Lagoon. This was interesting because we had gotten a lot of feedback that the Blue Lagoon was super touristy, that it was going to be really crowded. You’re not going to get any nice photo opportunities. And overall, it’s a tourist trap that we shouldn’t go to. We ended up going and I think the timing that we picked to go, I think that’s what made it really special for us. And it’s an experience that we did love.
Jess: I think we opted to go at sunset time, which I highly, highly recommend. I think we got there at 7pm. So sunset for us was 10pm. We went around seven.
They close I think an hour before sunset, they no longer let people enter, but a lot of people were trickling out as we got there and so it did not feel crowded at all. The sunset seeing the lagoon turn pink and it was just gorgeous. And we really enjoyed it, I will say. Some of the feedback people gave us was accurate.
Like, if you pay extra, we paid for the package that included the robes, a drink and the masks. I think people were disappointed because they really don’t give you too many facts about the masks. It’s literally like a lady in a little hut in the lagoon and she just scoops it into your hand. If you care to know what it is, you read the little tiny paper on the window.
But we tried all the masks, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We met some really cool travelers. I mean it’s a tourist place, but we always felt like we could walk in the lagoon and have a lot of privacy as well. We met some cool travelers. It’s always fun at a new destination to meet travelers like that over a beer in the lagoon at sunset.
And everyone’s been there a different amount of times in Iceland, so you’re hearing what they liked most. It was a great just experience. I thought the blue lagoon at the end of the day is iconic. When you think of Iceland, it’s definitely something you think of. And to be able to be there with our little masked faces in this warm, wonderful water, I found it to be enjoyable.
Rod: Yeah, I think we had low expectations going, but I mean, it’s not very scenic. Once you’re there, it really is just like this massive pool with milky, blue hot water, you know, and there’s the bar. So, there’s really not a lot to do aside from like getting a drink, relaxing and then maybe doing some of the mask treatments, but if that’s what you’re expecting. I think for us it was thoroughly enjoyable. The sunset timing was perfect. It didn’t seem too crowded when we were there.
Jess: And there were kids there. So, if you have kids, it’s still something you could definitely do. We didn’t see a ton of kids, but we also went really late in the evening. But there were kids there.
Something we didn’t do though, similar to Blue Lagoon, which I did want to do. It was high on my list and I think we just got lazy. But Sky Lagoon is one of the newer lagoons in that region. With Blue Lagoon you can get to easily from Reykjavik or from the airport. Sky Lagoon is a little bit different.
It’s newer, I think it’s more scenic because it is kind of like an infinity pool that overlooks the water. So that’s definitely one. If you’re looking for something a little bit different to check out as well.
Rod: Yeah, and that’s definitely on our list of things that we wish we could have done and we’ll be going to the next time that we go visit.
Jess: We wanted to save some things for our next trip!
Rod: Oh yeah. Yep. Oh, there’s so much. I mean, looking back we only saw a very little portion of what Iceland has to offer. We’ll talk about more on the things that we missed and the things that we want to do next time. But for now, going on to our top three.
So now these top three, I’d say there’s a huge separation between our top three and the other four that we discussed, because these three things were such phenomenal experiences, that I would recommend that you prioritize if you were to make a trip to Iceland. So, starting with number three, we did a glacier hike on the glacier called Vatnajokull.
So that glacier is towards the southern, southeast edge of the island. It’s about a five-hour drive from Reykjavik to get to this area. And we did a guided tour. I think the only way you can access the glaciers to do hiking on, with the crampons on top of the glacier is through organized tours.
So, we went on one and it was a combination tour, which was really interesting. It was a full day thing in which we started and we did the glacier hike. And then we had a little lunch break where we had to then drive over to do our number two favorite activity, which we’ll talk to in a bit.
But the glacier hike itself I thought was super unique. I’ve never hiked on a glacier, the last glacier or one of the more iconic ones that we saw was back in Patagonia, when we went, to see some of the glaciers down south there. But this one, we actually got the hike on top of.
We got a lot of awesome information from our tour guide. He was even carving little steps into the sides of the glacier for us to have a safe place to walk through and see. Jess, what were your thoughts on this?
Jess: I loved the glacier hike because it was really cool.
I feel like we learned a lot of information, and we really just got to go out and enjoy being that close. And it was interesting because they say the glaciers were receding tremendously and it’s an activity, sadly, that in 10, 15 years we don’t know if that’s even going to be an option for people to do.
But this is an activity that they do have an age limit. And I think each tour might have a different age limit. So, if you do have kids, this might be one of those restricting activities. Something to look into. And also, Rod did mention ours was a full day tour with two parts. We’ll link who we booked through, but something important to note is that they make it sound like it’s a full day tour with one company, but really this company books two separate tours with two different operators. So, you literally finished the glacier hike and then it’s, you’re on your own and you just have to make it to the next one. We kind of thought it would be an all-encompassing tour.
It was not. And it ended up being longer, I think it estimated me six hours. It was like nine. Just something to note. It didn’t impact our day. They’re still two of our top three activities. We absolutely loved each experience, but definitely the glacier hike was a highlight for me.
I really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was really, really cool. I would definitely put that on your list.
Rod: And that leads to our number two experience, which happened on the same day right after our glacier hike. And that is, kayaking in Jokulsarlon Lagoon.
So let me paint this picture of what this lagoon looks like. It’s this beautiful lake that you’re kayaking around, but the really unique quality here is that there’s literally icebergs, big chunks of ice from the glacier that have fallen into this lagoon, and they are slowly moving down into the ocean.
So, you’re basically kayaking around these icebergs. If you get lucky, you see some of these icebergs flip over. Sometimes you see seals. It was beautiful. You have the backdrop of the mountains all around you and it was spectacular. I can’t think of another place in the world where you’d be kayaking around icebergs.
Jess: It was truly beautiful. I think this was a definite highlight of our trip in the sense that I don’t think I knew what to expect. I thought we were just going to be in this lagoon with like a glacier background, but to, like Rod said, to just see the scale of these icebergs close up was truly, truly magnificent.
And even if, and it was really cool to see the process because when you go to this lagoon, you see how the icebergs are coming down off the glacier, how they’re kind of breaking off, they’re floating. And then you actually see this little channel that these icebergs float down. So, when you’re done with your kayaking tour, you get off your kayak, you can walk on a sidewalk right next to this like canal, that these icebergs go from this lagoon.
They float down the canal, then they go out into the ocean and then you can walk the beach. It’s called Diamond Beach, I believe. And you see these icebergs floating in the waves. And it’s just, I feel like the only place in the world that I’ve actually seen the full process of the glacier melting and you’re kayaking through it.
Then you get out and you can watch and see them make their way out to the ocean. It was just a really cool moment. The kayak as well has an age limit. I think it’s lower than the hike. That’s something to see because there’s different tour providers as well. I highly recommend the kayak tour.
But even if you can’t, I wouldn’t skip the stop to the glacier because you could still park there. Witness the beauty of the glacier and still go out to the diamond beach. It’s all walkable. It’s all right there. And I still think that kayak or not, that’s a stop you don’t want to miss. And there’s tons of food trucks we found and we found some really good, they had like lobster sandwiches.
Rod: The fish and chips! There was some of the best fish and chips that we’ve had because I had such flaky, flavorful, delicious fish.
Jess: Yeah, it was so good. I’d recommend this as a must see stop on your trip, but if you can kayak, that was one of my favorite activities that we did.
Rod: And on the way to do both the glacier hike and the kayaking on the lagoon, comes our number one favorite thing that we did in Iceland. For me, this is one of the favorite days that I’ve had in my whole life. Not to have like super high expectations for you, but…
Jess: Good to know our wedding day was up there, or the birth of our children! Just kidding.
Rod: Well, obviously, I mean those like family experiences, you know, are given, but when it comes to travel and seeing things, this place was magic for me and that is Skogafoss
Jess: And something so important to notice about Skogafoss is when you get to Skogafoss, you see so many tour buses pull up.
People get out, they go see the Skogafoss waterfall, and they leave. And the Skogafoss waterfall is beautiful, it’s iconic, it’s great, but that’s not where the magic is. And it was shocking that 95 probably or more percent of the people at Skogafoss missed one of the most epic hikes that they could probably ever go on in their life.
Because all you have to do is: you go up a staircase and you can see Skogafoss from above.
Rod: A quick disclaimer here. Skogafoss I don’t think we’ve described it. It’s this really cool waterfall. It’s a waterfall where you start at the very bottom and you can basically get splashed and sprayed by this super powerful, really tall waterfall from the very bottom and basically from the edge of where that runs off into the nearby river system.
Jess: Yes. So, this huge waterfall, there’s this staircase that leads, and you could see the waterfall from above.
So, a lot of people who parked or were dropped off did the bottom. You see a lot of people filling their water bottles up. We did that, with this cool waterfall water, and then they hike to the top, they see it and they leave. But really when you hike up to the top of Skogafoss, that begins an epic trail and the trail is just so breathtaking.
The more you hike, the more beautiful it gets and the emptier it gets. There were points where Rod and I were the only people we could see on this trail, and we kept thinking, how do we have this incredible beauty all to ourselves. Like where are we, how come no one’s enjoying this?
Rod: Yeah, so we basically hiked like three miles out and as you’re hiking, you’re hiking along this canyon where a river is flowing.
That’s the Skoga River. And throughout that river there’s just these sets of waterfalls. And the way that the trail is structured, it’s, there’s certain points in which you can’t see what’s around the corner. So, when you make your way around the corner, you start hearing this sound of rushing water.
And then you pass either the corner or the little crest and you see this waterfall. And there’s probably like 12 moments in this three miles out that we did where you’re just seeing breathtaking, after breathtaking waterfall. You have snowcapped mountains in the back. You’ve got this super bright green moss covering.
most of the mountain and the trails that you’re going on. There’s sheep that are wandering around there. So overall it’s this really, really incredible hike.
There are some parts where it’s kind of narrow. So, in terms of bringing kids, I think our kids could have gone a certain amount. I don’t know. Going the full three miles would’ve been, I guess it’s three miles out and three miles back. So, it ends up being like a six-mile trail. I think they could have done it. I think they could have done it just because it’s, it’s so beautiful.
Jess: There was a turning point probably at about a mile and a half in. That it was a little difficult to pass. You saw a lot of people were like, no, no, thank you.
Rod: You’re crossing like a small, little, river channel thing.
Jess: But I don’t think it was too difficult personally. I do know that was like a turning point. I’m glad we kept going honestly, Rod and I. The trail actually continues to go and you can hike and stay at an overnight cabin and then hike to another town. We weren’t aware of this because we planned two weeks in advance and obviously didn’t do enough research. But, if we go back to Iceland without the kids, our goal would be to hike the full trail.
It’s that beautiful. I would definitely go again and I’d want to keep going just to see what else we could find, because I think out of all the hikes we’ve done in the world, Patagonia’s definitely up there, but this would probably be my favorite hike.
Rod: Yeah, definitely my favorite hike of all time.
And highly recommend going. This one was about, two and a half hours from Reykjavik. So, it’s still part of a day trip. The the way that we’d recommend it is if you have a couple of days, maybe two or three days, go from Reykjavik, stop by Skogafoss, stay at one of the nearby towns, and then the next day you can go do the glacier hike and the kayaking on the lagoon, and then driving f back either to Reykjavik or to the Golden Circle, which is what we ended up doing.
Jess: Something that didn’t make our list, but was another top experience. And the only reason it didn’t make our list technically is because it’s not always available. But Rod and I did hike to the active volcano. It had started erupting right before our trip. I actually was nervous that it would end up canceling our trip because sometimes flights can’t go in and out.
But I’m really glad we took the opportunity. We actually went, I think on the last, the day before it stopped erupting. There wasn’t as much lava coming the day we went, but it was visible and it was so powerful to just stand there and see the earth. I don’t know. It was just, it was crazy.
It was a just a surreal moment to see this lava flowing and to be up close. So, the reason I guess it’s not technically on our list is because it’s something that’s not always available for y’all to do. But if you do go to Iceland and there’s an active volcano. There’s different ways you can research it through the Iceland website on whether it’s one safe to visit, how to visit. Ours was a very long, long, boring hike to get to.
Rod: Yeah. Four miles out, four miles back.
Jess: But it was absolutely spectacular. I won’t go into too much detail because every time a volcano in Iceland erupts, it’s going to have a different viewing area. Some people have gotten lucky where it’s literally a very quick 30-minute walk. Ours was really, really far. But it’s an incredible opportunity that doesn’t happen often. I mean, we saw how fleeting it was. We went the first day we got there and two days later it was no longer erupting and people couldn’t see it. So, if you do go to Iceland and there is an eruption site available for you to go to, I think that was a really just cool moment.
Rod: Yeah, definitely prioritize it. And one of the other things you’ll need is flexibility because some of the days, the government doesn’t allow access to the volcano because if the wind is blowing in a certain direction, then some of the toxic gases from the volcano go into the path of the trail.
Then they close down the trail. So have some flexibility. If you want to go, make sure that you have one, two, maybe three days, just in case there’s either bad weather or there’s closures that prevent you from going.
Jess: I won’t lie. For me, everyone seemed very calm on this trail, but I had this little adrenaline rush inside me thinking, Okay. All these geologists probably know that this is safe because it’s open to the public and you know, the government’s monitoring it. But I kept thinking like, what if at some point someone yells, RUN! This is a long four mile hike that we just did. Like, where would I run? I don’t know. It was just, you don’t know.
The earth is powerful. People really can’t predict. I’m sure there’s a ton of risk involved with being that close to a volcano. But there were a lot of people there. It was cool to see people all over from all over the world going to witness this Incredible site. Definitely though if you have that, I would go as soon as you can when you arrive because you never know if it’s going to be closed or not available for the duration of your trip.
Rod: Yep. Wanted to finish off this episode with some of the things that we missed that we wanted to do. So, we stayed there for a week. We met a lot of people that were spending two to four weeks there, and they were doing the entire Ring Road. That’s basically the road that goes around the outskirts of the entire island.
We drove on some parts of that road as we were going from place to place, but we never went all the way around, and we also didn’t go to the Inner Highlands. So, two of the places that we’d want to go next time, the first one is called Landmannalaugar. Tt’s this mountain range that you can hike on with some very colorful mineral deposits, around the mountain.
And as you’re hiking, I think it’s a pretty long hike to get to the colorful area. So, I’m not sure how kid friendly that’s going to be, but if we go and our kids are older, we would definitely go. You need a four-wheel drive vehicle for that. Or you could go on an organized tour that would probably take an all-day trip from Reykjavik.
And the other one is the Westfjords. So, we started going in that direction when we went to the Snaefellsness peninsula. But if you kept going, you would reach this other peninsula called the Westfjords. And there they have some really striking mountain ranges that you can hike on. But it looked super scenic.
It was a little farther than what we wanted or had time to drive to. So that’s one of the things that we do. And then the last thing is really just drive the whole ring road all the way throughout the island just so we can have the full Icelandic experience, I guess. There’s a lot of whale watching, I think that happens during the summer in some of the northern towns there.
Want to go back?
Jess: We definitely want to go back. Last, last thing to talk about quickly is what to pack. We have a packing list. We’ll put a link down below so you could check that out. But the important thing is, is the weather in Iceland changes very rapidly. One minute it’s hot, one minute it’s cold.
Next minute it’s raining. I’d say my number one tip is to have really good hiking boots that are waterproof and also waterproof outer layers. So, we would wear our pants, but then we always had like a waterproof outer layer of pants on top, or a jacket that was waterproof because sometimes the wind and the rains would pick up.
And I don’t know, I think just being in wet clothes all day would be miserable. So just being able to take those layers on and off was really important. So definitely go packed and prepared because Iceland is just, I don’t know, has a mind of its own.
Rod: Unexpected delight. Yes. So, with that, I think that wraps up this episode on Iceland.
We loved it. If you can tell, Iceland is now my favorite country to go and visit. I’m really excited to be able to take the kids next time so they can see the magic for themselves. But if you have any questions on planning a tour or a trip there, then definitely reach out to us. You can find us on Instagram @thejetsettingfamily. You can always email us: [email protected]. And yeah, definitely recommend going to Iceland.
Oh! One of the other things that we missed was the Northern Lights. We tried to look at the Northern Lights several times throughout the week but with the summertime period that we were there, we didn’t fully get a chance to see them.
I think there were some nights where they might have come out. It was like at [2:00] or [3:00] AM.
Jess: But there was a northern light storm that I was so thrilled for, and then it was cloudy. So, it’s a mix of luck, but you can actually Google the Northern Lights forecast and it’ll tell you your probability of seeing them.
But it’s, one depends on the forecast and two, depends on how cloudy it is. So, it’s like both the Northern Lights forecast as well as the weather forecast all have to align during your trip. But like Rod said, since we had so few night dark hours, our probability of seeing them just went down quite a bit.
Rod: With that, thanks for listening. Thanks again for being a part of this travel community and until next time, Happy Jetsetting!
