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I'd started taking extensive notes, because a lot of folks wanted my notes on visiting Iceland themselves, and it kind of got away from me.
So we just got back from Iceland. I’ve had a number of people ask for notes, so I’m going to take extra care on actually writing out various thoughts. Overall – it was an amazing trip, I did so much freaking planning, most of the planning paid off. I packed so many things, and most of them turned out to be critical at one juncture or another.
General impressions of Iceland:
- Landscape is otherworldly. The drive from the airport to the city is like being on the moon if the moon was covered in neon green moss and masses of lupine. Lupine the way you see pictures of lavender in France.
- Food is excellent. The dirt cheap hotel (as in, shared bathrooms) had the best fresh rye bread I’ve ever had at breakfast. And mostly, it just went up from there. But so, so expensive. Like $60 for a rest stop lunch.
- That said, weirdly, the nicest dinner we went to cost about what we would have paid for the equivalent in the States. More expensive restaurants seem less affected by the price jump.
- Things that are really convenient: 100 krona is about a dollar, so it’s really easy to figure out what things cost.
- Iceland is in the World Cup this year, and they’ve totally lost their minds. It’s adorable. A little inconvenient, though, since literally all the shops shut down while the game is on. We saw people wearing Viking horn hats who I’m pretty sure weren’t tourists.
- The water is delicious…but it smells like sulfur. You get really tired of the egg smell after a while. Everything smells like egg and wet wool.
- The ever present daylight really got to me. (We were there over the solstice, so the sun never went down at all. The best you got was early twilight.) I had a lot of trouble sleeping. It didn’t help that I saw the blinds but didn’t notice the blackout curtain in the apartment until the last night.
- Things I didn’t think of until we got there: there is no temperature low for the day, really. Basically, it’s one temperature, all the time, because the sun doesn’t go away. We essentially had a range of 47-51 degrees consistently, all day and all night.
- It rained every single day but one. Most of the time, you couldn’t see the mountains across the harbor. That’s not normal – we should have gotten about half sun and half rain this time of year. Apparently their spring has been a nightmare – they had snow and hail all the way through May. There’s an art installation that’s a little green hill – a hailstorm stripped off all the turf and they only got it reopened two weeks ago. That one day of sun was the first sun they’d seen in weeks. Rain suits and waterproof boots = absolutely essential and probably the only reason the entire trip wasn’t a misery.
- Going back to the landscape – as you’re driving, it changes every ten or fifteen minutes. They have a ton of signs warning you not to pull over to take pictures. There were so many pictures I would have loved to take that there was just nowhere to stop. Like I suspect I have no good pictures of the horses or sheep on the side of the road, and there were TONS of them, looking very scenic.
Details:
Day 1:
Summary: Most of the flights from North America land in the early morning, so you have a day of severe jetlag. We did surprisingly well, actually – everyone was doofy, but I managed to keep us busy without being too taxing, and we got through the day with no major meltdowns. Much better than I expected.
Activities:
- Walking around Reykjavik. We did a fair amount of walking, actually. The visitor’s center has a giant relief map, and some really awesome greenwalls. We checked out the shops on the main shopping street, Laugavegur. We walked up to the big fancy church, Hallgrimskirkja. You can go up to the top for a small fee…but since everything was blanketed in mist and rain, there wasn’t much point. (Just assume that unless otherwise stated, it was 50 degrees and raining for basically every step of this trip.) We got to see the Sun Voyager statue without anyone around (usually it’s covered it people taking pictures) because, well, raining. The sea wall between the statue and the performing arts center, Harpa, is made up of rocks that are awesome for jumping on. This may not excite you if you’re not five, however.
- We also checked out Nauthólsvik Geothermal Beach. The water bubbles up into two hot tubs, one of which is between the high and low tide lines (although we were there at low tide, so it was exposed). It then drains into the sea, so within the one area, the normally 32 degree water is in something like the 70s. We went wading. It was raining and we were so tired I didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of showering and putting on bathing suits to go in the hot tubs, which I kinda regret. But ARR had a good time playing in the sand and wading in the very comfortable shallows while wearing a winter coat.
Hotel: Capital-Inn. Barebones, involving bunk beds and a shared bathroom. (We were only there one night and I wanted cheap.) But free parking, comfortable and clean rooms, and a pretty good free breakfast with stellar fresh bread.
Lunch: hot dogs from the random hot dog stand on Laugavegur. Not the famous one. Icelandic hot dogs are excellent. They’ve got lamb mixed in with pork and beef, which is a little odd but tasty, and they serve them with sweet onions and fried onions, and sweet mustard and ketchup and remoulade all together. There’s a little too much liquid for me, but it’s very tasty.
Dinner: Random Asian place involving noodles. (Not any specific Asian, just kind of general Asian. Chinese-ish dumpings on sort of Japanese-ish noodles with a spice set that seemed more Vietnamese than anything else.)
Day 2:
Summary: We drove out along the southern coast to Hof, stopping at various points of interest on the way. This ended up being my favorite day.
Activities:
- Raufarhólshellir Lava Tunnel. Very cool lava cave. Some pathways, some boardwalks. Guided tour, they give you a helmet with your own headlamp, but there’s also lighting. It’s really neat, with a couple of skylights and then ice stalagmites (depending on season). The cave is enormous – they do Extreme Tours that do the whole thing that take 3-4 hours. (Unless the guests overestimated their physical capacities, in which case it turns into an 8-hour Nightmare Tour, according to our guide.) When we got to the end of our part, they turned out all the lights. It’s absolute total darkness, which is very weird.
- Seljalandfoss and Gljufurarbui waterfalls. The first one is enormous and shoots out pretty far – you can walk behind it, which is really impressive. ARR loved it. If you continue down the path, you pass another pretty fall, and then around the bend is a third one. This one is hidden – you have to wade through the creek (which if you have good balance is only an inch or two deep on the higher rocks) into a crevasse, to find a secret room with the waterfall pouring down from the sky. It’s SO COOL. ARR loved that one even more. Ok, let’s be honest, so did I.
- Seljavallalaug hot spring. So this is the oldest hot spring with a man-made pool in the country. It’s a bit of an effort to get to, but I thought it was well worth it. You have to drive down a gravel road for 5 minutes or so. There’s a little parking area. Then you hike deeper into the valley. There isn’t really a trail, and you have to ford a small creek. (Not the river! Stay on your side of the river. You can tell the difference when you see the river. You’re looking for hopping across a few rocks, not playing Oregon Trail.) Finally, when you’re pretty sure you’re going to be eaten by a troll or something, the bathhouse peeks around the corner. It’s really basic – it’s a concrete hut with three rooms and no showers. Also, the pool itself grows algae. It’s still magical. It’s deliciously warm, the water is trickling down a volcanic rock wall, and you’re nestled in a secret valley full of wildflowers with snowcapped mountains above you and an icy river running next to you.
- Reynisfjara Beach. So this black sand beach has giant basalt pillars making up the cliff and dramatic sea stacks. Also, killer sneaker waves that regular sweep tourists out to sea, so you have to stay far away from the water’s edge. My main impression was bitterly cold pouring rain and an evil wind from hell. ARR and I hid in a sea cave and played in the (reasonably dry) black sand with some dinosaurs. He had a grand old time. Chuckro hid in the car.
- Driving to Hof. At this point, it was late and we were tired and it was raining on and off, so we drove straight through to Hof. The whole day’s drive is really dramatic and cool, though. All kinds of weird landscapes, super dramatic cliffs, dozens of waterfalls. At least two visible volcanos, Hekla and Eyjafjallajökull (the one that cover Europe in ash a few years ago). And glaciers, and rivers, and fields of lupine, and completely barren wastelands, and meadows of sheep, and broken volcanic rock covered in four inch thick moss that’s hundreds of years old. It’s just cool.
Lunch: Café at waterfalls. I had Icelandic meat soup, which is a terribly unspecific name they’re really committed to. It’s lamb soup with root vegetables, and is very tasty. Also a donut. Chuckro had a lamb sandwich, because lamb is a default lunch meat there.
Dinner: The café at the IceMart, which is basically Iceland’s LL Bean. Surprisingly good. They’re serious about their lamb and fish.
Hotel: Nónhamar Guesthouse. Absolutely adorable little cabin in Hof. Seriously, so ridiculously cute. Snug and warm, cozy bunk beds, tiny little kitchenette. I could see someone really into the tiny house thing enjoying living here.
Day 3:
Summary: Glacier lagoon, then driving back across the coast to Reykjavik.
Activities:
- Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon. We took a boat ride on an amphibious transport, which was pretty awesome. The icebergs calve off the glacier and float around the lagoon. Some of them are house sized, or larger. There’s also a Zodiac boat that gets closer to the icebergs, but ARR wasn’t big enough for it. It’s chilly, but not too cold if you’re dressed for the weather.
- Diamond Beach. After the icebergs melt and break up a bit, they drift down the river and out to sea. Chunks still wash up on the black sand beach, though, and the ice on the black sand is gorgeous. (I’ve seen pictures from sunset, and the colors are amazing. We had ever present daylight and never ending rain, and it was still stunning.) Unfortunately, ARR knew this beach didn’t have sneaker waves and got complacent and managed to get himself knocked over by a wave of one-degree-above-freezing salt water. He was fine – we fished him out immediately, stripped him down in the parking lot, bundled him straight into dry clothes, and threw him in the car with the heat on high. Fifteen minutes later, he was totally fine. But it scared the crap out of us all.
- Skaftafell Visitor Center and Svartifoss waterfall. ARR didn’t want to go anywhere near water ever again and Chuckro was done for the day (all of this at, like, 10:30am). But we were on the other side of the country from our next hotel, so I convinced them to stick to the original plan of stopping at the Skaftafell Visitor Center. We had lunch. Everyone calmed down and cheered up. I convinced ARR to go on a short hike with me, partially because he was still full of nervous energy and partially because Chuckro needed a break. We hiked up to Svartifoss (about an hour round trip for someone who’s not 5, took us maybe an hour fifteen), which is a really cool waterfall with inverted hexagonal basalt pillars coming from the top. It’s what inspired the church design in Reykjavik.
- Skogafoss waterfall. Brief stop – it’s a very large waterfall just off the road. You can hike to the top, we didn’t. Took a picture, got back on the road.
- The Lava Center. Neat, but seriously overpriced volcano museum. They’ve got some cool interactives, but nowhere near worth the ticket price.
Lunch: Skaftafell Visitor Center. Nothing special, but a little higher quality than you’d expect from a national park cafeteria in the States.
Dinner: Random place near the Lava Center. I tried horse. Very flavorful, kinda tough.
Hotel: For the rest of the week, I rented an apartment in Reykjavik. Mostly, I wanted the laundry machine. Small people with a tendency to fall in bodies of water need a lot of clothes cleaned. I was still finding black sand on him days later. The one I rented was City Park Apartments – very nice, clean and comfortable. Dishwasher, clothes washer. No dryer, but dryers seem to be rare. Good location.
Day 4:
Summary: Playground, horseback riding, fancy dinner. This was Chuckro's favorite day.
Activities:
- ARR and I went on a morning adventure to the Zoo and Family Park. Well, we tried to. We got distracted by the Botanic Garden. Five minutes after our arrival, ARR fell in a pond. (I would like to point out – I was really freaking careful on this trip. Took him through a lava cave, a beach known for sweeping people away, across a glacier, to multiple waterfalls. He didn’t fall off cliffs, into lava, into geysers, or into crevasses. It was the places that should have been safe that he fell into.) So we went back, changed clothes, and tried again. Fortunately, the place was less than 10 minutes from the apartment. Anyway, this is only worth going to if you have a small person who needs some serious playtime, but’s great for that. The zoo is tiny – they’ve got some domesticated animals, some foxes, and some seals. That’s basically it. ARR mostly ignored them. The Family Park involved a lot of little rides, most of which required tickets and many of which weren’t running. But it also had a bunch of excellent playground equipment, including a sand and water feature like the one at Brooklyn Bridge Pier 6. There were also a bunch of the diggers you can sit on with the moveable arms, only these were powered. There was a giant wooden hamster wheel and a little zipline and a spinning seesaw and a Viking ship. ARR had a wonderful time, and made some friends to collaborate on a major digging project with. They complimented him on his English. (Kids start English classes at 5, so usually kids his size don’t speak it as well. Unless, y’know, it’s their native language.)
- In the afternoon, we went horseback riding at Eldhestar. They were the only company in the country who does trail rides for kids as young as ARR. They did a marvelous job – he basically got his own guide who literally rode rings around him making sure his horse was under control. He had a wonderful time. We’ll be doing this again. The Icelandic horses are their own breed that are smaller than normal horses and unusually friendly and good tempered, so it was a really good intro.
Lunch: We bought groceries for some of the breakfasts and lunches. Bonus is expensive for a supermarket by our terms but way cheaper than restaurant meals all the time.
Dinner: Tapas Barinn. Amazing dinner. Multiple preparations of lamb, puffin, multiple preparations of langoustine (the tiny, super sweet lobsters they have in Iceland), multiple kinds of fish. So, so good. A fluffy Skyr dessert that was effervescent. Also, they bent over backwards to cater to ARR’s dairy allergy. Highly recommended.
Day 5:
Summary: Into the Glacier! We took the Into the Glacier Tour with Gray Line. (There’s one Into the Glacier tour, but there are multiple tour operators who can take you there.) This was the only sunny day of the trip.
Activities:
- This was an all day tour where they picked us up at 8am, took us to multiple stops, and dropped us off in the city center at the end of the day.
- Deildartunguhver hot springs area. This is not a swimming hot spring, this is a “marvel at the boiling water magically appearing out of a rock” hot spring.
- Into the Glacier. First, you drive across a bumpy road of doom for a very long time, then up a bumpy mountain of doom. Don’t do this in a rental car unless you have a Jeep. At the basecamp, they offer you rain jackets and waterproof shoe covers. (They also have snowsuits for colder months.) They had a jacket in ARR’s size. Then you get loaded onto a converted missile transport and they haul you up the glacier itself. When we got to the tunnel, a snowmobiling group had just arrived, so we had to wait. We had a snowball fight using the tracks of the transports as forts. (The tires were taller than ARR; the tracks came up to my waist. Great snowball fight forts.) Then we went inside. They drilled a giant tunnel into the heart of the glacier – it’s otherworldly. (They embedded lights in the ice, so it glows.) They gave us all crampons (and again had ones that would fit ARR, which was awesome.) They told us that you could lick the walls, so of course ARR spent the next twenty minutes licking the walls every few feet. He was delighted. Of course, he didn’t listen and slipped and fell into a giant puddle and whined for the last twenty minutes. (He was wearing waterproof pants and boots, and while his gloves got soaked, I gave him mine, so really it was just his wrists and the principle of the thing.) Anyway, it was really cool and not something you could do anywhere else.
- Hraunfossar waterfall. I wouldn’t go out of my way for this waterfall, but it is pretty cool if you’re in the area. The water is all subterranean, and then suddenly pops out of the ground in this massively wide series of falls.
- Post ARR-bedtime, I spent two hours walking around in the sun in Reykjavik. I did our souvenir shopping. (Shops are open until 10pm.) I took pictures of the marvelous street art and of some of the same stuff we’d seen earlier only not covered in mist. Like the gorgeous mountains we couldn’t even see earlier. Everyone was out, draped over things and trying to soak up sunshine. Which was still blazing away when I went inside around 10.
Lunch: Husafell buffet at Into the Glacier. It’s fine, it’s there.
Dinner: Random Chinese noodle soup place. ARR was so tired, and we got off the bus and he just pointed to the shop we were standing next to and declared “We should eat there.” And we were like, “It’s cheap, it’s fast, great idea.” We got inside and he took one look at the bar stools and declared “We should get it to go.” And we were like “You’re probably going to fall off the bar stool, so again, great idea.” Afterwards, we got some ice cream at Herdís, right down the road from our apartment. They have not the best ice cream in the city, but they do have the best VEGAN ice cream in the city. ARR managed to knock his ice cream off his cone two licks in. We got him a new one. I’m kind of surprised we’ve made it to this age before hitting that particular childhood trauma.
Day 6:
Summary: ARR and I have adventures around Reykjavik. This was ARR's favorite day.
Activities:
- Puffin boat. There’s a bunch – we took Special Tours because it was slightly cheaper but mostly because it had a boat at the time I wanted. It’s an hour long trip out to the two islands in the harbor, where we saw boatloads of puffins. Puffins have the most frantic, graceless flying – they beat their little wings like mad until they get where they’re going, and then they just stop and plummet to earth. It was just the right amount of boat ride for ARR – this was the only package tour where he didn’t get bored and start whining about wanting to leave halfway through. (He always loved the beginnings. In this one, we made it until the last five minutes when he started whining “When are we going to get back to shore?” At which I could say “look out the window, shore is right there.”) He was mostly interested in the giant poster of sea creatures, which he read out to the whole boat to everyone’s amazement.
- Museums – ok, so the museums in Iceland are very small and crazy expensive. Really, the only way I’d recommend seeing them is getting the City Card and only going to the included ones (or at least taking advantage of the City Card discounts). The City Card is an amazing deal – museums, all the municipal pools, the bus, and discounts on tours, more museums, and restaurants. We paid for my card with the discount on dinner alone.
- Settlement Museum. This is an archaeological site of a longhouse from the original Reykjavik settlement. It’s cool, and has some neat tech tricks, but it’s 15 minutes’ worth of museum, maybe half an hour if you’re thorough. Except that they had some random stuff for the kids to play with, literally shoved in a nook under the stairs. And it was the best thing ever. There were two cots covered in furs, a wrought iron pot literally hanging from a step above you, some helmets and wooden swords and shields, a box of carved wooden things like toy animals and a bowl and a spoon, and a box of rocks and twigs. That was it. We spent an hour. He met another kid, a seven year old from California, and they could have stayed there all day. The parents mutually voted for lunch, and they begged to stay together, so we found a place the other mom’s friend had recommended that turned out to be on my list, too.
- National Museum of Iceland. Two floors of random artifacts from the Settlement through the Founding. The boys were moderately interested, if bemused (especially by the ring of artifacts from the 20th century; oh, the bewilderment at old fashioned radios and TVs and computers and phones). But there was a video interactive that they were enthralled by. They spent half an hour learning and promptly forgetting basically the entire history of the country. Then we found a craft station where we could emboss our own metal plates and that ate another half hour.
- We said goodbye to the other family, who needed to go pack, and ARR negotiated another 10 minutes under the stairs at the Settlement Museum
- Arbaer Open Air Museum. This is about twenty or so historical houses, transported into a little village, each furnished with stuff from a different time period of Icelandic history. I only saw a little bit of it; we got there an hour before closing. And there was a toy museum. It’s the only place you can touch the stuff. They have something like six stations, basically kid sized rooms open like dollhouses, each containing toys and kid-sized furniture from a different era. So there’s one that has a “wood-burning” stove and carved wooden toys, there’s a Victorian era sitting room with a miniature dollhouse, a 70s decorated room with a Pink Floyd poster and 70s toys, and then of course a room full of stuff from my childhood. Ninja Turtles and original My Little Ponies. Plus a puppet theater and a dress up theater. He loved it.
Lunch: Sægreifinn. Relatively inexpensive seafood. Langoustine soup and bread. They also have a refrigerator case full of skewers of fish they would grill for you.
Dinner: Höfnin. Fabulous seafood. Desserts not worth the trouble.
Day 7:
Summary: Golden Circle.
Activities:
- Thingvellir. This is both the former meeting point of the Allthing (and the founding of Iceland) and a point at which the North American and European continental plates touch. The maps I could find online were…confusing. So we started out at a random parking lot, which let us walk through this awesome little valley to the Öxarárfoss waterfall. Then I managed to find the Tourist Information center, which is not the same as the visitor center. I did manage to get a more useful map. (Which disintegrated in the rain. I think I disintegrated something like five different maps over the course of the trip.) So we ended up down at a different parking lot, where we could walk up through the Almannagjá gorge, to the actual Visitor Center, and the Drekkingarhylur waterfall. It’s…kind of cool, but also completely mobbed with busloads of tourists. And the boys were cranky. And it was raining. There was more stuff there, but we were done with Thingvellir.
- Bruarfoss. This waterfall was on a list online of cool things, but the landowner appears to have stopped allowing access.
- Geysir. Geysir is the geyser we actually got the word “geyser” from. But it doesn’t actually go off anymore until there’s a local eruption. On the other hand, Strokkur goes off every 8-10 minutes and is pretty cool. ARR and I took a little hike. Everyone liked the geysers.
- Gullfoss. This is the biggest waterfall in the country, and it’s amazing. There’s a very impressive first fall, but then the second fall plunges into a unexpected crevice and sends up a plume of fog. Unfortunately, ARR was a ball of disobedient manic crankiness and Chuckro slipped and fell on a wet rock. A good time was not had by all. I’d hoped to have a family picture in front of the falls. This did not happen.
Breakfast: Sandholt bakery. Fabulous pastries and breads, best mocha of my life.
Lunch: Sandwiches we brought ourselves.
Dinner: Yummi Yummi Thai. Both the pad thai and pad see ew involved what looked like ramen noodles, but was tasty enough. Also, more pastries from Sandholt.
Mistakes were made:
- Did you know that Reykjavik International Airport is probably not actually the airport you fly into when you go to Reykjavik? Yeah, me neither. Which is why we ended up in Keflavik International Airport after a red eye, 45 minutes away from where our car reservation was. Shit. Fortunately, the Avis guy was super helpful and managed to get us a slightly nicer car for slightly more money with some fancy paperwork. I really like Avis.
- I accidentally left our bathing suits at a hot spring in the middle of nowhere. I loved that bathing suit. ARR loved his, too. We were both rather upset about this.
- I also left a pair of gloves in the cabin.
- I also left a plastic dinosaur at a playground. (The other one came back. He must have fallen out of the bag.)
- In conclusion, when I’m trying to keep a bouncy child occupied and out of danger and also execute complicated logistics, I do not actually have the brain power left to keep track of all the small objects. (In my defense – in each of these, ARR was bouncing off the walls and/or whining and I was trying to juggle half a dozen different objects and get us to where we needed to be while a 40 pound wiggling whining weight was hanging off my arm. I dare you to do better.)
- We had a little too much vacation. The problem is that ARR didn’t get enough downtime, but was too excited to actually calm down enough for downtime. The last day...was kind of a disaster. And ended with me crying in a parking lot.
Stuff we didn’t make it to, or that wasn’t age appropriate: (Here’s the stuff you might want to look up for planning your own trip):
- Dyrhólaey
- Sólheimasandur plane wreck
- Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon
- Dog sledding
- Food walking tour of Reykjavik
- Culinary Golden Circle Tour
- Super jeep tour of Thorsmork
- Secret Lagoon
- Blue Lagoon
- Snorkeling in Silfra
- Whale watching
- Phallological Museum
- Viking adventure sailing tour
- Viking Restaurant Fjorugardurinn
Net: Iceland is amazing. Seriously, one of the most fantastically bizarre and gorgeous places I’ve ever seen. All the activities were really fun, and there were a ton we didn’t do. It’s actually pretty small-person-friendly – adult prices are ruinously expensive, but for many of the activities, ARR was free. People are incredibly friendly. Everyone speaks fluent English. The non-F-roads are easy to drive and navigation is simple because there are very few roads and towns, so it’s all pretty obvious. I’m a little bummed that we ended on kind of a sour note – I think I pushed us a little too far. More downtime needs to be built in. (ARR didn’t really calm down, though, so when we were in the apartment, there was a lot of yelling accidentally and begging people to play with him. So there wasn’t a lot of resting during the day. And the light meant he fell asleep late and woke up early no matter what we did.) Still, saving a big thing for the last day to end on a bang was a mistake. Next time, the last day needs to be more laid back, I think. I also had hoped to hit another hot spring, and it didn’t really work out. Still, overall, it was an awesome vacation, and the fact I packed for war paid off. We needed the waterproof pants and the child headphones and the multiple bathing suits and the laundry detergent pods and the multiple rounds of shoes and layers. Should have brought an extra pair of gloves for ARR. Waterproof layers is key.
Amazing vacation. There’s a reason everyone either has gone or is talking about going…
So we just got back from Iceland. I’ve had a number of people ask for notes, so I’m going to take extra care on actually writing out various thoughts. Overall – it was an amazing trip, I did so much freaking planning, most of the planning paid off. I packed so many things, and most of them turned out to be critical at one juncture or another.
General impressions of Iceland:
- Landscape is otherworldly. The drive from the airport to the city is like being on the moon if the moon was covered in neon green moss and masses of lupine. Lupine the way you see pictures of lavender in France.
- Food is excellent. The dirt cheap hotel (as in, shared bathrooms) had the best fresh rye bread I’ve ever had at breakfast. And mostly, it just went up from there. But so, so expensive. Like $60 for a rest stop lunch.
- That said, weirdly, the nicest dinner we went to cost about what we would have paid for the equivalent in the States. More expensive restaurants seem less affected by the price jump.
- Things that are really convenient: 100 krona is about a dollar, so it’s really easy to figure out what things cost.
- Iceland is in the World Cup this year, and they’ve totally lost their minds. It’s adorable. A little inconvenient, though, since literally all the shops shut down while the game is on. We saw people wearing Viking horn hats who I’m pretty sure weren’t tourists.
- The water is delicious…but it smells like sulfur. You get really tired of the egg smell after a while. Everything smells like egg and wet wool.
- The ever present daylight really got to me. (We were there over the solstice, so the sun never went down at all. The best you got was early twilight.) I had a lot of trouble sleeping. It didn’t help that I saw the blinds but didn’t notice the blackout curtain in the apartment until the last night.
- Things I didn’t think of until we got there: there is no temperature low for the day, really. Basically, it’s one temperature, all the time, because the sun doesn’t go away. We essentially had a range of 47-51 degrees consistently, all day and all night.
- It rained every single day but one. Most of the time, you couldn’t see the mountains across the harbor. That’s not normal – we should have gotten about half sun and half rain this time of year. Apparently their spring has been a nightmare – they had snow and hail all the way through May. There’s an art installation that’s a little green hill – a hailstorm stripped off all the turf and they only got it reopened two weeks ago. That one day of sun was the first sun they’d seen in weeks. Rain suits and waterproof boots = absolutely essential and probably the only reason the entire trip wasn’t a misery.
- Going back to the landscape – as you’re driving, it changes every ten or fifteen minutes. They have a ton of signs warning you not to pull over to take pictures. There were so many pictures I would have loved to take that there was just nowhere to stop. Like I suspect I have no good pictures of the horses or sheep on the side of the road, and there were TONS of them, looking very scenic.
Details:
Day 1:
Summary: Most of the flights from North America land in the early morning, so you have a day of severe jetlag. We did surprisingly well, actually – everyone was doofy, but I managed to keep us busy without being too taxing, and we got through the day with no major meltdowns. Much better than I expected.
Activities:
- Walking around Reykjavik. We did a fair amount of walking, actually. The visitor’s center has a giant relief map, and some really awesome greenwalls. We checked out the shops on the main shopping street, Laugavegur. We walked up to the big fancy church, Hallgrimskirkja. You can go up to the top for a small fee…but since everything was blanketed in mist and rain, there wasn’t much point. (Just assume that unless otherwise stated, it was 50 degrees and raining for basically every step of this trip.) We got to see the Sun Voyager statue without anyone around (usually it’s covered it people taking pictures) because, well, raining. The sea wall between the statue and the performing arts center, Harpa, is made up of rocks that are awesome for jumping on. This may not excite you if you’re not five, however.
- We also checked out Nauthólsvik Geothermal Beach. The water bubbles up into two hot tubs, one of which is between the high and low tide lines (although we were there at low tide, so it was exposed). It then drains into the sea, so within the one area, the normally 32 degree water is in something like the 70s. We went wading. It was raining and we were so tired I didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of showering and putting on bathing suits to go in the hot tubs, which I kinda regret. But ARR had a good time playing in the sand and wading in the very comfortable shallows while wearing a winter coat.
Hotel: Capital-Inn. Barebones, involving bunk beds and a shared bathroom. (We were only there one night and I wanted cheap.) But free parking, comfortable and clean rooms, and a pretty good free breakfast with stellar fresh bread.
Lunch: hot dogs from the random hot dog stand on Laugavegur. Not the famous one. Icelandic hot dogs are excellent. They’ve got lamb mixed in with pork and beef, which is a little odd but tasty, and they serve them with sweet onions and fried onions, and sweet mustard and ketchup and remoulade all together. There’s a little too much liquid for me, but it’s very tasty.
Dinner: Random Asian place involving noodles. (Not any specific Asian, just kind of general Asian. Chinese-ish dumpings on sort of Japanese-ish noodles with a spice set that seemed more Vietnamese than anything else.)
Day 2:
Summary: We drove out along the southern coast to Hof, stopping at various points of interest on the way. This ended up being my favorite day.
Activities:
- Raufarhólshellir Lava Tunnel. Very cool lava cave. Some pathways, some boardwalks. Guided tour, they give you a helmet with your own headlamp, but there’s also lighting. It’s really neat, with a couple of skylights and then ice stalagmites (depending on season). The cave is enormous – they do Extreme Tours that do the whole thing that take 3-4 hours. (Unless the guests overestimated their physical capacities, in which case it turns into an 8-hour Nightmare Tour, according to our guide.) When we got to the end of our part, they turned out all the lights. It’s absolute total darkness, which is very weird.
- Seljalandfoss and Gljufurarbui waterfalls. The first one is enormous and shoots out pretty far – you can walk behind it, which is really impressive. ARR loved it. If you continue down the path, you pass another pretty fall, and then around the bend is a third one. This one is hidden – you have to wade through the creek (which if you have good balance is only an inch or two deep on the higher rocks) into a crevasse, to find a secret room with the waterfall pouring down from the sky. It’s SO COOL. ARR loved that one even more. Ok, let’s be honest, so did I.
- Seljavallalaug hot spring. So this is the oldest hot spring with a man-made pool in the country. It’s a bit of an effort to get to, but I thought it was well worth it. You have to drive down a gravel road for 5 minutes or so. There’s a little parking area. Then you hike deeper into the valley. There isn’t really a trail, and you have to ford a small creek. (Not the river! Stay on your side of the river. You can tell the difference when you see the river. You’re looking for hopping across a few rocks, not playing Oregon Trail.) Finally, when you’re pretty sure you’re going to be eaten by a troll or something, the bathhouse peeks around the corner. It’s really basic – it’s a concrete hut with three rooms and no showers. Also, the pool itself grows algae. It’s still magical. It’s deliciously warm, the water is trickling down a volcanic rock wall, and you’re nestled in a secret valley full of wildflowers with snowcapped mountains above you and an icy river running next to you.
- Reynisfjara Beach. So this black sand beach has giant basalt pillars making up the cliff and dramatic sea stacks. Also, killer sneaker waves that regular sweep tourists out to sea, so you have to stay far away from the water’s edge. My main impression was bitterly cold pouring rain and an evil wind from hell. ARR and I hid in a sea cave and played in the (reasonably dry) black sand with some dinosaurs. He had a grand old time. Chuckro hid in the car.
- Driving to Hof. At this point, it was late and we were tired and it was raining on and off, so we drove straight through to Hof. The whole day’s drive is really dramatic and cool, though. All kinds of weird landscapes, super dramatic cliffs, dozens of waterfalls. At least two visible volcanos, Hekla and Eyjafjallajökull (the one that cover Europe in ash a few years ago). And glaciers, and rivers, and fields of lupine, and completely barren wastelands, and meadows of sheep, and broken volcanic rock covered in four inch thick moss that’s hundreds of years old. It’s just cool.
Lunch: Café at waterfalls. I had Icelandic meat soup, which is a terribly unspecific name they’re really committed to. It’s lamb soup with root vegetables, and is very tasty. Also a donut. Chuckro had a lamb sandwich, because lamb is a default lunch meat there.
Dinner: The café at the IceMart, which is basically Iceland’s LL Bean. Surprisingly good. They’re serious about their lamb and fish.
Hotel: Nónhamar Guesthouse. Absolutely adorable little cabin in Hof. Seriously, so ridiculously cute. Snug and warm, cozy bunk beds, tiny little kitchenette. I could see someone really into the tiny house thing enjoying living here.
Day 3:
Summary: Glacier lagoon, then driving back across the coast to Reykjavik.
Activities:
- Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon. We took a boat ride on an amphibious transport, which was pretty awesome. The icebergs calve off the glacier and float around the lagoon. Some of them are house sized, or larger. There’s also a Zodiac boat that gets closer to the icebergs, but ARR wasn’t big enough for it. It’s chilly, but not too cold if you’re dressed for the weather.
- Diamond Beach. After the icebergs melt and break up a bit, they drift down the river and out to sea. Chunks still wash up on the black sand beach, though, and the ice on the black sand is gorgeous. (I’ve seen pictures from sunset, and the colors are amazing. We had ever present daylight and never ending rain, and it was still stunning.) Unfortunately, ARR knew this beach didn’t have sneaker waves and got complacent and managed to get himself knocked over by a wave of one-degree-above-freezing salt water. He was fine – we fished him out immediately, stripped him down in the parking lot, bundled him straight into dry clothes, and threw him in the car with the heat on high. Fifteen minutes later, he was totally fine. But it scared the crap out of us all.
- Skaftafell Visitor Center and Svartifoss waterfall. ARR didn’t want to go anywhere near water ever again and Chuckro was done for the day (all of this at, like, 10:30am). But we were on the other side of the country from our next hotel, so I convinced them to stick to the original plan of stopping at the Skaftafell Visitor Center. We had lunch. Everyone calmed down and cheered up. I convinced ARR to go on a short hike with me, partially because he was still full of nervous energy and partially because Chuckro needed a break. We hiked up to Svartifoss (about an hour round trip for someone who’s not 5, took us maybe an hour fifteen), which is a really cool waterfall with inverted hexagonal basalt pillars coming from the top. It’s what inspired the church design in Reykjavik.
- Skogafoss waterfall. Brief stop – it’s a very large waterfall just off the road. You can hike to the top, we didn’t. Took a picture, got back on the road.
- The Lava Center. Neat, but seriously overpriced volcano museum. They’ve got some cool interactives, but nowhere near worth the ticket price.
Lunch: Skaftafell Visitor Center. Nothing special, but a little higher quality than you’d expect from a national park cafeteria in the States.
Dinner: Random place near the Lava Center. I tried horse. Very flavorful, kinda tough.
Hotel: For the rest of the week, I rented an apartment in Reykjavik. Mostly, I wanted the laundry machine. Small people with a tendency to fall in bodies of water need a lot of clothes cleaned. I was still finding black sand on him days later. The one I rented was City Park Apartments – very nice, clean and comfortable. Dishwasher, clothes washer. No dryer, but dryers seem to be rare. Good location.
Day 4:
Summary: Playground, horseback riding, fancy dinner. This was Chuckro's favorite day.
Activities:
- ARR and I went on a morning adventure to the Zoo and Family Park. Well, we tried to. We got distracted by the Botanic Garden. Five minutes after our arrival, ARR fell in a pond. (I would like to point out – I was really freaking careful on this trip. Took him through a lava cave, a beach known for sweeping people away, across a glacier, to multiple waterfalls. He didn’t fall off cliffs, into lava, into geysers, or into crevasses. It was the places that should have been safe that he fell into.) So we went back, changed clothes, and tried again. Fortunately, the place was less than 10 minutes from the apartment. Anyway, this is only worth going to if you have a small person who needs some serious playtime, but’s great for that. The zoo is tiny – they’ve got some domesticated animals, some foxes, and some seals. That’s basically it. ARR mostly ignored them. The Family Park involved a lot of little rides, most of which required tickets and many of which weren’t running. But it also had a bunch of excellent playground equipment, including a sand and water feature like the one at Brooklyn Bridge Pier 6. There were also a bunch of the diggers you can sit on with the moveable arms, only these were powered. There was a giant wooden hamster wheel and a little zipline and a spinning seesaw and a Viking ship. ARR had a wonderful time, and made some friends to collaborate on a major digging project with. They complimented him on his English. (Kids start English classes at 5, so usually kids his size don’t speak it as well. Unless, y’know, it’s their native language.)
- In the afternoon, we went horseback riding at Eldhestar. They were the only company in the country who does trail rides for kids as young as ARR. They did a marvelous job – he basically got his own guide who literally rode rings around him making sure his horse was under control. He had a wonderful time. We’ll be doing this again. The Icelandic horses are their own breed that are smaller than normal horses and unusually friendly and good tempered, so it was a really good intro.
Lunch: We bought groceries for some of the breakfasts and lunches. Bonus is expensive for a supermarket by our terms but way cheaper than restaurant meals all the time.
Dinner: Tapas Barinn. Amazing dinner. Multiple preparations of lamb, puffin, multiple preparations of langoustine (the tiny, super sweet lobsters they have in Iceland), multiple kinds of fish. So, so good. A fluffy Skyr dessert that was effervescent. Also, they bent over backwards to cater to ARR’s dairy allergy. Highly recommended.
Day 5:
Summary: Into the Glacier! We took the Into the Glacier Tour with Gray Line. (There’s one Into the Glacier tour, but there are multiple tour operators who can take you there.) This was the only sunny day of the trip.
Activities:
- This was an all day tour where they picked us up at 8am, took us to multiple stops, and dropped us off in the city center at the end of the day.
- Deildartunguhver hot springs area. This is not a swimming hot spring, this is a “marvel at the boiling water magically appearing out of a rock” hot spring.
- Into the Glacier. First, you drive across a bumpy road of doom for a very long time, then up a bumpy mountain of doom. Don’t do this in a rental car unless you have a Jeep. At the basecamp, they offer you rain jackets and waterproof shoe covers. (They also have snowsuits for colder months.) They had a jacket in ARR’s size. Then you get loaded onto a converted missile transport and they haul you up the glacier itself. When we got to the tunnel, a snowmobiling group had just arrived, so we had to wait. We had a snowball fight using the tracks of the transports as forts. (The tires were taller than ARR; the tracks came up to my waist. Great snowball fight forts.) Then we went inside. They drilled a giant tunnel into the heart of the glacier – it’s otherworldly. (They embedded lights in the ice, so it glows.) They gave us all crampons (and again had ones that would fit ARR, which was awesome.) They told us that you could lick the walls, so of course ARR spent the next twenty minutes licking the walls every few feet. He was delighted. Of course, he didn’t listen and slipped and fell into a giant puddle and whined for the last twenty minutes. (He was wearing waterproof pants and boots, and while his gloves got soaked, I gave him mine, so really it was just his wrists and the principle of the thing.) Anyway, it was really cool and not something you could do anywhere else.
- Hraunfossar waterfall. I wouldn’t go out of my way for this waterfall, but it is pretty cool if you’re in the area. The water is all subterranean, and then suddenly pops out of the ground in this massively wide series of falls.
- Post ARR-bedtime, I spent two hours walking around in the sun in Reykjavik. I did our souvenir shopping. (Shops are open until 10pm.) I took pictures of the marvelous street art and of some of the same stuff we’d seen earlier only not covered in mist. Like the gorgeous mountains we couldn’t even see earlier. Everyone was out, draped over things and trying to soak up sunshine. Which was still blazing away when I went inside around 10.
Lunch: Husafell buffet at Into the Glacier. It’s fine, it’s there.
Dinner: Random Chinese noodle soup place. ARR was so tired, and we got off the bus and he just pointed to the shop we were standing next to and declared “We should eat there.” And we were like, “It’s cheap, it’s fast, great idea.” We got inside and he took one look at the bar stools and declared “We should get it to go.” And we were like “You’re probably going to fall off the bar stool, so again, great idea.” Afterwards, we got some ice cream at Herdís, right down the road from our apartment. They have not the best ice cream in the city, but they do have the best VEGAN ice cream in the city. ARR managed to knock his ice cream off his cone two licks in. We got him a new one. I’m kind of surprised we’ve made it to this age before hitting that particular childhood trauma.
Day 6:
Summary: ARR and I have adventures around Reykjavik. This was ARR's favorite day.
Activities:
- Puffin boat. There’s a bunch – we took Special Tours because it was slightly cheaper but mostly because it had a boat at the time I wanted. It’s an hour long trip out to the two islands in the harbor, where we saw boatloads of puffins. Puffins have the most frantic, graceless flying – they beat their little wings like mad until they get where they’re going, and then they just stop and plummet to earth. It was just the right amount of boat ride for ARR – this was the only package tour where he didn’t get bored and start whining about wanting to leave halfway through. (He always loved the beginnings. In this one, we made it until the last five minutes when he started whining “When are we going to get back to shore?” At which I could say “look out the window, shore is right there.”) He was mostly interested in the giant poster of sea creatures, which he read out to the whole boat to everyone’s amazement.
- Museums – ok, so the museums in Iceland are very small and crazy expensive. Really, the only way I’d recommend seeing them is getting the City Card and only going to the included ones (or at least taking advantage of the City Card discounts). The City Card is an amazing deal – museums, all the municipal pools, the bus, and discounts on tours, more museums, and restaurants. We paid for my card with the discount on dinner alone.
- Settlement Museum. This is an archaeological site of a longhouse from the original Reykjavik settlement. It’s cool, and has some neat tech tricks, but it’s 15 minutes’ worth of museum, maybe half an hour if you’re thorough. Except that they had some random stuff for the kids to play with, literally shoved in a nook under the stairs. And it was the best thing ever. There were two cots covered in furs, a wrought iron pot literally hanging from a step above you, some helmets and wooden swords and shields, a box of carved wooden things like toy animals and a bowl and a spoon, and a box of rocks and twigs. That was it. We spent an hour. He met another kid, a seven year old from California, and they could have stayed there all day. The parents mutually voted for lunch, and they begged to stay together, so we found a place the other mom’s friend had recommended that turned out to be on my list, too.
- National Museum of Iceland. Two floors of random artifacts from the Settlement through the Founding. The boys were moderately interested, if bemused (especially by the ring of artifacts from the 20th century; oh, the bewilderment at old fashioned radios and TVs and computers and phones). But there was a video interactive that they were enthralled by. They spent half an hour learning and promptly forgetting basically the entire history of the country. Then we found a craft station where we could emboss our own metal plates and that ate another half hour.
- We said goodbye to the other family, who needed to go pack, and ARR negotiated another 10 minutes under the stairs at the Settlement Museum
- Arbaer Open Air Museum. This is about twenty or so historical houses, transported into a little village, each furnished with stuff from a different time period of Icelandic history. I only saw a little bit of it; we got there an hour before closing. And there was a toy museum. It’s the only place you can touch the stuff. They have something like six stations, basically kid sized rooms open like dollhouses, each containing toys and kid-sized furniture from a different era. So there’s one that has a “wood-burning” stove and carved wooden toys, there’s a Victorian era sitting room with a miniature dollhouse, a 70s decorated room with a Pink Floyd poster and 70s toys, and then of course a room full of stuff from my childhood. Ninja Turtles and original My Little Ponies. Plus a puppet theater and a dress up theater. He loved it.
Lunch: Sægreifinn. Relatively inexpensive seafood. Langoustine soup and bread. They also have a refrigerator case full of skewers of fish they would grill for you.
Dinner: Höfnin. Fabulous seafood. Desserts not worth the trouble.
Day 7:
Summary: Golden Circle.
Activities:
- Thingvellir. This is both the former meeting point of the Allthing (and the founding of Iceland) and a point at which the North American and European continental plates touch. The maps I could find online were…confusing. So we started out at a random parking lot, which let us walk through this awesome little valley to the Öxarárfoss waterfall. Then I managed to find the Tourist Information center, which is not the same as the visitor center. I did manage to get a more useful map. (Which disintegrated in the rain. I think I disintegrated something like five different maps over the course of the trip.) So we ended up down at a different parking lot, where we could walk up through the Almannagjá gorge, to the actual Visitor Center, and the Drekkingarhylur waterfall. It’s…kind of cool, but also completely mobbed with busloads of tourists. And the boys were cranky. And it was raining. There was more stuff there, but we were done with Thingvellir.
- Bruarfoss. This waterfall was on a list online of cool things, but the landowner appears to have stopped allowing access.
- Geysir. Geysir is the geyser we actually got the word “geyser” from. But it doesn’t actually go off anymore until there’s a local eruption. On the other hand, Strokkur goes off every 8-10 minutes and is pretty cool. ARR and I took a little hike. Everyone liked the geysers.
- Gullfoss. This is the biggest waterfall in the country, and it’s amazing. There’s a very impressive first fall, but then the second fall plunges into a unexpected crevice and sends up a plume of fog. Unfortunately, ARR was a ball of disobedient manic crankiness and Chuckro slipped and fell on a wet rock. A good time was not had by all. I’d hoped to have a family picture in front of the falls. This did not happen.
Breakfast: Sandholt bakery. Fabulous pastries and breads, best mocha of my life.
Lunch: Sandwiches we brought ourselves.
Dinner: Yummi Yummi Thai. Both the pad thai and pad see ew involved what looked like ramen noodles, but was tasty enough. Also, more pastries from Sandholt.
Mistakes were made:
- Did you know that Reykjavik International Airport is probably not actually the airport you fly into when you go to Reykjavik? Yeah, me neither. Which is why we ended up in Keflavik International Airport after a red eye, 45 minutes away from where our car reservation was. Shit. Fortunately, the Avis guy was super helpful and managed to get us a slightly nicer car for slightly more money with some fancy paperwork. I really like Avis.
- I accidentally left our bathing suits at a hot spring in the middle of nowhere. I loved that bathing suit. ARR loved his, too. We were both rather upset about this.
- I also left a pair of gloves in the cabin.
- I also left a plastic dinosaur at a playground. (The other one came back. He must have fallen out of the bag.)
- In conclusion, when I’m trying to keep a bouncy child occupied and out of danger and also execute complicated logistics, I do not actually have the brain power left to keep track of all the small objects. (In my defense – in each of these, ARR was bouncing off the walls and/or whining and I was trying to juggle half a dozen different objects and get us to where we needed to be while a 40 pound wiggling whining weight was hanging off my arm. I dare you to do better.)
- We had a little too much vacation. The problem is that ARR didn’t get enough downtime, but was too excited to actually calm down enough for downtime. The last day...was kind of a disaster. And ended with me crying in a parking lot.
Stuff we didn’t make it to, or that wasn’t age appropriate: (Here’s the stuff you might want to look up for planning your own trip):
- Dyrhólaey
- Sólheimasandur plane wreck
- Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon
- Dog sledding
- Food walking tour of Reykjavik
- Culinary Golden Circle Tour
- Super jeep tour of Thorsmork
- Secret Lagoon
- Blue Lagoon
- Snorkeling in Silfra
- Whale watching
- Phallological Museum
- Viking adventure sailing tour
- Viking Restaurant Fjorugardurinn
Net: Iceland is amazing. Seriously, one of the most fantastically bizarre and gorgeous places I’ve ever seen. All the activities were really fun, and there were a ton we didn’t do. It’s actually pretty small-person-friendly – adult prices are ruinously expensive, but for many of the activities, ARR was free. People are incredibly friendly. Everyone speaks fluent English. The non-F-roads are easy to drive and navigation is simple because there are very few roads and towns, so it’s all pretty obvious. I’m a little bummed that we ended on kind of a sour note – I think I pushed us a little too far. More downtime needs to be built in. (ARR didn’t really calm down, though, so when we were in the apartment, there was a lot of yelling accidentally and begging people to play with him. So there wasn’t a lot of resting during the day. And the light meant he fell asleep late and woke up early no matter what we did.) Still, saving a big thing for the last day to end on a bang was a mistake. Next time, the last day needs to be more laid back, I think. I also had hoped to hit another hot spring, and it didn’t really work out. Still, overall, it was an awesome vacation, and the fact I packed for war paid off. We needed the waterproof pants and the child headphones and the multiple bathing suits and the laundry detergent pods and the multiple rounds of shoes and layers. Should have brought an extra pair of gloves for ARR. Waterproof layers is key.
Amazing vacation. There’s a reason everyone either has gone or is talking about going…
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Date: 2018-06-25 09:17 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2018-06-26 01:35 am (UTC)From: