Iceland 2016 - Epilog

Iceland was amazing, and you should plan a trip there if you haven't already gone; we're already talking about "next time".

We got some great information and suggestions from people who have already gone (thanks Robin!), which definitely helped us choose which parts of the island to see, and when to go.

It's only a 5 hour flight from Newark (about the same as flying to LAX), and the weather tops out around 60F in the summer.

We missed the entire heatwave back home (heard it was hot), and the heatwave in Iceland was... 65F? It definitely didn't hit 70F.

It was odd having to pack a flannel shirt, hat, gloves, snow shoes/boots, etc., alongside flip flops, shorts, and a bathing suit, during the height of summer.

The "busy" tourist season didn't seem that busy to me, but there didn't appear to be an abundance of places to stay outside of the capital. This could be part of the reason so many people chose backpacking, cycling, and camping.

Renting a camper also seemed popular, and might be worth exploring as an option next time. There's so much open space that it didn't look like there was any contention at campgrounds, not to mention the people stopped along the sides of roads, in parking lots, etc.

I had initially balked at the idea of driving around the entire ring road, because it's 828 miles long, and the eastern end of the island is apparently very sparse. Like "fill the gas tank if you see a gas station, because there won't be another" level of sparse. Research had suggested that it was best experienced over ten days, unless you want to start cutting out the multi-hour events (glacier tour, puffin tour, etc.).

But we drove over 1100 miles anyway, just touring around the western and southern regions (and back), so perhaps the full ring road circuit is feasible in a week. Given that we did most of that driving in the middle five days, on average we covered more than 200 miles each day we spent "on the road" (having a second driver made a world of difference).

To say that the "countryside" is rural is an understatement. Settlements that look like a town/village on the map sometimes consist of half a dozen houses and an optional church. Outside of Reykjavík, we didn't see a single traffic light, or even a stop sign; when you can see the road for half a mile in each direction, a "yield" is sufficient.

My biggest concern while driving was trying to pay attention to the road, instead of gazing out the window. Well, that and the sheep. Apparently there are three times as many sheep as there are residents, and they all roam free. There is some sort of sheep round-up festival in the fall. Our waiter one night at Geirland described it as a national sheep-sorting weekend.

I'm not sure the photos successfully convey the magnitude of the wide-open spaces, desolate landscapes, and glacier-topped volcanoes. There are many "drive the ring road Iceland" videos on Youtube, which may do a better job of conveying the scale.

This quote from the Frommer's Iceland guidebook, specifically the "Notes on entering the countryside" sidebar, paints a thorough picture of the south coast experience, I believe:

"You don't need to venture far from Reykjavík to feel as though you're in the countryside, or perhaps on another planet. Mossy lava fields abound, cliff tops swarm with thousands of squawking birds, and thin ribbons of waterfall are haphazardly strewn about mountainsides. But if you're leaving downtown Reykjavík for the first time since you arrived in Iceland, the dramatic landscape is an invigorating shock to the system. The land feels strangely unformed, caught in geological transition. Without trees or thick vegetation obscuring the view, the ever-distant horizon seems impossibly close, yet the tops of mountaintops impossibly high."

Anecdotally, it seems that many friends or friends-of-friends have been going to Iceland in the last few years. If you look at the exchange rate of USD to ISK, the reason might be apparent: since the 2008 crash, $1 US is worth twice as much króna.

Prices seemed high to us (especially at restaurants) but they're not unreasonable after you consider that there's no tipping and that they have very high taxes, all of which is built into the price. In that regard, their prices actually reflect the cost, instead of the way we operate in the US.

We had heard/read that they're a cashless culture, and this turned out to be absolutely true. Rosaria had some local currency, which turned out to be necessary for some of the street vendors, but I didn't use any cash on the entire trip. In some locations, you have to pay to use a bathroom, but even those turnstiles had card readers. Remember to bring a chip-and-pin card for the gas stations, as it's your only option.

While it was obviously not great that my laptop stopped working in the middle of the trip, Sabrina correctly pointed out that it allowed me to get more sleep, since I wasn't up every night writing a blog post. It's more work to do afterwards, but we wrote some notes each night instead. Also, using the iPhone to take photos helps, as every photo is tagged with GPS coordinates.

I enjoyed having more time to write the posts, as it allowed me to be more detailed (I think) and it didn't feel like a race against the clock. Part of the rushed aspect of the first few posts in Iceland was that we were out so late each night, due to the extended daylight; on other trips, we would usually be back at the hotel by 9 or 10PM, so spending an hour writing about the day was less of an issue.

Quick links for photo album and start of this trip.