One thing you have to understand about us, is that we travel the middle of the road, so to speak. While occasionally we have stayed in five star hotels, we have also stayed in hotels that were twenty dollars a night, where the only stars were the ones in the sky above. We decided that we like the middle of the road, somewhere between the two.
Our trip to Iceland started in Reykjavik, where almost all Icelandic adventures begin. Upon arrival, we met our first challenge, how do you get into the city? While I prefer to take my chances, and jump into a taxi, Tam did her research and found that it was less expensive to take the “Flybus”. It cost us about $45 USD per person. She had booked reservations on the bus before we left California. The bus dropped us off at a hotel, a couple of blocks away from the camper van company we were going to use. Yes folks, the “middle of the road” for this trip involved camping. Now if you are anywhere near our age, (59 and 60) you might say, “I’m not camping!”, but listen, have you googled the hotel prices in Iceland?
Tam had decided that the best camper deal at the time was from Go Campers, http://www.gocampers.is/ . We rented the “Go Smart 2 pax van”. You could go larger, but fuel is about $8.50 per gallon. We decided the small van would work just fine, and it did! One warning, if you don’t know how to drive a stick shift, manual transmission, make sure you reserve one with an automatic transmission. You really don’t want to learn how to drive a stick shift in a foreign country. Another piece of advice, consider buying the camping card for 149 Euros. If you stay at a campground that honors the card, you will pay only about $3.33 per night instead of $25 to $35 per night. We saved about $100 on our trip by using the card. The people at Go Campers were very nice, and in the office they had a table with left-over items from other campers, like a package of spaghetti noodles, or a half roll of paper towels all for free! You will appreciate this table once you see the prices in the grocery stores.
With the camper packed with our belongings at about 10am, it was off to our first stop, the grocery store. It was only a block away. We pulled into the parking lot, walked up to the doors, and discovered they open at 11am. Really!? OK, well there was a KFC across the street, so we decided to drive across, have something to eat, and use the internet. We walked up to the doors, and discovered they open at 11am. Really!? We sat in the car, and waited until 11am, then went in and bought our two meals for a total of about $30. Yes, food is expensive in Iceland.
After the grocery store we were off to Akranes for our first night camping. While driving out of capital cities in a foreign country is usually a challenge, getting out of Reykjavik really wasn’t that hard. Tam navigated using the GPS on her phone, guide book, and a map they gave us at Go Campers. There are two ways to get to Akranes. You can drive around the edge of the fjord, or you can take the tunnel under the fjord. We missed the turn to drive around the fjord, and ended up taking the tunnel. We knew there was a toll, but how much could it be, right? To our surprise, it cost $10! Oh well, we were tired, and wanted to find our campground in Akranes.
On day two we had to go back towards Reykjavik to join Highway 36 to head towards “The Golden Circle”. No, we didn’t go through the $10 tunnel again, we decided we would drive around the Hvalfjordur, (fjord). The tunnel under the fjord is about 13 kilometers. The trip around the fjord was 80 kilometers. We didn’t realize it was that far, but it turned out to be a really pretty drive.
The first stop on our Golden Circle route was Pingvellir. Pingvellir is a national park, but what is so unusual about this location is that it is the division between two tectonic plates. On one side you have the North American plate, and on the other side you have the Eurasian plate. There is a fairly easy walk that you can take down into a gorge. It is worthwhile.
Then we headed to Geysir, which many people would spell geyser, and that is what you get to see. The largest geyser was going off every 5 to 8 minutes with everyone holding their cameras and phones at the ready hoping to catch a photo of the geyser.
Next stop was the Gullfoss waterfall. Every time you see a name ending in “foss”, it was a waterfall. Before we walked to the waterfall, we needed to stop at the restroom. This was an elaborate pay toilet. You have to pay as you enter the building. It cost about a dollar. You could use coins to pay, or you could even use your credit card. Paying a dollar to use the toilet made it much more enjoyable to walk to the waterfall, and it was an impressive waterfall.
Something that you need to understand about this trip, is that we booked it only two weeks before leaving. So we didn’t have a lot of time to plan. That means we did much more backtracking then normal. We drove back through the Golden Circle, and camped the next night in Varmaland.