Iceland was a trip for the books!
Let me give you some background. To be honest, Iceland was not on my near future travel list. If anything, Iceland was barely in my peripheral when it came to choosing future travel destinations. My best friend planted a seed that blossomed into this trip.
Vanessa wanted to go to Iceland, for reasons that were unknown to me at the time, and asked me if I was interested in joining her. This was December of 2016. I have flexible vacation days with my field of work and as long as I am not in court, I could work from anywhere. Plus, I have a super cool job. So, I impulsively looked at flights and told her I was interested. Ready to book, we selected February as the departure month. The trip was expected to be one week long. Vanessa needed to confirm with her job whether she was going to have the days available for travel. Vanessa works for Nike Swim (corporate world) so her job is also super cool. Nothing was booked as I awaited confirmation from Vanessa.
Fast forward to February, I am looking at the flights and ready to book but Vanessa and I cannot coordinate dates that match for work purposes. I had a trip in February to Las Vegas and then I had another trip in March so truly, it was going to be tough to match. We never booked the flights but I had already done plenty of research and the seed, the interest and desire to visit Iceland, was planted and watered.
July 2017 as I am celebrating my birthday with loved ones, I begin to read a birthday card from my partner. As I am reading, he ends the card with “www.marvainmotion.com/Iceland” and I remained puzzled. I went to my blog and much to my surprise, my partner wrote a very touching and sentimental entry about us, my birthday, our love, and our travels. At the very bottom, I discover a photograph of the northern lights and realized that we were going to be traveling to Iceland. He told me to prepare the itinerary for November. It was amazing. The gift of travel is the gift of life. To me, it’s as symbolic as “If you feed a man a fish, he only eats one day. But if you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.”
There are plenty of more informative articles and blogs of travelers who have frequented Iceland or perhaps been there for much longer and done much more. I, however, will tell you what I didn’t know after reading some of the blogs and what I did in addition to how I did it.
I was in Iceland for 4 days in November and this is what I learned:
- Iceland is expensive. Be prepared. Find affordable flights and expect to spend plenty of money on food. I mean, it’s worth it. The food is delicious! But if you’re not prepared, it might break your bank. Lol.
- Take into consideration the weather and the temperature. It makes a difference when it comes to your itinerary.
- Everyone speaks English so you’ll be good to go. Also, everyone accepts card so don’t worry about taking out cash. I used Apple Pay most of the time.
- Rent a car. Trust me it will save you time and money.
FLYING TO ICELAND
Airlines such as WOW offer affordable flights from Boston, Chicago, NYC, and other hubs to Iceland. It’s similar to Spirit in the states. It’s a budget airline so don’t expect food or snacks for free or television on the seats. Do expect cheap flights, as low as $100 round trip if flexible with your dates. You can do many things in one weekend in Iceland if you plan accordingly. Use skyscanner, my choice for flight searches, as well as other travel sites including groupon, expedia, etc. to select your flight. Pick a flight that allows you to arrive early. We landed at 5:30AM. It was a six hour flight from Chicago. Download a few shows on your tablet or phone and bring some snacks from your local convenience store so you save yourself from the airport fares for water and chips. Also, bring an empty water bottle.
DRIVING IN ICELAND
Rent an affordable car. SUV is best, mini SUV is second best, and cheapest option is third best. We went with the third option and rented a Toyota Yaris hatchback for 4 people and didn’t have any issues. It’s important to notice that most of the cars are manual transmission. If you do not know how to drive stick, now would not be a good time to learn. Automatic cars are more expensive than manual so my brother drove us around the whole. No, I don’t know how to drive stick and wasn’t going to learn in Iceland. The tires are studded winter tires so double check them before you drive off to make sure they are suitable for whatever weather you will be expecting.
EATING IN ICELAND
I instantly noticed as I was driving through the country that there was no McDonald’s. There were no Burger Kings, no Starbucks, or other American customary chain restaurants. I saw a few KFC’s, one Taco Bell, and a few Domino’s Pizza spread out pretty far. You will learn that traditional Icelandic food is lamb and fish. They is plenty of it and its everywhere. Historically, traditionally meals included shark and whale. However, shark seems to be a rarity now that nobody consumes and whale steak was only seen on a few menus in the downtown restaurants clearly to attract tourists. I don’t think the locals eat whale steak. I noticed plenty of lamb soup, seafood such as fresh fish, and sometimes I saw horse steak on the menu. I saw lobster on the menu for $78. I’m vegetarian so I would stick to sustainable meals for myself and the world and a veggie burger would run me $29. For breakfast, most places don’t open until 10AM unless you go to a bakery for a baked good or you find a cafe. Usually, the cafe’s will serve smoothies and juices. Juice bars seem to be a thing in Iceland and I for one and not complaining. Fresh ingredients in liquid form? Sign me up! I usually stick with a green juice or smoothie with avocado or spinach. Most of the menus were in English so fear not my friends! Smoothies can run you anywhere from $9-11 dollars. Alcohol is a completely different animal. ONE BEER was $10 at a gas station. Here are my takeaways.
– Bring snacks from wherever you’re coming from. Us- we brought protein bars and trail mix. We would refill the water bottles at any stop. The water in Iceland is clean and safe to consume.
– Buy a bottle of your alcohol of choice at the airport duty free. We grabbed a bottle of vodka and it was the most clutch purschase we made all weekend. Take it with you and pre-game before you go out anywhere. Save yourself some money. Remember to designate a DD. Spoiler alert: No Ubers or Lyfts in Iceland so be prepared to drive everywhere UNLESS you stay near downtown. Everything downtown is walking distance.
– Focus on one meal a day to ball out. The food is delicious. It’s worth it. Absolutely incredible what they do with fresh ingredients in such a remote and essential frozen tundra of an island. Just remember that it’s going to cost you. A water bottle alone is usually $3-4. A croissant cost me $6 at very delicious bakery in downtown Reykjavik.
WARDROBE
My group and I were properly armed for the weather. In one day, we saw four different weather conditions. It was about 30 degrees average throughout the entirety of my trip. The coldest it got was 27 degrees and the warmest was 40. Fahrenheit of course. I wore two thermal pants, one thermal long sleeve fleece shirt, one long sleeve gym dry fit, and a sweater. I usually wore anywhere from 2-3 socks depending on the material. One wool and one cotton or two wool blends and the footy from my thermals was perfectly fine. Make sure your wearing boots that are waterproof. The last thing you need is water seeping into your feet. It’s game over after that. I usually wore a sweater that had a scarf or a scarf, thick woven scarf over my coat. Choose a fashionable beanie or earmuffs and grab a pair of gloves and you’re good to go. I wore two gloves at times, one thin glove that I wear in the fall that allows me to the top and a thicker fleece glove over the little glove in case I needed to remove the gloves for something, my hands would not remain bare.
MONEY
My cards all worked in Iceland. Make sure to tell your bank you’re traveling so that your card goes through successfully. Save yourself the embarrassment of “excuse me, miss, your card was declined.” I did not need cash so save yourself the conversation exchanges! Apple Pay works wonders. I used Capitalone and Chase Saphire Preferred to avoid foreign transaction fees. Check this link out for a comparison of cards that do not have foreign transaction fees.
Before traveling, make sure check the weather and create an itinerary accordingly. For example, had I gone in February, Vanessa and I would only have 4 hours of sunlight. My current trip in November gave us about 8 hours of sunlight. The sun rose around 9:15AM and set around 5:00PM. Most days it was windy and cold/cloudy. It rained, snowed, clear sunny skies, and violent storm all in one day. Also, be very cautious with the car doors. The winds in Iceland can be strong and could tear the door right off the hinge. Hold your doors when you enter or exit your vehicle; especially when you’re out on the mountains. Catch my next blog for my itinerary!
STAY MOVING LOVES,
