Iceland 2019 – The long story

Everyone is talking about Iceland! This was a bucket list trip for us. We have talked about going to Iceland for the past few years. With my 60th Birthday hitting this year, we decided to go. So we made it a family trip, my husband, myself and our 21 year old son. We bought a package through Nordic Visitor for a 10 day driving tour with a few added days in Reykjavic. Our package was the “middle one”. We drove a Nissan SUV and stayed in 3 star hotels or guesthouses. Each room was private with its own bath.

Iceland opened its doors to tourism after the 2008 financial crisis. There are about 350,000 residents of Iceland with a third of those people living in Reykjavik. There are about 2.5 million visitors to Iceland per year. And more coming every year! You’ll see many more tourist than native Icelanders. We visited during August, which is the “end of the summer season”. Things were beginning to slow down, though it seemed pretty crowded to me. According to several people we met along the way, August slows down and October – March it picks up for the Northern Light seekers. May – July is the summer visitors. We really only met a few native Icelanders. During the summer months the island is full of “seasonal workers” manning the restaurants, hotels, & bars. I wanted to hear the local Icelandic language, since I have no idea how to pronounce all those letters. But sadly, I heard mostly English. It didn’t really matter what country you were from, you were greeted in English. The TV’s were set to English speaking stations and the menus were in English as well.

There are no words to express the beauty of this country. Its landscape is both beautiful and unforgiving. The sheer depth of the cliffs and the deep, blue coldness of the North Atlantic as you look out to an unending horizon was amazing. When in the mountains, you see glaciers, lakes and waterfalls. On the coasts, the black sand beaches reach out from basalt columns, waterfalls, and cliffs of rock formations made from cooled lava from a volcano that erupted hundreds of years ago. Once you are away from the city, mostly all you see is beautiful landscape. You can picture a Viking ship heading into a cove for protection or to hide.

The food is interesting and expensive. There isn’t a lot that grows here, so veggies like tomatoes, red peppers, and cucumbers are grown in green houses. You will also find these on every breakfast buffet. They also grow potatoes and some lettuces. Your “salad” will consist of lettuce with some local berries that are a type of blueberry or pomegranate seeds. Iceland is very fond of Skyr. You can find it here in some of the local grocery stores. Our Kroger has it. I bought some before we left and found it bitter. In Iceland, they mix in other things, like oats, chocolate chips etc. They LOVE Skyr. They eat it for breakfast, put it in soups & cakes, and basically think it’s the best thing ever. Sheep wander around unattended all summer. They stand in the road and watch you, like a game of chicken before running away at the last min. They are also on every menu for dinner and the hot dogs are made of lamb. There is also a staple called meat soup. The meat being mostly lamb and “other”. It was good, even though I’m not sure what the “other” was. If you like Cod, you are in luck. It is fresh, large and delicious. We spoke with a couple from Williamsburg VA who did a fishing excursion. They caught 20 cod each. The biggest they had ever seen. They wished they could have kept them, but with no way of preserving them or getting them home, they were all thrown back. The Captain of the boat said he was already all stocked up on Cod for the winter. Apparently a side benefit of running a fishing boat for tourist is he gets to keep what they can’t and has his pick of fish without the work! Puffin will sometimes be on the menu. Usually on the appetizer side. They are very tiny birds and don’t make a large portion. Minky whale is another popular appetizer. We tried the puffin and the whale. The puffin has a unique taste that I really can’t describe. It was good. The whale was served rare (not my favorite way of eating meat) and came with a delicious ginger soy sauce. One menu item that caught me off guard was horse. There are a lot of horses here and they are beautiful. When the run, they have an extra step that is fascinating to watch. There are many signs to “rent a horse here”. Not sure if it’s an hourly rental or just a tour. Lee & Jake decided to try the horse steak. They loved it! I took a bite and it was ok. Not sure if I feel that way because it was horse and that kind of freaked me out, or that is was rare. Horse was on the menu in the North country, where the land is rolling and we saw farms. There are some cattle here, but mostly the farms were grain or horse with some sheep. But as I mentioned, most of the sheep are turned out onto the land to roam as they will. They do have ear tags to let people know who they belong to. Maybe the fenced in ones were for dinner.  Food is not cheap in Iceland. It will be one of the most costly things you pay for. We had intended to cut some costs, but buying food at the grocery and picnicking. Here’s how that went. Our trip to Bonus was eye opening. There are few fruits & vegetables. It’s an island that doesn’t grow a whole lot of it’s own food. Everything is imported. There wasn’t a large selection of anything. Think of a small town general store. The “cold” section of the grocery was just that. A cold room. You went into this cold room and the meats, cheese, milk etc. was lined up on shelves. The bread and canned goods were in the middle of the store and the fruit and vegetables were off to one side. We bought basics, bread, lunch meat & cheese. Potato chips, a few apples, and paper towels. I thought this is great! Here is the reality of this. There are pull offs to park and hike, take pictures and even sit and eat at the picnic table. The problem is there is one maybe two picnic tables and a ton of people with that same idea. Add to that, that in August it was still 48* high. It was cold and there was no place to sit and eat. After eating in the car, we decided that the gas stations were our best bet. The larger gas stations were service centers. They had gas pumps, restrooms, restaurants and gift shops. Some had groceries as well. Most had a combo meal. This meal would include a hamburger or lamb hot dog, fries and a drink. It cost $20.00-$25.00 US, per person. It was the cheapest way to buy lunch. Now there were a lot of days that we had breakfast and then snacked on junk food and ate a nice dinner. No matter what, plan your meals with the knowledge that it will be costly for food. At dinner, we had wine. Most places don’t sell by the glass, you have to buy the bottle.

     To cut the cost of housing, a lot of people camp. You can rent a camper van, a pull trailer, a small motor home or a tent. Camp areas are everywhere. Even at the local attractions, there will be an area for you to pitch a tent, park your van etc. There may not be showers, but all of these areas have restroom facilities. The amount of hitch hikers caught me off guard. Never would I expect a young woman, traveling alone to be hitch hiking. But here there isn’t the fear we have in America. There are quite a few gravel & dirt roads and if you are doing the driving tour take my advice and get the full coverage, gravel protection. There were a few things not covered on our Nissan 4×4. 1)Your door being ripped off by wind. This is not so much a problem in the summer time, but is in the winter. 2) Rolling your car. This can happen anytime, but if you drive in the middle of the road and only pull off at the actually pull offs, or a flat spot, you should be good. 3) Under carriage. This is tricky. If you want to go to some of the sights, well, you’ll be driving over larger rocks. But the 4×4 did a great job and you need to drive slowly. 4) Off Roading. That is another tricky one. In my world, driving a path up a mountain with no paved road IS off roading. But here, they just don’t want you taking off over the lava field all Willy Nilly. In my opinion, driving Iceland is the way to see this wonderful country. If camping isn’t your thing, there are hotels, Air BnB, & Guesthouses (motel type). As I mentioned, our package was the “middle” package. I wanted my own bathroom and since we were booking two rooms because of Jake being with us, it was more cost efficient to do the middle package.  All were very nice and really out in the middle of wide open space. Guesthouses ranged from a larger home converted to having 8-10 guest rooms. There would be a larger eating area where a table was set with breakfast and the owners would live there as well or next door. Or there would be a free standing building or cottages with a dining room. Only one Guesthouse that we stayed at did not serve dinner. In the Guesthoues, dinner would have a limited, but very good menu. In the larger hotels, the menu would be extensive.

We bought three excursions with our package. The first one was a zodiac boat ride on glacier lake. This is a lake that was formed by the melting of the glacier. It is a big, beautiful place with the glacier on one side, and large chunks of ever changing ice floating around until they finally work their way into the channel that leads to the ocean. The water here is brackish and is home to both salt water fish, such as cod and fresh water fish such as salmon. The lake is approx. 1000 feet deep. It was thrilling to ride in a low boat and glide across the water to within feet of the glacier. We had 10 people in our boat and we had to wear these large flotation suits in case we fell into the water. I believe it was something like to 10*. This was my favorite thing we did. The wind in your face, the beauty of looking at the wall of ice with icebergs floating nearby. It was magical to me! The second one was also a water based excursion. We took a large, wood boat out on the ocean to Puffin Island and also to an area in hopes of catching a glimpse of whales. Again, we were given the floatation suits in case something happened and we ended up in the water. First we went to Puffin Island. This is a privately owned island, so we didn’t go onto land. We didn’t need to. Once there, we saw hundreds of puffins flying around us and floating in the water. They are such fun birds and during the summer months they nest in Iceland. They are getting ready to fly away by the end of August. After a bit of time there, we headed further out to sea in search of whales. I don’t usually get sea sick and the water seemed to be somewhat calm when we started. As we headed out, white caps started and the boat was rocking. The motion got the best of Lee & Jake. We were about 1.5 hours into a 3 hr. trip. Once we got to the area where whales had been spotted earlier in the day, we slowed down and actually got to see a lone humpback whale. It was exciting to see, but as the boat turned toward the whale to follow it, the diesel smell hit and that was it for me. Once we made it back to shore, we headed back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon napping and taking it easy. Our last excursion was in a cave. 600 meters beneath the surface in a lava tube. What an adventure that was! Unlike our limestone caves, these caves are smooth. Carved out by hot lava over the centuries. Amazing to see what can be created when the earth moves!

Summary: Our trip was wonderful! There is no words for the raw beauty of Iceland. The people we met were kind and helpful. It was fun to hear the stories from the few natives that we met. As well as the others that were working there from other countries had stories of their own. A lot of young people went for the summer job and met someone. Maybe not from Iceland, but they stayed to work for a few years. Some were making their way from working in the city to working in the guesthouses. Some had been there a few years and were ready to go back home. Iceland is virtually untouched right now. There are no large hotels blocking the views of the ocean from the city skyline. There is no graffiti on the walls of the cliffs or garbage slowly rolling across the fields with the sheep. It’s water is clean and clear. The sky is only dotted with birds and clouds. Mountains and waterfalls. But change is inevitable. Along the water in Reyjavik, ground has been broken for a 6 star Marriott hotel. I have no idea how many rooms it will have, but the view will be spectacular. And there will be more. 2.5 million people come to this island nation every year. There is bound to be change. The government is doing everything it can to be mindful of what makes this island so special. I would love to go back, but there are other places that I need to see. Maybe I will book a cruise with a few stops in Iceland. I hope that you can make a trip and see its beauty. I also hope that the visitors keep in mind that the beauty is what people come for. Take Care!