It was a great trip. It truly is a beautiful country with jaw dropping landscapes and visuals. Honestly we did not feel overrun with tourists, but obviously going in November helped that. The biggest crowds were in the golden circle area. Once we were out of there it was like we had the entire country to ourselves. But just be cautious, if you travelling outside of Reykjavik EVERYTHING closes early. By 9 or 10 entire towns will be shut down. It wasn't a big deal as we weren't really doing a bunch of late nights on that leg of the trip, but if you are planning to roll in late and find a place to eat you could be in trouble. The first night we arrived in Akureyri the only thing we could find was a Subway.

Honestly after seeing the landscapes and the small towns, Reykjavik was kind of boring. Wish we would have spent more days on the road and less in the city. But that's for next time.

11/14/2016 8:30:48 AM

Good to know. I'll be there for NYE which is supposed to be awesome, but I'll try to save my money going out on the town and doing more exploring for the rest of the time I'm there. Thanks.

11/15/2016 3:57:47 PM

Take advantage of happy hours in Reykjavik. All of the bars have happy hour specials from around 4-7pm and the beers are 600-700KR as opposed to 1000-1200KR.

Also, if you are going to buy liquor/beer try to get some in the airport duty free shop when you land. It's much cheaper than the Vinbutin and the Vinbutin has some odd hours as well. It's the only place you can get beer and liquor. Gas stations and grocers only carry near-beer.

11/16/2016 9:33:59 AM

Duly noted. How much was gas per liter btw? I know it's a relatively small country, but I expect it to be about $5-$7 a gallon. That's about what I paid last year in Spain.

11/16/2016 1:18:07 PM

IIRC the gas prices were around 200-220 KR/liter.

We had a diesel van. diesel was a little more, but we got better mileage.

11/16/2016 3:00:58 PM

So we lost a day due to the "storms" in DC but got here this morning at 8am Iceland time. Got about 2 hours of sleep on the plane. Left us with a full day today, a full day tomorrow, but have to leave at 7am or so to catch our Budapest flight.

We got a great hotel for a great deal (Nordurey City Garden) but it was about 2.5 miles from city center. We rented a VW golf and drove the Golden Circle from about 1:30 until 8:00 or so - hit all of the major spots and hiked all of them pretty fully. It was amazing, although it was misting the whole time. I highly recommend driving it - there are basically no cars and if you leave later like we did, you miss a lot of the tourist bus crowds. I wouldn't have wanted to do one of the 11-hour bus tours to do it. At times it was kinda scary though - on the end of the circle you go over a mountain and we drove through clouds/mist that was super thick and very little visibility and they were on some pretty shear cliffs with no guardrails.

When we got back we went to Tapas Barinn and split a special deal where we got like 10 courses ($80) and it was more than enough for both of us. Had puffin, whale, foal/horse, lamb, beef, two types of fish, lobster tails, among other things. They also gave us Icelandic spirits. I'd definitely recommend it. The lamb here is insanely good. Puffin and whale are like chuck beef. The foal was actually very, very good.

We also went to Mikeller brewing (my favorite brewery) and that was worth it. Beer here is very expensive ($14 a pint for something basic and up to $26 for Mikeller sours). Taxis are also very expensive ($26 for 2.5 mile one way). Bars close at 1:00 sharp on Thursdays (weekdays?) but they said 4:30 weekends. Food is also extremely expensive, even simple meals like a hotdog and fries will set you back $14.

Going to watch the World Cup match tomorrow in the square/park since it's their first time in the cup. Have to get up early Saturday, unfortunately, to catch our flight to Budapest. Looking forward to that.

I'm still not made up on Iceland - I love the sites we saw in the countryside but they were out there but I'm more of a city/nightlife/food/drink/architecture person so I think it just may be Scandinavia/Northern Europe but it doesn't have that old world feel that I like when I'm in other places in Europe. It was almost New England meets an almost USSR-type city planning to me. I definitely wouldn't want to spend many more days here unless it was fall and you could hope to see the Northern Lights, but that is probably another long ride into the country. There is basically nothing outside of Reykjavik - it was like being on a rocky planet covered in moss.

The people have been super, super friendly, though. Not bad - just different and just doesn't quite feel like Europe to me.

6/21/2018 10:26:59 PM

^
Iceland has 300,000 (Durham has 260,000) people in an area a little larger than South Carolina-- you're not going to really see a population density high enough to support a solid night life type of atmosphere

Definitely more of an nature/hiking/hotsprings type of place to visit. It's VERY easy to drive yourself around though compared to a lot of places, and most people speak some english, so it's a great first place to visit for someone nervous about international travel.

6/21/2018 11:29:04 PM

^^You need to go out on the weekend. Those fuckers go hard in the paint friday and saturday night.

6/21/2018 11:50:33 PM

Reykjavik is nothing special as far as European cities go, but it was nice and I'm glad I stayed their for my first visit. The next time I visit Iceland, I'm making a beeline from Reykjavik as far away as I can though. You really have to get away from the city to really appreciate all that Iceland has to offer. The Golden Circle tool was certainly cool, but my favorite memories of Iceland were watching the Northern Lights on NYE (Reykjavik was going OFF with all the fireworks, so we had to drive like 2+ hours away) and driving to Vik and walking on a black sand beach with no people while a snowstorm blanketed the beach.

6/23/2018 5:10:44 PM

yeah if I go back it'll be in winter, for sure. now that I've had some time to reflect, I still think it's a beautiful country but the city wasn't all that special. it's just so ridiculously expensive. the people were awesome, though.

6/25/2018 10:45:46 AM

Icelanders love Subway.

6/25/2018 10:52:57 AM

yeah I was surprised how many there were. domino's and KFC were also up there here and in Hungary.

6/26/2018 6:44:57 PM

We were there in September 2016. We did a night in Reykjavik on either end of the trip, so I actually wished we had a little bit more time there. Doesn't take long to see the entire city, though. All the fish and chips!

We rented a car and just circled the country. We were worried that we were trying to fit in too much as we really just stayed a night in each place with the exception of the Westfjords, but I am glad we did it that way. The terrain there is other-worldly- legit seems like another planet in places.

Would definitely recommend whitewater rafting the East Glacial River near Akureyri. Was anticipating a decent crowd but it only ended up being me, my wife, and two dudes from Germany, so that was awesome. Also had quite the random collection of river guides from Kenya, Nepal, and Florida.

7/26/2018 10:32:25 AM