We visited Iceland from March 14 to March 24th. We had long waited for this trip, since 2017 & tried to maximize our chances of seeing the northern lights.
We started from EWR airport (Newark, New Jersey) and flew with Icelandair economy. It was an overnight red eye flight of 6 hours. Upon reaching Reykjavík our friends picked us up with a Toyota 4 wheel drive car rented from Blue Car & we started for Vik.
We stopped at many waterfalls on the road, the Instagram famous ones, stopped at the plane wreck but it was a tiring 4 mile walk one way. It had started to snow. We decided to skip this part and head towards the Dolorey Beach, which is famous as a GOT shooting spot.
We reached Kría hotel of Vik at 11 pm, had dinner at a Icelandic restaurant called Fudur in the town. Loved their lamb, Cod and Skyr.
We woke up at the break of the dawn and headed to Vik beach for sunrise. This is the famous John Snow’s landing. Be careful with the sneaky waves and don’t wet your shoe.
We stopped at the Glacier Lagoon which definitely was the highlight of our trip in Iceland!
We headed towards Hali that day. Enroute we stopped at few more waterfalls & glaciers. The reason we stayed at Hali was to visit the Vatnajökull glacier cave the next morning. It was a unique experience.
You see how rapidly the glacier is retreating every year due to global warming. From Vatnajokul, we had a long day to Egilstaddir. Enroute we stopped at an abandoned Viking village and watched Atlantic crash her waves at the feet of Vestrahorn. It was a surreal experience.
We drove towards the north which is lesser explored part of Iceland but is essential part of the ring road. From Egilstaddir you can go watch whales in summer but we started for Studagill canyons with basalt columns and hiked 4 miles each way. The canyons did not have the clear blue water as it flaunts in the summer but it sure looked beautiful with snow etc.
We headed towards Akureyri next. Enroute came Detifoss (the most powerful waterfall of Europe, although we could not reach here due to bad winter roads).
Akureyri is known as the second capital of Iceland in north. It’s nice little town with heart shaped traffic lights and hike to Godafoss another beautiful waterfall of Iceland. The roads in the north were laden with snow and weather was more stable compared to stormy south.
The next day we started a bit late and reach Laugarbakki, a beautiful town where we saw the stunning northern lights at night. It is worth all the hype. From Laugarbakki, we headed for Snaefellness.
We had booked Natthai cottage for two nights and we anted to wait for the beautiful show of northern lights but luck had other plans. We got stuck in the snow blizzard and finally made it to Kirkzufell after three attempts. Our last stop was at Reykjavik. Spent two nights here.
We enjoyed the ride to Golden circle one day, watched Aurora one night, dined at a Pakistani place and an amazing Asian seafood restaurant and ended the trip with a visit to the Sky lagoon & its elaborate 7 step spa ritual.
Loved Iceland. We ended up spending around 7k for this trip for two. Had shared much of the cost with another friends family so the car cost came down significantly (1700 USD in reality).