Where in the World: Iceland

Since we started this little blog, I've been so excited to share a little bit about my experience in Iceland last summer. It's weird to think that (almost) exactly one year ago, I was in a rental car with Ben and 3 strangers, driving down abandoned, winding mountain roads in the most beautiful, magical place on Earth. In the future I'll post a guide with all the important details for those planning a trip, but here's a little bit of our story.



We arrived in Reykjavik (rake-yuh-vick) from London with vague hopes of running into someone at the hostel who'd be willing to split the cost of a rental car. Afterall, that's a thing that people do on European adventures, right? They talk to strangers, make friends, and travel together... But come on. As much as I knew that, I never really, truly expected it to happen. I'm not what one would call a social butterfly, and talking to strangers gives me crazy-person anxiety.

I built this cairn, which marks the path of safe travel.

Anyone else think of the Weeds theme song?

But then we were sitting in the adorable little kitchen area of the Kex Hostel (probably one of the coolest/hippest places I've ever slept, by the way - highly recommended!) eating our delicious burrito leftovers (who knew I'd have the best tex-mex of my life in Iceland of all places?) and searching the internet for an affordable rental car, when I do a little ease dropping on the other guests. I overhear another group mention that they were also hoping to rent a car... and suddenly words come out of my mouth: "We'll split it with you!"

We stayed in this little cabin on a volcanic lake.

A guy from Connecticut, a girl from Belgium, and a girl from the Netherlands. We spend the next few hours getting to know each other, sharing our experiences of Iceland so far, asking if we're all really SURE we want to do this, and eventually hashing out a plan. By the time we were done, our vague little drive around the Golden Circle had turned into a 4 day road trip in a complete circle around the entire country. No plans, no reservation, no hesitation.

And thus began our journey. There's only one major road outside of Reykjavik, so it's virtually impossible to get lost. And they have handy road signs that signify a scenic point (which, let's be honest, is the entire country).  What can I say about the actual drive? It's like traveling through the pages of National Geographic. The landscape changes every hour and there's always something gorgeous to look at. Sheep wander freely, and Icelandic horses graze at the roadside. There are more waterfalls than trees. The south is all wide-open green with fields of purple flowers as far as you can see. The north is epic and harsh, with nothing on the horizon but mountains and volcanic rock. Both equally breathtaking.

Volcanoes are stinky.

We left without any idea of where we'd stay, but we never had much trouble finding a place to sleep. We spent long hours in the car, but we stopped wherever and whenever someone wanted a picture or a hike. I won't go into every detail of the trip in this post (there will be more to come!), but here are some highlights that I will always remember:

Sledding on a plastic bag down a snowy mountain top.
Celebrating the 4th of July with a hot dog from an Icelandic gas station, waterfalls instead of fireworks.
Building cairns next to a lake filled with powder-blue icebergs.
(Not) learning to drive stick shift on winding mountain roads.

We didn't get to see everything I wanted to. 4 days left us in a bit of a hurry. Next time I would spend a week on the road and make sure I leave plenty of time for hiking and exploring. One up side: as you probably know, it doesn't really get dark in Iceland in the summer time. You could easily be out hiking at midnight and think it was no later than 8pm.

If you're considering a trip, absolutely 100% do it. You won't regret it.

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