Iceland

Iceland. The Land of Ice. The Ice of Land? Iceland was on both of our bucket lists and we decided that we could fit in a short visit after stopping in England and Ireland during a two week vacation. We were only there 3 full days and one half day. After visiting, we definitely know this is not enough time to see everything that the country has to offer, but because we were there in Iceland’s early summertime (mid May), we were able to accomplish a lot during the ample hours of sunlight. On average, the sun would set at 11:00 PM or later allowing plenty of time to explore. Even after the sun set, it was still pretty light out. At this time of the year the temperatures are beginning to warm up, giving us 50F temperatures throughout the day with cooler 40F in the evenings, still requiring warm clothing. Depending on our location, there was a decent amount of cloud cover. The drawback of the long days and cloud cover was that there was limited time to hunt for the northern lights. We feel like we at least explored the southern coast well for the time we had. The following posts provide more detail on our journey.

Our itinerary:

Day 1: We flew in from Ireland in the early afternoon, rented a car, and drove the Golden Circle (info about renting a car in Iceland in that post). After completing the Golden Circle, we drove to Vik, where we spent the night.

Day 2: From Vik, we drove up to Jokulsarlon and then hit a number of locations along the southern coast on our way back to Reykjavik.

Day 3: We spent the day exploring Reykjavik and then went to the Blue Lagoon for the afternoon/evening.

Day 4: We traveled to the Hengill Geothermal Park to hike and visited a natural hot spring and then returned to spend more time in Reykjavik. We flew out early the next morning.

In general, for those planning to visit if you want to see all Iceland has to offer, we recommend at least 7 days and would recommend just making a trip around the entire Ring Road or choosing your favorite sites on one coast to hike or camp!