Iceland 2017 | Travel Blog

Thanks to a 7 hour plane ride and a 5 hour layover in Minneapolis, I was actually able to get my travel photos edited from our most recent trip to Iceland. During this trip, we also visited the Faroe Islands but that amazing, Narnia like place will be saved for a separate blog so stay tuned!

Iceland had been on the top of my bucket list now for a VERY long time. Thanks to our three week stint in Europe and our prior trips we had crossed off many top bucket list items and Iceland kept inching its way to the top several spots. The last 2 months for us have been a whirlwind of changes so this trip came at an ideal time for us mentally but not at the best time for our photography season and work life. Despite all of that, we had the most amazing time. We flew to Reykjavik (Iceland’s capital) on a red eye flight from Chicago to begin our adventure. Upon arriving we ventured straight out into the city and saw the beautiful modern church and the Sun Voyager sculpture. We spent the following day getting rid of jet lag at the amazing Blue Lagoon were we donned silica mud masks and acted completely like tourists while we swam through the beautiful waters and tried out the steam room! The Blue Lagoon is an AMAZING place- very swank and so magnificently clean and beautifully kept. A must see for anyone in Iceland! We then headed out to see all of the attractions of the Golden Circle. Gullfoss waterfall was our first stop (although technically our first stop was the 75 times I pulled the rental car over to take photos of the landscape on the way there…. #photographerproblems). Gullfoss was everything I wanted it to be and more. Although more crowded than I had hoped with tour buses and visitors, it was still impressive and beautiful and I managed to find some ways of shooting it to avoid lots of people in my shots. A lot of getting clear shots is patience the other is angles :-). We had rare, perfect weather the entire time we were in Iceland which was full of cool days (average temp 55 degrees F) and sunshine. Usually Iceland sees pretty shifting and random weather, including clouds and rain but we really did luck out. After visiting the beautiful falls, we checked out the Geysir which erupts roughly every 10 minute for so, it was very cool but a quick stop for us. We explored Thingvellir National Park on our way back to the city which included Silfra (the continental plates), Oxarafoss Waterfall, and some beautiful lakes and landscape.

South Iceland was my absolute favorite. We ventured out on a long journey which started at Seljalandsfoss Waterfall (the one you can walk behind). Although crowded (see my later tips section of this) it was absolutely beautiful. I wasn’t happy with the lighting conditions to shoot the falls at first, we we actually made another trip back to this waterfall in the later evening that was totally worth it from a photography perspective. There are waterfalls everywhere in Iceland, as you drive the southern drive you can’t even believe how many you see. It was hard not to pull over ever five minutes on the drive. We came up on Skogafoss and once again had rare clear and perfect sunny weather to shoot this beauty in. Bring a rain coat because you’ll get spray from these monster waterfalls but it is so worth the beauty. Despite being crowded, these falls were some of my favorite photo opportunities. We continued to explore the southern region by heading further east to Dyrholaey Lighthouse. This required a little off roading but the view was totally worth it. Snowcapped mountains in the background of black sand beach, absolutely marvelous. We headed over and visited black sand beach where you really should heed the warnings about the sneaker waves and the weather turned cloudy. We were told that the weather is almost never good here but we managed to get a perfect sunny day a few days later at this same spot 🙂 We passed through the amazing quaint town of Vik and drove past glacier after glacier until we reached Jokulsarlon (the iceberg lagoon) where monster icebergs float randomly in the bay and beach themselves for your viewing pleasure. On our way back, we stopped back by Seljalandsfoss (again).

There is so much of Iceland to explore, we never got to see it all (see our tips below) but another favorite part of ours was the less crowded North/West part of Iceland where we headed to Snaefellsjokull National Park, Barnafoss, and Hauranfoss waterfalls. We continued to drive towards this giant snow capped volcano with the only goal of exploration. We stopped by some beautiful small towns and ventured into the park to just randomly hike some amazing views. If you want to know the specifics of where we went, let me know, I wrote it down on our map 🙂 The following days in Iceland of our week long adventure was to travel the central part of Iceland and return back to some missed waterfalls in the south part of Iceland. Haifoss was a classic beauty and although hard to reach was completely worth it. We also visited Glymur (bring your hiking gear!) and returned to the “Waterfall in a Cave” that we missed when we were in South Iceland. All in all it was an amazing trip!

We have had several people reach out to us about wanting to know our trip itinerary and some tips so here it goes:

Iceland is EXTREMELY expensive. Get used to 40 dollars for a dinner entree being your new normal. We managed to eat on the cheap, we can share those specific tips with you if you wish but just be aware, basically everything from car rental and accommodations to food is pricey. We saw many people back packing and hitch hiking their way through the country so there are some cheap ways to see Iceland.
Iceland is the new “it” destination for tourism. Unfortunately, here come the tour busses 🙁 Thankfully, we managed to find ways to avoid them:
Visit popular sites (like the golden circle and the waterfalls of south iceland) in the later evening. It doesn’t get dark in Iceland till around 11-11:30PM in the summer time, use that to your advantage. Tour busses typically visit mid day/afternoon. When we returned to Seljalandsfoss in the evening, there was almost no one there.
Visit the places in Iceland where tour busses can’t physically go (because the roads are too rough) like central Iceland, Vatnajokull National Park, Haifoss, etc
Don’t do “touristy” things like whale watching tours etc if you want to avoid tourists, stay away from Reykjavik
Yeah, you’ll want really good hiking boots and a rain jacket. Although we lucked out with weather, the rain jackets and the boots well paid for themselves. You’ll have to hike to get to some of the good views, get used to it.
DO NOT do what we did and book last minute. Iceland fills up fast and because we waited so late, we were unable to explore the Westfjiords and the Northern part of Iceland which I regret. Plan it so you can drive the ring road and stay along the way as you go. Stay in cities like Vik or Hofn and look into guests houses and small hotels as many that we passed looked AMAZING and were usually placed below their own waterfalls or in the most beautiful towns you’ll ever see.
We can give you our detailed plans of what we did each day if you wish!
Iceland follows very European norms- dining out, tipping, hotels are all handled differently in Europe vs the United States. We recognized a lot of similarities between Iceland and our travels through Europe. We can give you some pointers on what to expect if you wish.
Air B and B it- We wish we had, we had a wonderful Air B n B experience in the Faroe Islands, we wish we had researched more before we went!
REALLY REALLY do you’re research, I’m serious. This is a once in a lifetime trip (we hope to go back some day but you Never know) so really plan out things to see and do and know what your plan is. We had one each day and it helped us maximize our time even if we didn’t get to make it to some of the other less traveled areas of Iceland.
I’ll try to add more tips if I think of any- this was a huge check off the bucket list and if you want to know more just send me over an email and I’d love to help you.

Cheers!

The Keys

(A Charlie Key in Iceland!)