Saw Some Stuff

On September 7-16, 2018, some friends and I traveled to Iceland, with a group of six of us for nine days total. We rented an RV and road tripped around the whole country on the Ring Road in 6 days. We then spent about a day and a half wandering Iceland’s capitol, Rekjavik, and another day exploring the Golden Circle. Traveling to Iceland has been one of my absolute favorite trips! I’m still shocked how much we did in the nine days we were there. We fit in A LOT, and were constantly on the go. It is definitely an adventure i’ll never forget.

This was the route we took to drive around the Ring Road around Iceland. We used the site Furkot to plan our road trip. It was great for planning the timing & stops for each day of the trip.

I had to do a lot of preparation for this trip because there was a lot of hiking and waterproof gear I needed that I didn’t previously own. I bought some Danner hiking boots, a light weight waterproof rain jacket from Mountain Hardwear (which I love and wear all the time now when it rains), a waterproof winter jacket shell, a warm down jacket, waterproof gloves with a smartphone touch feature, a warm hat, warm hiking socks, warm thermal undershirt and pants, waterproof pants, hiking backpack, waterproof backpack cover, and waterproof camera cover. This was because we knew that there was a good chance we would get rained on a lot during this time of the year. Also, even if it’s not raining, you get sprayed pretty good by the waterfall mist and could definitely get drenched if you get close. And trust me, all this waterproof gear was SO worth it, especially to protect my cameras. There were many times we got soaked from a waterfall and this gear kept me perfectly dry.

Iceland is such an amazing and beautiful country. I hope to go there again one day during another season, because each season would be very different and equally as amazing. We went during fall season so that it wasn’t too cold, but we would still be able to see the Northern Lights. They say the best time to see the Northern Lights is September through February. We were able to see auroras two out of the nine days we were in Iceland. It all depends on the weather and cloud coverage – the skies need to be perfectly clear to see the Northern Lights. Going in the summer would be cool because the sun never sets, so it’s constant daylight throughout the night. Winter would also be cool, because Iceland covered in snow would look totally different and you could explore ice caves. Like I said, each season would be different and all amazing!

The weather in September was about in the 50’s most of the time. The beginning of the trip, in the Southern part of Iceland, was 50-60 degrees and sunny. So, the beginning of the trip felt fairly warmer and we just wore one layer hiking. By the time we got to the Northern part of the country, where we saw glaciers and lots of ice, the weather was more in the 30-40’s and definitely had to bundle up and wear lots of layers on hikes. Most days were cloudy and gloomy, with some sporadic light drizzling rain.

Driving in Iceland is a little different. Luckily, you drive on the right side of the road, so that was good, but some of the roads are a one way road…. so if someone is driving towards you, one of you has to pull over to let the other pass. This wasn’t the whole time, but only some of the roads. There was also barely anyone on the roads most of the time. Driving in an RV and camping in Iceland was a lot of fun, but being in a vehicle like an RV (a.k.a the “shitter on wheels” as we called it) limited us to where we could drive. The ideal car to drive in would be an off-road 4-wheel drive vehicle, like a Jeep. However, for cost reasons, because we had a group of six people camping, and the fact that we wanted a toilet and shower along with us, were the reasons we stuck to the RV.

The roads driving around the main Ring Road route were pretty smooth, until we got to some of our stops that we had to drive off-road for a little bit on unpaved dirt roads. We were honestly shocked that our RV made it through at some points and had to drive so slow to avoid holes and bumps. Sitting in an RV while driving on the unpaved off-road paths in Iceland was like an earthquake on wheels. We were avoiding flying luggage, drawers flying open, everyone was holding down luggage and food, strips of panels on the sides of the cabinets whipping off, light fixtures falling (lol). It was quite an experience. There were maybe one or two spots that we were trying to go to where we just looked at the road and said “NOPE, not happening”, because there was no way our RV would make it up or through. The other bad thing about an RV in Iceland, is they only had manual driving RVs. Only two people in our group knew how to drive a stick-shift, so unfortunately they were stuck driving the whole time… Oh, and the other bad thing about an RV is we had to empty the toilet (which literally looked like a tiny suitcase) daily as we expected, but I mean, still super shitty. Pun intended.

And now our trip….

Day 1 (September 8, 2018):

My friends and I met at the airport on September 7th at 10pm. Our flight was at midnight and we flew through the night on September 8th (brutal). We all tried our best to sleep on the plane, because when we woke up it would be about 11am there. The flight was a 6 hour, direct flight on WOW Airline.

We finally arrived in Iceland at the international airport at Keflavik in the morning. We hit up the duty-free store to stock up on alcohol, bought some 10GB sim cards (for $28) , so we could have cell service and directions while we drive, and chugged coffee. We then picked up our RV rental and were on our way!

First stop was buying some groceries at Bónus Supermarket, which was a cheaper grocery store with a weird looking logo. It was very rainy and gloomy that day. Not the greatest weather to arrive to, but that was pretty normal for September weather in Iceland.

Food in Iceland is very expensive! Especially eating out, which is why we bought as many groceries as we could fit on our RV for a lot of meals. Although, food there is AMAZING. All the seafood is so fresh and delicious. So it was definitely worth the splurge to eat out, as well.

Another great thing about Iceland was everywhere we went took credit card. We never had to exchange currency from US dollars to Icelandic krónas. Almost anywhere we went had card readers, even the very remote places. I’m assuming this is because of the extremely high rates of tourists that Iceland now gets each year. It was very convenient. 1,000 ISK, or króna, is equal to about $0.84 cents in US dollars. It was always a slight heart attack at first when we would get our bill after a meal and see 5,000 on the check (which is really only $41.81). That exchange rate took a bit to get used to.

Our first official stop was the Blue Lagoon! National Geographic listed the Blue Lagoon in Iceland as one of the most impressive wonders of the world, and it definitely is! There are actually many other geo-thermal pools in Iceland, but the Blue Lagoon is their most well-known geo-thermal pool (and a bit of a tourist trap, as some would say). The Blue Lagoon has been turned into a spa experience and it was a little pricey, but hey, it was amazing and totally worth it to me!

Quick history about how the Blue Lagoon is heated…
In the mid 1970s, the Svartsengi geothermal plant was built about 20 minutes from the international airport at Keflavik and 40 minutes from the capital city of Reykjavik. The process of generating heat from this plant is fairly simple. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal hot water heating system. What happens next to the water though has become a multimillion industry in its own right.

After the water is used to provide heat for the water system, it is fed into what we know today as the Blue Lagoon. The water from the Blue Lagoon is a direct result of the geothermal plant found right next door.

We spent the rest of our night at the Blue Lagoon relaxing. It was perfect after our sleep-less travel to Iceland and a great way to start the trip. The water is so warm and is basically a giant hot tub. It felt amazing! They had stations set up in the water where you could get some mud masks to slap on your face and swim up bars to buy some drinks.

Not going to lie, the Blue Lagoon area smells terrible, kind of like rotten eggs, because of the sulfur water. I feel like this is something people tend to leave out when talking about the Blue Lagoon, because no where did we read about the smell when looking up info about the lagoon. Also, we were told to not put our hair in the water because the water is very rich in minerals like silica and sulfur and would dry out hair. Bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. When I got out of the water my nail polish was completely off (bye-bye manicure). Overall, Blue Lagoon was a very cool experience. If I ever go back to Iceland, I would like to try some of the other, not so well-known or crowded, geo-thermal pools & lagoons.

After out Blue Lagoon experience, we drove to dinner to a seafood place that was amazing. I had fish and chips with cod and it was delicious. From there we drove to Grindavik campsite and camped there for the night. Sleeping in a pretty small six-person RV with 6 people was an…interesting experience. Good thing we are all very close. I’m just happy I didn’t have to sleep on the table that turns into a bed, which was reported as awful as it sounds. Oh, and for the first couple days our air vents were apparently circulating from the bathroom within the vehicle instead of circulating from outside, so real lovely. Amazingly, we only had to pay $45 worth of damage to the RV at the end of the trip due to a light in the front of the car falling off. Our RV really took a beating from driving around Iceland.  Honestly, don’t know how we got away with just paying for that.

Day 2 (September 9, 2018):
Next morning, we left our campsite and drove to Seljalandsfoss. When we arrived to our first waterfall spot, we were able to park pretty close and had a short walk to the waterfall. This waterfall was massive and you could hike around on a path that led behind the waterfall.

My favorite part of this stop, however, was about another 100 feet past this waterfall. If you keep walking the path, there is a little hidden waterfall through a crack in the canyon wall called Gljúfrafoss. It’s a little hard to find because as you’re walking up to it, it’s pretty hidden behind the canyons. Once you reach the spot, there was a small opening in the canyon wall and a little steam that you walk through. Then, once you’re through, a waterfall is pouring down into this little area you could basically stand under and get real close to the waterfall. It was beautiful. The whole thing was about a 1 mile round trip to this spot and back to the vehicle.

Next stop, we drove to Skógafoss. The walk to Skógafoss was less than a mile round trip. This was a large waterfall. There was so much mist coming from the waterfall we all got soaked. Thank god for that waterproof gear. While we were there the sun peaked out, and there was a rainbow on the ground in front of the misty waterfall. The rainbow was so close to the ground, it seemed like you could touch it (or taste the rainbow?). It was magical. And now I have officially stood under a rainbow. Goals.

Next, we drove to Dyrhólaey, which was surrounded by Kirkjufjara Beach, a black sand beach. Here we hiked to a light house with an outlook to a beautiful arched rock formation.  This was one spot where our RV wouldn’t be able to make it up the steep road, so we hiked instead about 2 miles round trip up to the light house. This is one of the situations where it would have been nice to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Although, we enjoyed the hike.

We then drove to Reynisfjara Beach. This was pretty cool. We explored Reynisfjara Beach, Reynisdranger, and the Hálsanefshellir Cave, which were all in the same area (about 0.8 mile round trip). The sun was out and it was pretty warm this day. The beach had some cool caves and rock formations with waves crashing up around them. We had fun climbing the rocks and walking around this area.

After we left Reynisfjara, we drove to Vik and got a quick dinner there. We ate at a restaurant called Halldorskaffi. I think I ordered some kind of fish again. All the food in Iceland is amazing.

From Vik, we then drove to Fjarðarárgljúfur. This was probably another one of my favorite parts of the trip. We were arriving there just before sunset, so we weren’t going to have too much time there. It was also beautiful to see that area at that time of day. It was pretty gloomy, so the sunset looked really cool and eerie.

Fjarðarárgljúfur (which I guess this is how you pronounce) is a massive canyon with lots of green surrounding it and a stream in the middle. Apparently, Justin Bieber shot a music video here. Because of that, it has gotten more popular and is shut down from time to time due to too many tourists visiting and other environmental harm. So, we had to check to make sure it wasn’t closed down before arriving.

After leaving Fjarðarárgljúfur, we drove to Tjaldstæðið Kirkjubaer to camp for the night. Here’s a shot of us hanging out in our tiny RV at our campsite. We fit in a lot this day and were exhausted.

Day 3 (September 10, 2018):
Next day we drove to Svartifoss waterfall. We arrived there pretty early and had probably our longest hike of the trip there (which was only 2 miles round trip). Like I said earlier, none of the hikes we did were very long at all. This one however, was pretty exhausting because half of the hike to get there was up hill and pretty steep, but manageable. When we arrived to the destination, the middle of the canyon was covered in large rocks that you could climb on and a waterfall in the middle.

The walk back down was much easier. When we got back to our RV we were starving and made a huge breakfast that we ate outside at our mini RV table in the middle of some beautiful scenery. This was probably the most elaborate breakfast we made. The rest of our breakfasts were quickly eaten while we drove to our locations to stay on track.

Next stop we drove to Svínafellsjökull Glacier. The road to get to this area was very questionable and i’m shocked we made it there. Our RV was moving 5 mph or less the entire length of this road and there were massive holes and bumps, so took us a little longer to arrive than we thought– but worth it! (Fun fact: Svínafellsjökull Glacier was selected as a location for Game of Thrones season seven to represent “north of the wall”). It didn’t look quite like Game of Thrones, because there was more dirt there than snow at this time of year, but still really cool! We walked the trail that was along the side of the cliff near some glaciers. The trail got pretty narrow and steep at some points, but the glaciers were awesome.

After Svínafellsjökull Glacier, we made a quick stop at Fjallsarlon, a glacier lake at the south end of the Icelandic glacier Vatnajökull. Fjallsjökull which is part of the bigger glacier reaches down to the water of the lake and some ice-bergs are drifting by on its surface. There wasn’t much of a hike here. We took some quick pictures and took off.

Next stop, we drove to Diamond Beach. Diamond Beach is a strip of black sand belonging to the greater Breiðamerkursandur glacial plain, located by Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon on the South Coast of Iceland. As we walked up to the beach there were chunks of glacier rocks (which looked like diamonds) covering the black beach. The waves were crashing around these glaciers.

From there, we then headed towards a city called Höfn (which is pronounced WAY different than it looks– we found out later after meeting some locals). This is how you pronounce it if you’re curious. We made a couple stops on the way. Every where you drive in Iceland, the scenery is beautiful. As we were driving, we saw an area with Icelandic horses along the road. We heard that the wild horses in Iceland were very friendly and approachable. We stopped to get a little closer to them and were able to pet one.

Another stop we made were these little in ground hot tubs in a very random, remote area off on the side of the road, called Hoffell Hot tubs. This was another highlight of the trip. It was $15 to use the hot tubs. We were able to use our credit cards to pay. They have changing rooms there and they give you a clean towel to use, as well. My friends and I had a hot tub to ourselves. There were about 4 or 5 hot tubs total and there were a few other groups there. We chilled there for about an hour and brought some drinks.

After leaving the hot tubs, we drove to Höfn, an Icelandic fishing town in the southeastern part of the country. It is a small city, but still one of the larger cities in Iceland. Reykjavik is the largest. We arrived there at night and went to a restaurant called Pakkhùs. It was amazing and probably my favorite meal in Iceland. Since it’s a fishing town, the seafood there is so fresh and amazing. Ian and I split a salad, plaice fish (which was sooo buttery and delicious), langoustines, smoked duck, wild goose, and some kind of cheese pie. The Mule drinks were amazing, as well.

After Pakkhus, we had a little more time to kill, so we stopped at a bar right next door, called Hafið. There weren’t many restaurants or bars in Höfn, since the town was so small. We were the only people at this bar, except one other local that was a fisherman, around our age. It sounded like most people in that area become fishermen. We had a drink and then headed to our campsite in Höfn.

Day 4 (September 11, 2018):

This morning, we had a bit of a longer drive than most days, but this drive had some extraordinary scenery along the way. We were driving along steep, winding roads, near edges of cliffs, along crazy canyon walls and waterfalls. It was absolutely amazing! We made several stops to admire the scenery. It was very foggy that morning too and we ended up having to skip one of our stops, Mount Bjólfur, because we didn’t think we’d be able to see anything through the fog up where we had to go.

Oh, and there are also tons of sheep along the side of the road all over Iceland as we were driving. They would always hangout along the sides of the road and just calmly graze away. 

We drove straight to Seydisfjordur, a cute little hidden gem art city in Iceland with some random art & murals around the streets. There is a really cool painted rainbow on the road that leads towards a little chapel. In Seydisfjordur we got some food and had a beer. I got Einstök beer, which is a really good Icelandic white ale.

Next stop, we drove to Dettifoss, a waterfall in Vatnajökull National Park in Northeast Iceland, and is reputed to be the most powerful waterfall in Europe. Dettifoss is situated on the Jökulsá á Fjöllum river, which flows from the Vatnajökull glacier and collects water from a large area in Northeast Iceland. This waterfall was massive and so misty and incredible. Apparently, there was an alien movie filmed here, called Prometheus, where a super jacked alien guy drinks something and falls into the waterfall into nothingness, but I’ve never seen the movie because i’m not a nerd (lol just kidding). In the picture below, i’m standing where the alien dude was.

Next, we drove to Ásbyrgi campground, and camped there for the night. We had some lovely gas station hot dogs, with ~questionable meat~ wrapped in bread loaves for dinner. I guess not all of our meals in Iceland could be as amazing as Pakkhùs. This night we had a drink or five… and played some games in our RV. Also, Ian brought some L.E.D. sticks that we messed around with outside at night to try and take some long exposure shots. Then we got shushed by other campers and had to go to bed. Campsites in Iceland are extremely quiet and no one stays up very late. Not a big party place. We were kind of forced to go to bed early most nights, but with how exhausting our days were, we were mostly fine with that.

Day 5 (September 12, 2018):

Next morning, we drove to Jökulsàrglùfur National Park to explore Ásbyrgi Canyon. We woke up to a sunny, fairly warmer day. Ásbyrgi Canyon is a glacial canyon in the north of Iceland, located approximately 38 kilometres east of Húsavík on the Diamond Circle road. The horseshoe-shaped depression is part of the Vatnajökull National Park and measures approximately 3.5 km in length and over 1 km wide. This was a nice little hike with a lot of rock stair-like formations that we had to climb over. 

Our next stop was Hverir, a geothermal spot noted for its bubbling pools of mud & steaming fumaroles emitting sulfuric gas. Not going to lie, this area smelled awful because of the sulfuric gas steaming out of the ground and geothermal pools bubbling from the ground. It wreaked like rotting eggs and on top of that, we were getting swarmed with little gnats – but once you get past that, this area was real cool. 

A short drive from there was the Grjótagjá lava cave. This is where Jon Snow and Ygritte made sweet, sweet love in Game of Thrones. This was cool! It was real warm and “moist” (sorry that’s a terrible word) down there and the water down in the cave was really warm. We weren’t allowed to go in the water, otherwise I would have. Above the cave, there were some deep slot canyons along the ground.

(Jon Snow & Ygritte in the cave in Game of Thrones)

From there, we drove to Hverfjall, a tuff ring volcano in northern Iceland, to the east of Mývatn. This volcano erupted in 2500 BP in the southern part of the Krafla fissure swarm. The crater is approximately 1 km in diameter. It was a pretty steep hike to the top, but incredible once you are up there. Again, this area had lots of swarming gnats. I’m pretty sure my friend, Jeanine, accidentally swallowed and choked on two gnats – fun! 

Next, we were off to Goðafoss, a waterfall in Iceland. It is located in the Bárðardalur district of Northeastern Region at the beginning of the Sprengisandur highland road. The water of the river Skjálfandafljót falls from a height of 12 metres over a width of 30 metres. This was a really cool waterfall and the water was so blue.

From there, we drove to Akureyri, which was a pretty cool city at the base of Eyjafjörður Fjord in northern Iceland. We got food at a sushi place called Sushi Corner. This was a fun little place where you pick out your sushi on moving conveyer belts that go alongside the tables. We went to a couple different bars in this city and got some ice cream. We decided to stay at a campsite real close by, instead of driving to our next location, so that we could stay a little longer in Akureyri that night. We didn’t like driving at night because the scenery was too pretty.

Day 6 (September 13, 2018):

The next day we drove to Stykkishólmur, another town in Iceland and municipality situated in the western part of Iceland, in the northern part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. It is a center of services and commerce for the area. Most of the people make their living from fishing and tourism. We went to a really cute coffee shop, called Café Nú. The people there were very friendly. We ordered some delicious baked berry crumb bowl and had an espresso tonic (espresso, tonic water, and lime), that the lady recommended. It was really good!

Then, right across the street, we went to a restaurant, called Narfeyrarstofa, for lunch. I had a seafood soup and it was amazing. All the food in Iceland is sooo good, fresh and high quality, but expensive.

After Stykkishólmur, we drove to Kirkjufell, a 463 m high mountain on the north coast of Iceland’s Snæfellsnes peninsula, near the town of Grundarfjörður. It is claimed to be the most photographed mountain in the country. This was also another location that could be seen in Game of Thrones.

Next, we drove to Arnarstapi, a small fishing village at the foot of Mt. Stapafell between Hellnar village and Breiðavík farms on the southern side of Snæfellsnes, Iceland. We had a longer drive between these two spots and had kind of a scary drive. It was extremely windy this day and being in a high vehicle, like an RV, the wind kept pushing and fighting against our RV. It felt like we were going to tip over. Ian was driving and had everyone else sit on one side of the vehicle to weigh it down so we wouldn’t tip. We survived, but a little scary!

At Arnarstapi there were a lot of cool rock formations and it was right along the water. It was very windy by the edge of the water.

We made one more quick stop at Búðir, a small hamlet in Búðahraun lava fields in Staðarsveit, which is in the western region of Iceland, on the westernmost tip of the Snaefellsnes peninsula where Hraunhafnará falls to the sea. We stopped at this tiny abandoned black church that sits alone among a field of lava rock.

The first Búðakirkja was built on the spot in 1703, but was eventually deconstructed due to the area lack of parishioners. The current church was reconstructed in 1987 after a single member of the church lobbied to have the chapel brought back. It has a historic graveyard as well as relics such as a bell and chalice from the time the church was first erected. However its pure black paint job and isolated location are the real attraction to the site.

After this stop, we were on our way to Reykjavik to check into our Airbnb and go out in Reykjavik. We were excited to finally be able to take a normal shower and sleep in beds, but also to get a little wild in a “big” city. Reykjavik is on the coast of Iceland and is the country’s capital and largest city. It was definitely the biggest city there (and a really cool city), but still fairly small. We were able to walk and see the entire city in less than a day.

After finding a spot to park our RV and getting settled in our Airbnb, we drank and chilled for a while, and then went out to some bars in Reykjavik. Buying drinks in Iceland was pretty expensive, as we expected. We went to a bar called Prikid and there were some live singers and rappers performing. They were all performing in Icelandic. It was very interesting to hear Icelandic rapping. They were all really good.

We met a couple Icelandic locals that were around our age and really cool. We hung out with them for the rest of the night. Oh! and when we left the bar and were outside we finally saw our first site of the Northern Lights because of the clear skies. It was a good night!

Day 7 (September 14, 2018):

On day 7 of our trip, we had a full day to explore around Reykjavik during the daytime. We woke up and checked out of our Airbnb and were back to our smelly RV. We got a really good Breakfast and mimosas at a restaurant called, Cafe Paris. Then, we walked around, explored, and shopped for a while.

Around 6pm two of our friends, Jeanine and Ellen, had to head to the airport to fly back home. Unfortunately, they were only able to stay in Iceland with us for that long. The rest of us were staying a couple more days.

Once they left, the rest of us went and got dinner at a restaurant called Tapas Barinn. We had made reservations before our trip to make sure we got in. We wanted to eat at a place where we could try some weird foods and meats that would be Icelandic specific or rare in the US. We ended up eating baby horse, kangaroo, minke whale (that was the best), puffin (aw, I know), and duck liver. This was by far our most expensive meal in Iceland and the worst part was that it was small plates that we shared between 4 people, so we were still hungry after! When we left, we went and got hot dogs at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, a famous hot dog stand in Rejkjavik. They are known for really good hotdogs and they were! They had this honey mustard-type sauce on them called Pylsusinnep. It was delish.

After our meal, we got back into our RV and headed back out of the city to Þingvellir National Park, a historic site and national park in Iceland, east of Reykjavík. The park sits in a rift valley caused by the separation of 2 tectonic plates, with rocky cliffs and fissures like the huge Almannagjá fault. We camped in this area for the night.

This night was great because we finally saw the amazing show of auroras that we were hoping for! The skies were perfectly clear and crisp. The stars were great this night, as well. This was my first official full experience of the Northern Lights and it was breathtaking. It’s definitely harder to capture auroras on camera than I thought. Pictures don’t do it justice.

Day 8 (September 15, 2018):

We woke up and headed to our next stop, Öxarárfoss, a waterfall in Þingvellir National Park. It flows from the river Öxará over the Almannagjá. The pool at the base of the waterfall is filled with rocks. To get to the waterfall, theres a hike through the canyon walls. This is also known as the “Bloody Gate” path where Arya and the Hound walk through in Game of Thrones.

From here we headed to the Golden Circle route, a 300 kilometre (186 mile) route to the three most popular natural attractions in Iceland: the Geysir Geothermal Area, Gullfoss Waterfall and Þingvellir National Parkwe drove to Geysir and Strokkur. One thing I have to say about the Golden Circle route is that this area was definitely the most crowded and “touristy” area of Iceland that we visited. Still really cool to see, but I am so glad that wasn’t the only thing we saw in Iceland, as I’m sure a lot of people just do that.

First stop was Strokkur. This area contained a highly active Geysir Hot Spring with boiling mud pits, exploding geysers and the lively Strokkur which spouts water 30 metres (100 ft) into the air every few minutes. This was really cool. The active geysir shot out water inconsistently between 5-20 min, so we just had to have our cameras ready to snap. There was a huge crowd around the Geysir waiting to explode.

Next stop of the Golden Circle, we went to Gullfoss, a waterfall located in the canyon of the Hvítá river in southwest Iceland. This waterfall was massive and beautiful. Although, again, very crowded and filled with tourists.

We had plans to stop at Kerið Crater Lake in the Golden Circle next, but honestly, when we got there it was so over-crowded there was no where to park – so we just skipped it. We stopped for lunch at Friðheimar, a tomato green house. This was probably the coolest restaurant experience i’ve ever had. We made reservations way in advance because we heard it gets booked up quickly. We had all you can eat tomato soup there and really good bread to dip in the soup. We also ordered some shrimp and veggie skewers that you could put into the soup and Bloody Mary’s. It was delicious. The waiter was telling us that they import bees from another country and they just fly around the greenhouse to pollinate the tomatoes. The tables sat directly next to the tomatoes.

After this, it was time to return our RV. We went back to the RV rental and then got bused back to Reykjavik. This took a while, but when we got there we were ready to have some fun. We checked into our hotel, called A Room with a View, right in the center of the city and it was huge and awesome. I wish we got to stay there longer. We went out to Lebowski bar that night, which was right under our hotel. This bar was based off of the movie The Big Lebowski.

Day 9 (September 16, 2018):

We had one last day to explore Reykjavik. We hit up some spots we hadn’t gone to yet, like the Harpa concert hall, the Phallological Museum (yes, a penis museum…), got some fish and chips, and last minute shopping.

We grabbed our luggage and then were off to the airport to head back to Detroit. We were very sad to leave Iceland and had such an amazing time that we’ll never forget. I hope to be back there some day.