July 31st – August 3rd, 2016
My family flew from Washington D.C. to Reykjavik, Iceland via Icelandair. We landed in the middle of the night and there was still light out! The sun had technically set but it in the summer it doesn’t go very far past the horizon. The nights are super short during the summer. I felt quite at home in Iceland because it reminded me a lot of B.C., but with even more expensive food. My family stayed in a quaint Airbnb right behind the main church in Reykjavik.
Our first day we hopped in our rental car and went to tour the Golden Circle. We passed many campers and bikers, but I think it’d be quite difficult to see Iceland without using a car. Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park, which is where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates converge. You could actually see canyons of where the two plates met!
We then went to the Geysir Geothermal Area where there were many small geysirs and one massive one that would spray every few minutes. It was quite spectacular.
Our last stop on our Golden Circle tour was the Gullfoss waterfall. It was massive and gave us a view of a rainbow in the mist.
For our last evening in Reykjavik my mother was intent on finding a statue she saw online of a metal viking ship. We walked all over the place and couldn’t find it but she was determined. When we finally stumbled upon it, we discovered IT WAS SMALL. We didn’t let her hear the end of it.
Our second day in Iceland we drove out towards Vik and stopped by two waterfalls: Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss. We also stopped by a black sand beach, Reynisfjara. Everything we saw was beautiful but I couldn’t get over the crowds and crowds of tourists. Everything we visited was easily accessible by car with minimal walking involved so it was very attractive to a wide range of tourists. If I were to visit Iceland again I’d want to find more remote areas with more hiking. Despite all of Iceland’s beauty, I think I prefer B.C. The mountain views are way better and it’s easy to avoid crowds.
On our final day in Iceland, we woke up early for a guided tour on the Sólheimajökull glacier. We got to wear crampons and had ice picks!! It was fun walking across the ice but because of the season the glacier was kinda dirty.
We then went over to do a boat tour at Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon. The tour was pretty uneventful but the kicker was we got to wear these amazing red puffy onesies to stay warm on the boat. Michael and I were loving it.
