Our first stop on our adventure to explore the world was Iceland and it did not disappoint! Iceland is truly a remarkable place with incredible landscapes, changing geographies and insanely volatile weather. I am not sure we will ever experience the sudden changes that we experienced in Iceland. One minute we would be driving in lush, green valleys and the next we would be in an all-out blizzard with not more than a few feet of visibility. Furthermore, when we got to the outskirts of Ring Road, we would drive for hours without seeing another car or human being. It is quite a stunning place!
We landed bright and early in Keflavik on March 30 and we got our first taste of the aurora activity in our plane! A few hours into the night flight we looked out the window and noticed the lights. It was so incredible that neither of us never really slept since we were just staring out the window the whole flight.
Since we knew Iceland was a wild place with tons of opportunities to sleep under the stars, we decided to go the camping route. We also knew that if we could last a full 7 nights camping, maybe the rest of our travel accommodations would be easy by comparison. So, after we landed, we went and picked up our camper van thanks to Happy Campers Iceland (https://happycampers.is/).
Kirby in front of our camper before the aurora kicked off...
After we stocked up our van at a grocery store, we headed straight to the northwest to see Kirkjufellfoss, not only because it was a beautiful starting point, but also because we received a tip that (due to the weather) this was our best chance to chase the northern lights during our entire week in the countru. Not only did we make it to the falls for an amazing sunset, but we also found ourselves smack in the middle of the most insane aurora activity as soon as the sun went down. It was freezing but we could have been out in the elements all night watching and no words or pictures could ever do justice to standing there and seeing them. As we camped that night, we had the constant glow of dancing lights above our heads. It truly was amazing and an incredible way to start our Icelandic adventure and our trip!
Over the next few days we circumvented Ring Road by driving counter-clockwise. We covered the Golden Circle on Day 2, explored the Solheimasandur plane wreck, discovered Glacier Beach in the north, drove through the Myvatn lava fields, did our natural hot spring bath and then spent our final 2 nights in Reyjkavic exploring the largest city in Iceland. It would be impossible to cover everything we did in a single blog post, the hidden gems along ring road are truly endless!
Riding dirty...
We have gotten some feedback that a few people would like us to post our full itinerary with specifics on what to see and how. If you are one of those people definitely contact us. We plan to add a page to the navigation bar called, “guides” and we will post our full itineraries with all the details on sights to see, places to stay and eat (including the best coffee spots), navigational guides, etc. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the pictures and our little promo-video on Instagram thanks to the drone. It was quite hard to widdle down the pics, Iceland is quite a photo-rich environment…
We have been on the move big time these past few days. After Iceland we were in Bergen, Norway for two days, drove to the fjords and Oslo (in the same day), stayed in Oslo for one night, drove to Sweden and no are currently in Copenhagen catching up on e-mails and enjoying this amazing city for the next few days. We will get pics from our most recent adventures up in the coming days.
Speak soon!