going to Iceland with mrs Laava for a week, end of April. Anyone got any advice, dos/don'ts etc? Very looking forward to.
Superjeep tours are very good. Not usually my sort of thing but they were spectacular. Gulfoss is worth a look at this time of year. Showers in the hotels smell of eggs. Puffin is actually quite tasty, but many of the seafood restaurants in Reykjavik are delicious (and spendy). Overall vibe there is lovely and friendly. I hope you get clear skies! Have a great time.
I hope you get to see the Northern lights. Here's an informative site:https://guidetoiceland.is/the-northern-lights/how-to-find-the-northern-lights-in-iceland
Cool, thanks for that, happy to try the puffin, maybe not so much the fermented shark but you never inow! Thanks John, will def research that!
Some pics from February 2011 when I was last there... The trucks are the Superjeeps. Great bits of kit!
Did it with a mate in April/May 2017. 4 days on hired GS’s and 2 days in a Hyundai SUV. Feel free to pm me and I can chat over phone with lessons learned. DO take the weather very very seriously and download the free government app re rescue and weather updates. Can’t stress the weather watch enough.
Don't get caught speeding like I did. Cops are scary and carry portable credit card machines to fine on the spot. Long distance forward facing speed cams catch loads of tourists.
The weather for us at the end of April was the worst I have ever experienced. Winds above 36 meters per second (it's how they measure wind speed). A lot of the camp sites are shut as are the majority of 'f' (unpaved) roads. The weather changes every 20 meters. (I'm not exaggerating). One of many scary scenarios on the bikes was riding along the very long single lane bridge where that car went off a few months ago. In zero visibility and freezing fog we rode over it praying a coach wasn't coming the other way!! There road rule is; who gets to bridge first has right of way. Great if you can see the other end of the bridge. Petrol stations out side towns are also very far between. We know from bitter experience about that one. Would I go again? YES. But in the summer.
Everything is flippin expensive over there. When you talk to the very friendly and helpful locals they all say you should go to Norway for an expensive adventure. I've started saving!! We got quoted £300 for an hour on a snowmobile, if you didn't want a pillion.
Buy your booze on the way through the airport....its a dry country and you can only buy alcohol at restaurants. We got charged £35 for a bottle of Gallo whilst eating whale and puffin. Awesome trip though. The Blue Lagoon is well worth a visit to have a massage.
Its expensive, incase you were wondering. We stayed for a couple of nights last year at the Northern Lights Hotel (next to the Blue Lagoon) and took a coach tour of whats called the Golden circle. It takes in the main sights and stopped off at laugarvatn fontana which is a spa similar to the blue logoon but on a smaller scale and you can sample bread baked in the ground due to the thermal properties. Our kids were 15 and 11 and thoroughly enjoyed the tour so it must have been good. Its expensive. Friends have a contact who has a B&B outside of Rekjavik if you're still looking for accommodation. Golden circle - https://guidetoiceland.is/best-of-iceland/top-9-detours-on-the-golden-circle laugarvatn fontana https://www.fontana.is Hope you enjoy it. We went over the Christmas/New year holiday period and had about 5 hours daylight / day.
If you like horses, spend a few days on an Icelandic tour, I have been various times to different parts of Iceland and you get to see so many parts which otherwise would be inaccessible, the Icelandic horses are a pleasure to ride too, very strong, very brave, and to make it more understandable for the petrolheads, they have five gears instead of the usual three lol
If you want to do the Blue Lagoon book well ahead, booking is required. The Golden Circle tour route is usually crowded with tourists and I’d skip most of the stops if your hiring a car. Venture out beyond the tourist route and you’ll discover some brilliant and stunning sights that don’t have tourists climbing all over them. We visited the well known crashed DC10 and got there early (6am) to take photos without teams of people clambering all over it. We hired a full on modified Artic Truck (same co as Top Gear used) so we could venture down the F roads, which are limited to proper 4WDs and mostly closed until June to October. We drove the full ring road around Iceland and it was amazing. Stopping at so many different amazing waterfalls, springs, geezers, sulphur spouts and villages. Northern Iceland is mostly tourist free and the locals are brilliant. Don’t be tempted to go off road, it’s illegal, the fines are huge and they take it very seriously, as they do speeding. There’s not many speed signs warning you of the limits, they expect you to know what it is on country, town and village roads. A grown up approach IMO. As others have mentioned, buy your booze at the airport when you arrive, you’ll find the locals in them returning from abroad and stocking up. Other tips: buy a SIM card at the airport. If you’re hiring a car, pick it up at the air port, it’s worth taking all the insurance extras as the roads are unsealed in places.
