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Half the pictures I took weren't of any extreme must see landmark but just pulling off at the side of the road and taking pictures of some small waterfall or amazing scenery if that helps. I don't think you will lose either way though.
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Apr 8, 2016 17:30
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lightpole posted:It's still there but they have all sorts of construction on the blocks next to it. There were huge lines at all times except early in the morning. Icelanders love their hotdogs! Any details on the location of this bakery? My friends are insisting on visiting Eirikstaddir the Living History museum south of Bardardarlur. Is there anything worth seeing between there and Reykjavík? It's a 2 hour drive so I hope to see more than a sod hut and a guy in a tunic. E: Also any Solstice stuff (other than the huge music festival) that might be worth doing?
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Apr 8, 2016 20:52
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http://www.vegagerdin.is/vegakerfid/fjallvegir/ This has the current conditions of the roads and which ones are open and which not, although I notice the nice PDF version was last updated in late September 2015. http://www.vegagerdin.is/ferdaupplysingar/faerd-og-vedur/faerd-um-allt-land/island1.html is supposedly current as of right now / constantly updating, red (ófært) means "unable" and lokað means "closed". I'm not sure what the difference is. I guess we'll rent a big 4x4 an hope that the F26 opens a little early this year, otherwise I guess we'll take the F35 in which case the big 4x4 will be totally overkill. E: Also neither of us have any significant experience driving through rivers. I guess in late June it should be relatively easy before the bulk of the "spring melt", but uh... anyone have anything to add here? I have a fair amount of offroads driving experience otherwise (yeah I know you can't drive offroads, but the F-roads look like offroads). Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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Apr 8, 2016 22:28
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Wow, the big multinational car rental chains are an absolute ripoff like I've never seen before. Avis wants €2200 for a Jimny for 9 days. The icelandic companies like Reykjavik Cars and Ice Rental 4x4 ask €1200 for the same thing, which is a drat lot more reasonable. Avis, Europcar, Hertz, Sixt, and Thrifty are all the same, like > €2000 for a 9 day rental of a terrible pseudo-SUV like the Jimny.
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Apr 8, 2016 23:46
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Indolent Bastard posted:Any details on the location of this bakery? Stop in Borgarnes and have lunch at the Settlement Center. It's a little museum for Icelandic history but the restaurant is exceptional for the price. You can also detour out to Reykholt and see the Fljotstunga Travel Farm, they do tours of nearby lava caves that were pretty interesting to see and explore. Along the same route to Reykholt you can also stop at Barnafoss which is a smallish park off the beaten path, but I thought it was really neat. Its mainly just a river flowing through the lava field, but the water has worked its way through so its pouring down the sides of the rock face on both sides. Makes for a nice 30-45 minute walk.
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Apr 9, 2016 03:00
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64.143537,-21.868167 It's on Frakkastigur, between the church and Laugavegur just up from the red store. There's no signs.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:18
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Alright, rented a Dacia Duster, hopefully should be big enough for all the roads we want to do. €1100 for 9 days + all insurance packages +1 extra driver. I didn't want to spend the huge amount extra on a land rover since we can't even be sure that all of the interior roads are even going to be open when we're going. How have people's experiences been with getting hotels around the country? Like can you just roll up somewhere around 8pm and expect to find a room, or is that a good recipe for sleeping in your car? We're just two of us, so we can "camp" in the Dacia for a night here and there if we can't find anything, but I'm wondering how likely it is for this to happen at the end of June.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:17
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You're going during peak tourism season and the southern coast is extremely popular. To compound this there's generally only one or two hotels per "town" and a couple tour buses could quickly put them at capacity. Personally I wouldn't risk it, hop on tripadvisor and find one that looks good and get it reserved. Additionally if you plan on relying on hotel breakfast to load up (which were quite good in my experience) get there early. Once the Chinese tour groups wake up its chaos. Whip Slagcheek fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 21:25
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How far in advance do you have to book? I would not mind booking the night before, but further than that is way too much commitment when we don't know what we'll like and where we want to spend more or less time. And that mostly applies just to the Golden Circle? I like trying new foods, but I was aiming to avoid Icelandic cuisine at all costs, everything there just looks so massively unappealing. (Though I guess breakfasts are probably the normal bread + jam + coffee + toast.) Thanks for the tip about breakfast, although I'm fine eating cereal bars for a week too. I was planning to stock up in Reykjavik on the first day with a week's worth of food for ~100% of our caloric needs. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 23:22
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The south, including Reykjavik and the Golden Circle, can be done in 2-3 days. What will take time are any scheduled tours you want to do. Get a hotel in Reykjavik for a couple days and then pick somewhere on the other side before going north. Pick out anything special and then run around and avoid tour groups. You need to book hotel rooms. The island is pretty small, I saw the whole south from Reykjavik. It's just not easy and a hotel outside would have been much better. Breakfast is bread (excellent), meat, cheese and skyr, standard European breakfast. Lunch, whatever sandwich, skyr or bars you find at a hotel or gas station. Dinner, lamb stew and bread, fish, beef or lamb. The fish was excellent, lamb soup at many places was all you could eat with bread, totally worth it. I wasted a lot of time with poor planning and a suboptimal hotel location but still had a blast and accomplished most of what I wanted so don't stress too much. Edit: The food was excellent everywhere, you will be missing out trying to buy for a week in Reykjavik. Grab some loaves of bread and butter at least. Coffee was good too, I really miss it. Hirse is good too. Food and water is extremely high quality. The part I wasn't expecting was the large amount of graffiti and there is quite a bit of litter scattered around, especially the tourist areas. lightpole fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 00:23
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Yeah you're doing yourself a disservice avoiding Icelandic food. The soups are fantastic and you're not going to find fresher seafood or lamb. There are some absolutely fantastic restaurants in Reykjavik, but they can be pricey. Don't eat whale meat, it's 100% a tourist thing. Grocery stores are few and far between once you get outside of Reykjavik. There's a Bonus (budget range grocery store) in Hveragerdi attached to a small shopping mall. There's a really nice bakery/coffee shop in the mall. Selfoss has a Krónan which is another budget store, but a bigger selection than the Bonus. I think there might be a small grocery store in Hella. But beyond that you're reduced to gas stations. There's a small pharmacy in Vik that's attached to a doctors office in case you need medical supplies (I rolled my ankle on a hike and needed an ace wrap). -- As far as hotels you're going to be quite limited. Outside of Reykjavik there's not a lot of infrastructure in place to support tourists, hence you'll see a ton of bus tours that are based out of Reykjavik. Hveragerdi, Selfoss, Vik, and Höfn are about it for southern towns that have hotels and "restaurants." I put it in quotes because you're likely to be eating at gas stations or pub type places. There are guest houses/bed and breakfast type spots but we didn't go that route. You might jam yourself up trying to go day to day with hotels because as I mentioned tours get booked ahead of time and they can quickly fill up a hotel. It might be best to pick out areas you want to see and set up in one of the towns I mentioned as your camp for exploring. Whip Slagcheek fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 02:13
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All the food is really fresh and nice and you should try it. My worst dish there was actually some kind of crab spaghetti in a fancy place in Reykjavik. Most of the rest stops along the road had better plain dishes made with fresh ingredients. When I went there, I actually stayed in schools that were closed and converted into hotels for the summer. It wasn't extremely comfortable but fine for me and usually they were in some convenient location. It let me visit villages where there were no ordinary hotels. My favorite place was Husavik, I saw a blue whale and the town has a nice seaside atmosphere, it's also close to Myvatn, Dimmuborgir and the weird desert area next to Myvatn. Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 02:45
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Huh, that's good to know. My only knowledge of traditional ´Icelandic food was what's written on Wikipedia, and everything on the Icelandic food page looks absolutely awful--it starts at hákarl and gets worse from there. I was aware you can get hot dogs and regular human food as well. I had a whale steak in Norway maybe 10 years ago. It was okay, but would not eat it again. I am glad it tastes like a weird cow steak, as if it tasted as good as tortured duck/goose liver, I'd probably be in prison. Good idea to pick one place in the south and use it as a base for 2-3 days. I know that the golden circle is only 2-3 days worth of interest, but 2 OR 3 days makes it impossible to book everything further down the line in advance. I guess I book a first night in Keflavik and then in mid-June see which F-roads are going to be open and then arrange accordingly. If F208 and F26 aren't open we'll probably just do the ring road around completely, as backtracking from Hof to F35 (Gullfoss) is a hell of a backtrack. I realize the drive takes just as long or even longer in that direction, but I'd rather spend 50% longer and do a different path than save the time and take the same road but in reverse. I don't think we'll do any scheduled tours at all. Is there any point to them? The only ones I could see that really require them are any of the glacier treks, and the trip to Öskjuvatn (F910) is dangerous if you don't have a big car and really know what you're doing with river crossings, which we don't. I would guess river crossings will be relatively easy in late-June, but I wouldn't bet my life or a $40,000 car on it. My car rental place allows us on all F-roads except the F249, no idea why that ones off limits, but it looks like the F261 goes to teh same place anyway, just on the other side of the river/inlet.
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Apr 10, 2016 17:50
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Have to schedule at the Blue Lagoon. Glaciers and ice caves are pretty cool, you might want to consider them. Snorkeling in Thingvellir was a kinda expensive and cheesy tourist thing but it was actually pretty awesome. Quite a few hikes should be doable but there are some that would probably be better with a guide. It's only 5 hours from Reykjavik to Jokulsarlon to give you an idea, plus the days will be long. You just don't want to have to drive 10 hours round trip and rush too much. lightpole fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 19:10
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You can do the Golden Circle in one day frankly. Give yourself the morning at Thingvellir and the afternoon you knock out the rest. They're all pretty close to each other and a lot of it is "show up, enjoy scenery, take photos, leave" type stuff. Unless you really want to wander around the waterfalls or snap photos of the geysers. Though if you wanted to be conservative I'd give Thingvellir a full day of hiking and do the rest of the circle on a second day. Blue lagoon you need to make a reservation unless you want to stand in line. Get the cheap plan (I got the one with the locker and slippers, still use their flip flops to this day). I would also strongly encourage signing up for a guided glacier tour if you want to do a glacier walk/hike. Please don't walk out onto the glaciers by yourself, you really need the crampons, ice pick, and guide. There are sections that will look safe to walk but a good smack with your pick will cause the ice to give way to the slushy river running underneath it. Whip Slagcheek fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 20:12
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There's also the odd memorial plate around for people who decided to head out onto the glacier on their own and never made it back.
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Apr 10, 2016 22:57
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are the local breweries any good/worth checking out?
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Apr 14, 2016 06:28
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binjamyin posted:are the local breweries any good/worth checking out? Seconding this, plus were is it best to buy booze generally? We are planning on duty free for most stuff but I hear it's not easy or cheap to buy drinks in Iceland.
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Apr 14, 2016 15:11
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Duty free for liquor. The beer was great so go hog wild and I think there were at least 4 local brewers. I limited my drinking to maximize my time doing things. It's easy to buy drinks, just not cheap. If you are out and about and want to buy a bottle of beer somewhere you might have to plan since there aren't many places that carry anything but restaurants do so plan accordingly. lightpole fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 16:04
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I'll probably be lurking in this thread for a bit - I bought tickets for Iceland in late September! It's going to be a relatively quick trip (landing early Monday morning, leaving Thursday Afternoon), but it sounds like the best thing to do is just rent a car and plan it so we aren't just doing day trips from Reykjavik.
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May 2, 2016 00:58
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Woof. Short itinerary. Yeah don't stay in Retkjavik, you can do that on your last afternoon/night. Get out to the Golden Circle for your first full day (Tuesday) and then I'd say head out to Jokulsarlon and Skaftafell for that second full day. It'll be a bit rushed but it gives you a taste of a bit of everything.
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May 2, 2016 01:33
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Woof. Short itinerary. Yeah don't stay in Retkjavik, you can do that on your last afternoon/night. Get out to the Golden Circle for your first full day (Tuesday) and then I'd say head out to Jokulsarlon and Skaftafell for that second full day. It'll be a bit rushed but it gives you a taste of a bit of everything. Thanks! It gets even trickier when I throw in that I'd ideally like to try to dive Silfra, which is ~7 hours. But in the name of maximizing the experience (and for my wife who ISN'T a diver) I'll probably be skipping that. And when I say 'landing monday morning' I mean at like, 7 AM, so I think with getting everything settled with a car, we'd still have a decent amount of time to start the trip.
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May 2, 2016 01:39
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Yeah the majority of inbound US flights come in on a red eye. It's pretty miserable so I kind of punted on that day when you mentioned it. We just spent the day at the lagoon and relaxed before driving out to the hotel. Silfra is doable, but yea definitely a big time commitment. Your wife could wander around Thingvellir while you're diving though, plenty of space to wander and take photos or just enjoy the landscape.
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May 2, 2016 01:50
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And obviously you would be aware of this but you would want to do your dive preferably Monday but no later than Tuesday if you're flying mid-day Thursday.
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May 2, 2016 03:19
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They have snorkeling there as well. It's a real cheesy, touristy thing to do but at the same time it was pretty awesome and you at least get a taste.
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May 3, 2016 01:58
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Any opinions on this itinerary? Anything awesome we're missing out on that we should do in an itinerary with 9 complete days? I booked hotels for Day 1 and Day 2 since holy poo poo things book up far in advance. Trip starts June 20-ish. • 1: Arrive Reykjavik 9am, head to Thingvellir, see Selfoss, stay in Selfoss. (I arrive the night before in Kef and will not be jetlagged, and the person I'm meeting up with shouldn't be too jetlagged either since it's only like +4 hours) • 2: Head up towards Kerid crater, Gesyer, Gulfoss. Spend the night around Hella • 3: Head around Landmannalaugar and/or Thorsmork (not sure about timing), check out black sand beaches around Vik, stay around Kaftafell • 4: Check out Svartifoss and whatever else in the Vatnajokull national park like the glacier lake area. Drive as far around the ring road until Fellabær or so. • 5: Drive around the ring road up until Detifoss, check out there and the "other" Selfoss downstream. Stay around there or Myvatn. • 6: Myvatn area whole day. • 7: Drive towards Snaefellsjokull ... stop somewhere along the way I guess, not sure what's around or interesting. • 8: Snaefellsjokull NP • 9: Reykjavik & Blue Lagoon (flight at 12:45am, i.e. very end of 9th day) An alternate idea I kind of want to do is take out either the day at Landmannalaugar/Thorsmork or the day at Detifoss/Selfoss, and devote that time to driving across the interior of the country on the F35. The roads may very well not be open though, and even if they are I'm not sure if that'd be a fun use of the time or not. 9 full days was really not as much as I thought! I don't really see any way to get to the northwestern peninsula without taking out a day somewhere else equally cool or cooler. E: Also it blows my mind that Akureyri gets 2 hours more of "sunlight" than Reykjavik at the end of June. June 21st has sunrise at 3am d at midnight in Reykjavik, versus sunrise at 1:30am sunset at 1:00am in Akureyri. I've been to Oslo that time of year so I realize that the 'sunset/sunrise' distinction is almost a technical term but it's impressive how much difference just a few hundred kilometers makes at that latitude. Saladman fucked around with this message at 21:30 on May 15, 2016 |
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May 15, 2016 21:21
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It's a solid itinerary, if anything day 2 is a bit light on stuff to do. Geysir and Kerio definitely aren't full day experiences. Geysir is a good late morning stop/lunch spot, the cafeteria there has pretty good soups and breads. Kerio is pretty and it's cool to walk to the bottom of the crater, we had it to ourselves when we went. As opposed to the other parks, Kerio is private property and you'll pay a small entrance fee so have ISK on you.
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May 15, 2016 22:23
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Wow that's got to be a semi-recent change, when I went to Kerid less than 4 years ago there was no entrance fee at all. But yeah, your day 2 and probably also day 1 really are a little light on things to do. Selfoss is cool but really just an hour or so tops to look at the waterfall, Thingvellir you can wander around for a few hours, but unless you have specific hikes in mind or you want to do the snorkelling and stuff there you'll probably be done in 3-4 hours. I'd bring a picnic lunch to Thingvellir if it's nice weather though, it's hella cool scenery to eat a sandwich to. And yeah, Geysir and Kerid are like a couple hours each tops. Tour groups usually spend <15 minutes at Geysir, to give you an idea of how short a trip it can be. If you like nature, you 100% need to go to the Latrabjarg peninsula instead of driving around the ring road to see the puffins (and other sea birds). Honestly I'd almost recommend that anyway, like of your nine days you're going to be spending three full days basically just driving, and then you have driving in pretty much every other day as well. Like, Iceland is probably the nicest country to just drive around in if you had to do that, but I would recommend maybe going so far as Jokulsarlon, and then heading back to Reykjavik and going north to get to Snaefellsjokul, and then going up to Latrabjarg instead of doing the ring road in nine days. Obviously if you absolutely wanted to spend a day in Myvatn for whatever reason then sure, but your itinerary kind of reads like you're trying to do the ring road just for the sake of being able to say you went around the whole country, when I think you'd probably enjoy yourself more if you spent more time in fewer places.
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May 15, 2016 22:52
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I don't at all care about the 'completionist' aspect of the ring road, but I'm not a big fan of backtracking (although it's true you see something different driving in the opposite direction). I'd definitely have to go as far as Jokulsarlon, and I also really want to check out both Myvatn and Dettifoss. I see what you mean though (and I'm a bit surprised)—it's ~7 hours Jokulsarlon -> backtrack -> Búdardalur versus Jokulsarlon -> Myvatn -> Búdardalur versus ~10 going in other direction. I figured it'd be almost exactly the same but I hadn't mapped the time before. Thanks for the tips, both. In that case we'll load up Day 2's stuff into Day 1, stay in Selfoss as planned, and then change Day 3 to Day 2 and maybe add Vestmannaeyjar and move one of the other things to Day 3? Some guide books seem to say that Vestmann is great for puffin watching, which would be the main point of us going, but it's also roughly the same amount of time that we could shuffle towards the end of the trip to go where you mentioned. Did you go to that island? We'll have a 2600mm-equivalent spotting scope with a camera attachment and tripod so bird shoots are a big appeal to us. Neither of us is a birder in general, but puffins are super cute and I've loved them since I was a kid. We're both drivers and like driving as long as the scenery is interesting, so doing ~35 hours of driving in 9 days is no issue*. I did 1500km/24 hours of driving in 4 days in San Pedro de Atacama a few months ago as solo driver, and I was amazed at how easy it was when the landscapes are that amazing. *besides like, the enormous environmental damage I'm doing by being a tourist.
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May 15, 2016 23:35
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Cool, your new plan sounds good. I haven't been to Westman Island, full disclosure. But I have been to Latrabjarg, and if you like birds, especially puffins, I cannot overemphasize how much you absolutely need to go there. I've heard from a few Icelanders who told me you see both a greater number and are also much closer to the puffins. To give you an idea, here are some photos I took: 150mm:  Puffins by Hannah, on Flickr130mm:  Puffins by Hannah, on Flickr200mm:  Puffins by Hannah, on FlickrAt Latrabjarg you can literally get to within 20 feet of literally hundreds of puffins. We hung out there for like six hours just watching them fly around and wander around and fight each other and fall off the cliffs. Plus a little ways away were a TON of different gulls flying around in the edge of the cliffs.
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May 16, 2016 01:57
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It's cute to watch puffins take off. They're basically balls of lard with wings so it takes them a really long time to gain height and speed.
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May 16, 2016 11:13
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We did a lot of driving and the scenery was awesome the whole way, I don't feel like too much of the time in the car was wasted time.
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May 16, 2016 17:28
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Shibawanko posted:It's cute to watch puffins take off. They're basically balls of lard with wings so it takes them a really long time to gain height and speed. Yeah, it is. The best is when they go to land on a thin strip of land and mis-judge the landing, then fall off the cliff and have to fly back up and try again 
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May 16, 2016 18:59
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Westman Island is fantastic and definitely worth a day trip. We caught the morning ferry, spent the day on the island, and caught the last ferry back. Don't bring your car, wear comfortable shoes and just walk. It's a great little town and hiking up the volcano is definitely worth it. You can also hike around the golf course if you're into birding, you'll find Puffins up in the cliffs.
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May 16, 2016 22:20
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Did anyone go to Thorsmork? We are explicitly forbidden from driving the F249 road in our rental (the only forbidden road), I guess because of the river Krossá which, from looking online, seems to be famous for eating cars. Is there any point to trying to 'see' it from the F261, or will we miss out? Basically Godaland looks awesome and I'd like to see it, but I can't find a drat map of where it exactly IS. Google maps has surprisingly lousy signage for Iceland.
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May 17, 2016 23:13
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I think we've got the route all figured out now, or at least as much as is possible to do in advance with some caveats for the weather and changing interests when we're there in person. We'll probably cut out the north road above Thorsmork, F261 to Emstruleid and either put that time in going to Vestmannaeyjar or driving around the Landmannalaugar area a bit more, or we might cut out Thorsmork and the Trollsnes peninsula and put that ~full day's worth of time to head to Latrabjarg, but we'll see. Driving across the interior, the northwestern fjords, Thorsmork and Askja will most likely have to wait until next time! I was sure that ten days would be enough to see what I wanted to on a fast pace, but it looks like 2 full weeks would've been ideal. 2300 km, and this is a slightly simplified version, so probably more like 2600 total. Google Maps sure makes it a hassle to add more than 10 destinations to your trip itinerary. 
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May 19, 2016 23:24
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And you're doing that in 10 days? Man that is a TON of driving. My wife and I did Snaefellsnes to Jokulsarlon over 9 days and even that felt rushed at times.
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May 19, 2016 23:43
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Westman Island is fantastic and definitely worth a day trip. We caught the morning ferry, spent the day on the island, and caught the last ferry back. Don't bring your car, wear comfortable shoes and just walk. It's a great little town and hiking up the volcano is definitely worth it. You can also hike around the golf course if you're into birding, you'll find Puffins up in the cliffs. Yep, down by the harbor there's a large rock/hill with some ladders going up. Once you get about half way you start running into tons of small groups of puffins.
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May 20, 2016 00:26
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It's only 5 hours from Reykjavik to Jokulsarlon, more like 4 since you should be driving pretty fast. Add in a couple hours of stopping to check poo poo out though. Not ideal by far but doable if necessary.
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May 24, 2016 20:34
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I just booked a four day trip at the beginning of my vacation this summer, end of July/beginning of August (going to Northern Ireland to visit family and then to England). Staying in Reykjavik but I'm renting a car so I can take day trips. I would love to see more of the country but that's what return trips are for right?  What are some good day trips from the city
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May 26, 2016 20:32
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