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Is there anything in the center of the country that's worth seeing, or if we go through the center will we be missing out on cooler stuff we could be doing along the coast? And if we don't have any reason to go through the center, is there any need for a 4x4 to access any cool sites?
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Apr 6, 2016 09:15
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Driving through the center is going to require a 4x4 and a rental company that isn't opposed to you going on the F roads. It's all mountainous dirt roads. I'm going in June. Is there any reason to actually take the interior F-roads though? Wikitravel doesn't even have a single highlight listed in the center of the country. I wasn't sure if 4x4s were needed for the F-roads that are more external / closer to the ring road. It seems like fun driving, but if I'm only there for 10 days then driving over the center of the country seems like I'd probably miss out on something else that's cooler. Presumably most rental companies that rent large 4x4s allow you to take them on the F-roads... otherwise a 4x4 seems kind of pointless? Edit: Oh, I found a flyer from some rental car company. Some F-roads are marked as OK and others are "not recommended" whatever that means (at least with whatever company this flyer is from). Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 17:10
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Well, just got our tickets. Hurray, looking forward to it. I've been wanting to go to Iceland for forever.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:48
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lightpole posted:What he said. You are probably getting in in the 5-7 range and check in is around 1400 so getting the Blue Lagoon and that peninsula out of the way is a good start. You can also check out Reykjavik, grab food and see the sights and museums. I'm coming from Europe, so I get in at midnight, which is 2 am my time—awesome. I don't know why nearly all flight times to Iceland are so awful. The only flights I saw that got in at reasonable hours were massively much more expensive, and it's not like Iceland is all that far from Europe. I think the direct flight is like 4 hours. My departure back is at 12:45 am too, which would be kind of OK, except that I have to transfer in Dusseldorf 3 hours and 15 minutes later (ffffff going to work later that same day is not going to be awesome). We have 9 full days + the day of arrival. The person I'm meeting up with arrives at 8am, 8 hours after me. Have to start looking into itinerary ideas and cars now. Thanks for the suggestions. Saladman fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 08:40
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Have any of y'all driven through the interior, and do you have a rental agency you'd recommend that has a good policy for that? It looks like it'd probably take about 10-12 hours to drive from south to north—going at a leisurely pace and stopping for photographs—if Google maps' driving time for the interior F-roads is even realistic (it estimates 45 kph, or 7 hours for 325 km). The east of the country looks pretty dull (relatively to the rest of the country) and worth a solid skip, especially compared to driving across the interior. A lot of the 4x4s I see for renting though are the pointless SUVs for Americans who like big cars, and not so many trucks with high clearance that are actually good the near-offroads driving of the F-roads. Like, a Ford Escape is going to drown in the first river it sees. A wrangler looks a lot more reasonable. The Gallimard guide I have has the saddest highlights for the east that I've seen in any guidebook ever. The east has five photos, compared to like 15 for every other region. Theyr'e (a–b) for the most unremarkable waterfall and forest I've seen in my life in Hallormsstaarskógur (c) for a collection of dull rocks from Petra Sveinsdóttir, and (d–e) two for sunbathing on what may be the world's worst sunbathing beaches outside of Antarctica. E: Also is there any way to check when and which F-roads are open? https://www.road.is helpfully tells you to call them in Iceland. Is that really the only way? I see that it varies a lot when the interior roads actually open — some people say early June, some early July — and we'd be looking to head north across the country probably around June 24. Edit 2: I found this, so looks like I will just barely be out of luck, unless global warming in the last 5 years has done wonders. I don't imagine anyone knows what this year's snowfall was like in the interior of Iceland compared to the norm? 
Saladman fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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Apr 8, 2016 13:36
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Are you multiple drivers, sweatshop? For one driver that sounds pretty awful (24 hours in 5 days) but for 2 it sounds reasonable. I'm planning on ~36 hours of driving in 9 days which is only a little less intense than yours (2 drivers), also at an average of like 3.5 hours a day plus one super long day through Landmannalaugar.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:05
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I'm bummed that I'm missing all the cool solstice festivals in Iceland by one day. I should've flown in at the start of the weekend and not the end.
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Jun 11, 2016 08:15
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https://en.ja.is/kort/?type=map&x=510939&y=399268&z=4 This map is so much massively better than Google maps that anyone in charge of Google maps Iceland should just quit their job in shame. Google maps really makes driving the F roads seem excessively simple and straightforward, when actually there are a ton of tracks running in different directions all over the place (e.g. particularly around Landmannalaugar). I still have fingers crossed that the roads to Landmannalaugar will be open by next week when we go, but if not I guess we'll have an extra day in our itinerary and can go to the northwest fjords. Right now you can only get to thorisvatn.
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Jun 13, 2016 12:12
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transient posted:I was going to say you weren't missing anything, but a quick search shows they do have a pretty cool festival now. The solstice was pretty much a non-event in 2012. Maybe the current festivities also have something to do with the entire country's male population between 18-45 being in France for a month playing in the Eurocup. Off to my flight! I hope I don't have to resort to cannibalism during my two hours in Berlin Tegel, if it's anywhere close to as bad as posters in this forum make it sound.
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Jun 19, 2016 15:38
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I survived. It's actually a fine airport in summer. It's so open that it seems like you might freeze to death transiting terminals (or even waiting at C terminal) in winter though. C terminal is depressing but A/B terminal was modern enough with food options and etc. It's a super weird layout I've never seen anywhere else ever though for Term A--every single gate gets its own security check and bag claim?? Super odd.
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Jun 20, 2016 09:42
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I flew Air Berlin which is a dirt cheap carrier in general. Iceland Air was dramatically more expensive from Zurich -- like double even though it was a direct flight. Didn't check WOW specifically, but WOW does list on Google flights and it wasn't close to Air Berlin's prices. I have a 12:45 am flight and get kicked out of Blue Lagoon at 9pm so I should have a ton of time to drop off the car and get through security on the way back, pop some melatonin, and zombie my way through a 6am landing in Düsseldorf. Kind of odd that the flight connections arent symmetrical actually. Did the golden circle and the south coast to Vik the last couple days. All beautiful but nothing totally unique. No goddamn puffins, seagulls seem to have pushed all the puffins near Vik out of their nesting sites. We have a 2600mm spotting scope that works as a camera attachment and we were thorough in checking the cliffs. Off to Landmannalaugar tomorrow.
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Jun 21, 2016 21:34
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We saw one. ONE. Puffin at the end of Snaefellsnes peninsula at the lighthouse. Tons of other birds. Poor puffin, had a nest ready and everything :/. Spent an hour and never saw Mr (or Mrs) Puffin Decided to go to Reykjavik today instead of Latrabjarg so we could watch UEFA. Correct choice. Back home tomorrow at midnight, but definitely would come back. 11 days not enough even for a moderately intensive schedule.
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Jun 28, 2016 00:32
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I never had to clear customs, but when the European gates of KEF are a shitshow. The airport is operating at about 500% designed capacity in the summer though so I kind of get it. i think my favorite part might be how they have approximately 3 seats per gate and everyone else has to sit on the floor or stand for an hour while waiting for them to decide when tiur 3am takeoff time should actually be. I don't envy the people working though, sounds super stressful. Except that customs official who seems like he didn't speak English at all. (Actually I was kind of surprised at how badly English was spoken by many older Icelanders; maybe Danish was still the king foreign language until the 60s or 70s?)
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Jul 2, 2016 10:23
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More than 2 days of Reykjavik sounds pretty boring, even if 1 of those days is mostly a travel day. It's a small town, and while nice enough, it's still a small town that was 98% built in the late 1900s and is mostly modern shopping streets and nondescript buildings. If you stop over for more than 1 day, do something outside on the Golden Circle.
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Aug 3, 2016 22:34
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Also all the wool they sell in Iceland feels like the absolute shittiest quality stuff in the world. I think they might have confused "steel wool" with "wool" and unfortunately used the former to make most of their sweaters. Even in the crazy expensive stores in Reykjavik. I'm sure they're warm but christ they're uncomfortable if they even remotely touch your skin. Also yeah I did hear that most are made in Lithuania then shipped to Iceland, which is why a lot of the sweaters don't have a tag for what country they're made in.
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Aug 8, 2016 08:13
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Definitely rent a car. It will be way more convenient and it's price-competitive with the public buses — definitely cheaper if you're two people. Alternately if you're on a budget you can hitchhike. Your destinations are all pretty well traveled and I doubt you'd have to wait more than 10 minutes unless you're super sketchy looking. Did you book a hostel in Reyk every night? If not already, IMO book a place in Hella or Hvolsvollur at the end of your Golden Circle day rather than backtracking. It's only ~an hour each way extra, so not a big deal, but you might as well avoid it. Route 1 between Reykjavik and Seljalandfoss Waterfall is not particularly beautiful or striking if you've been anywhere with flat, treeless farmland before. Depending on how you travel, how much jetlag you have, and when you land on Day 1, you may or may not care about Day 4 in Reykjavik. If you like driving you could drive on the F26 towards the interior and get a good impression of the interior desolation (it's paved and no 4WD required until you get to the power station at the turnoff to F208) and on the way back stop at the Gjain oasis (car with good clearance required for the last 3km, but you can just park and hike it too depending on how much time you have). Also, rent the cheapest and smallest 2WD you can, as you won't have time to go on any of the 4WD-required roads unless you are super interested in making Day 4 into Landmannalaugar. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 23:10
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If you like low key cities more than you like long drives through desolate landscapes, then spending the day in Reykjavik is probably better than doing the F26 (or alternately Snaefellsnes peninsula). Take a look at some videos of the drives on YouTube. If you don't like driving a lot and you're a solo driver then it might be too much to do that back to back after your ~6-7 hours of driving on Day 3. I did around 3 hours of driving a day every day for the 9 days I was there (+3 more per day as passenger) and it was fine for me, but YMMV for that kind of thing. I'm not normally a huge fan of long distance drives but it was super cool in Iceland, plus theres no highway so you can easily stop your car and gawk whenever.
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Aug 16, 2016 07:40
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Slippurinn is one of the restaurants in the town and I thought it was one of the best meals we had while we were in Iceland. Refrain from the whale meat though, it's not a "local" dish and the majority of it is consumed by tourists that don't know better. One dish that is local and kind of exotic is foal, but oddly, we never came across a restaurant serving it. If you've just got to eat something unusual, I'd recommend that over puffin or whale or hakarl though. Apparently the puffin population of Iceland has been in a nosedive the past few years for unclear (?) reasons.
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Aug 26, 2016 10:28
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NigelsPoppet posted:Hey All, The crashed C-30 is pretty far--near Skogafoss (90 min each way? from Reykjavik) and it's about a 40 min walk each way from the parking area to the plane. You can't drive right up to it anymore like a lot of guides online will tell you. Still, it's reasonable within a day and there are two cool stops just off the road: Skogafoss and Seljalandfoss. For Seljalandfoss there are two waterfalls: the big obvious one you see, and then one that's in a cave a 5-8 min walk up an obvious path. Make sure to also do the cave one, it's super cool and a lot of people miss it because they just see the Seljalandfoss sign. Unfortunately the scenery is pretty unremarkable for the entire drive from Rekjavik to Seljalandfoss unless you've never seen a farm and are impressed by cows. We went to several hot springs but the only other particularly impressive one besides Blue Lagoon was way the hell up in Myvatn. The other two we went to were utterly unremarkable municipal hot pools. Puffins, don't know. We tried at Vik and also at Snaefellsnes peninsula and we saw one single loving puffin. A single puffin in a huge colony of Auks. No idea what he was doing nesting there. Supposedly both places are okay for puffin spotting. Unfortunately the best places are islands off the coast (grimsey, westman) or really super remote (latrabjarg).
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Sep 22, 2016 09:17
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Lady Gaza posted:I'm getting married June and was thinking of taking a mini-honeymoon with my wife to Iceland (taking a proper one in November), flying out from the UK in the afternoon on Sunday and returning Wednesday afternoon. I imagine we'd stay in Reykjavik and rent a car, so would Golden Circle on Monday and some of the south coast on Tuesday be doable? Not bothered about the Blue Lagoon, so we'd need to find something else to do Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning. We'll be too early for the solstice but the midnight sun will be interesting. Yes, Golden Circle is easily doable in one day. South coast you could easily all the way to Vik, and check out the major two waterfall stops on the way, check out the basalt columns near Vik, and maybe even the crashed plane (~90 minutes round-trip since you have to walk from the road). This is all made much more convenient since there is sun up until 11:30pm or so, so driving back at midnight to Reykjavik seems quite reasonable. Thanks to the light, it really feels quite fine to do an 18 hour day of driving + tourist stuff. You could also do Snaefellsnes peninsula as a similarly-long-but-reasonable daytrip from Reykjavik. When I went there, it was incredibly cloudy and rainy the entire day so I didn't get a great impression of it. I was the only day we had in Iceland with rain, but the west side of the island is also by far the rainiest so it wasn't like we were particularly unlucky. There was an incredible slot canyon near Arnarstapi that made the drive worth it, but tbh I'd keep it as a backup and skip it if it's rainy and do something else instead. Landmannalaugar will unfortunately almost certainly still be closed* by the time you're there. We got there the first day it was open this year, which was something like 23 June. (* to drivers; you can still hike in but that's like a two day trip). You won't need a 4x4 by the way since you don't have enough time to do any of the F-Roads, unless you want to go to Gjain on F-327, which is amazing, but it's also only like a 45 minute hike from the paved road so it's reasonable even with a small car + short hike. And someone might drive by that you can hitchhike with if you're lucky. Even if Landmannalaugar is closed, driving highway 32 and then the F26 as far as the power station (which will be open) is pretty interesting and gives you a great idea of the desolation of interior Iceland. Saladman fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Dec 24, 2016 |
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Dec 24, 2016 14:06
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For what season? In summer for low intensity you can take trips from the F985 near Jokursarlon and they'll drive you up and around on the glacier's top in a superjeep. You can also DIY if you rented a 4x4 and drive up the f985 yourself (a ton of fun) then hike up the glacier on foot until you get bored. Just make sure you follow the jeep path or you might fall into a crevasse and even then it's probably not 100% safe. That said, the top of glaciers is always the most boring part. It's a featureless white expanse that gradually inclines, but I thought it was interesting, since I've only been on alpine glaciers in which cases you can always see the rock mountains. On top of the f985 sometimes it was really just white in all directions with a gradual and unsettling slope upwards.
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Jan 6, 2017 20:10
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You're paying about 2x the cost of doing it yourself. 4x4 manual transmission : $1600 for 9 days + $400 gas (not included for you anyway). Add $500 if you need an automatic. Nice hotel room: maybe average $250/night with two luxury ones (let's say $2k total; budget rooms are like $150) Blue lagoon: $80/ea Myvatn baths: like $20/ea 3G full roaming and GPS: like $30/day So I can barely make that cost $4000. Organizing your own hotel rooms a day in advance also lets you change your itinerary if you like one place more than another. I thought Lake Myvatn was pretty boring and awful tbh and I had high hopes. The nature bath there is GREAT and we didn't go to the power station, but eveything else was "eh" (Jon snow sex cave, cindercones, micro crater fields) or "ugh" ("rock cathedral habitrail for 80 year old tourgroups") Also on your itinerary you wont need a 4x4 since youre missing Landmannalaugar which is a big missed point, although there are no comfortable accommodations there so maybe that's why. (It can be a day trip too but it's pretty far) That price seems pretty bad. If it included a private driver and guide it would be reasonable, and is what I thought at first. Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 17:44
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The only particularly big thing they help you with is getting a car; getting hotel rooms is pretty trivial, as is getting a blue lagoon ticket. Just make sure to book Blue Lagoon 48+ hours in advance, and book your next night's hotel the night before (or more if you care about getting a specific place and not just any place). I rented a 4x4 manual Dacia Duster SUV with Reykjavik Cars / Blue Car Rental (http://www.bluecarrental.is/) for 152,000 ISK ($1350) for 8 full days with 2 drivers and with all the extra insurance things selected. They have a office in downtown and at the KEF airport. I just checked your dates and a mid-size automatic SUV is $1850 with all the insurance options checked + 4G car wifi + 1 extra driver, or $1650 for a mid-sized manual SUV with the same options and dates. Big name chains are a miserable ripoff. Hertz wants an appalling $3000 for a mid-sized manual 4x4 SUV for the same dates and the equivalent options :o. It's around $2200 for just the manual 4x4 with no extras or bonus insurance. So, rent your car enough in advance from a local Icelandic company is the takeaway there. Your current itinerary would be fine in a smart car. You'll only need a 4x4 if you decide to do F roads, and the major things on F roads are: • Landmannalaugar [famously scenic interior hiking area + bizarre oasis; 2 hour drive each way from ring road + you'd want to spend time there; also stop by Gjain Oasis on the way in or out] • F985 [drive to the top of a glacier, ±1 hour each way from ringroad + 30 min at top unless you want to do the glacier expedition], • F26 [drive across center of country, 10-12 hours? and may not even be open by the time you're there], • Askja [barren wasteland, ±4 hours each way from ring road? also may ot be open and will require river crossings] Also keep in mind that Thorsmork's access road, F249, is forbidden to ALL rental cars, and if you want to go there you either have to hike in or take a expeditionary trip. As for itinerary suggestions, it depends a lot on what you like doing or that you'd like to see. I thought the ringroad is fun to drive all the way around, and flying from Reykjavik to Akureyri won't really save you any time considering you have to check into the flights etc and it's only like a 5 hour drive in the first place. You'll easily do 25 hours of driving over those 8 days, which is not that bad since you can easily stop at any time and get out of the car and stretch or take photos, and the scenery changes a lot and the driving is not featureless straight roads. The most boring part of the drive (imo) was between Hofn and Egilsstadir, but that's only 3 hours and honestly it's still quite pretty. The north area--immediately to the east of the mountains at Myvatn Nature Baths and all the way until almost Egilsstadir--is a surprisingly incredible barren wasteland that would easily fit in the Sahara. You'll see this from Highway 1, and you can do a short detour to hit Dettifoss on the way (~30 min each way to ring road). If you'd like to be more alone-just-the-two-of-you then I'd recommend spending more time in the north or center. The south is pretty full with people everywhere you go. Even if you go to Seljalandfoss at midnight (which we did, as there's still plenty of light) there will still be 10 other people there, though compared to more like 100 at noon. It's still great and except for the golden circle it's not -overly- crowded during the day, but it might not feel private and super romantic, if that's what you want. Gjain, Landmannalaugar, F985, or anywhere in the northwestern peninsula will feel much more private—if you care. Basically all tour groups cover the coastal area between Blue Lagoon in the southwest to Jokulsarlon in the southeast. Any sites in this area will have > 10x as many people as similar sites elsewhere in the country. YMMV! If I ever go back with someone else who hasn't been, I would personally not go back to Thingvellir unless I'm going with a geologist or someone who cares about seeing plate tectonics in action. I liked Blue Lagoon, but yeah 3-4 hours is definitely enough even for someone who likes spas.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:38
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Oakland Martini posted:I think you drove on F208 into and out of Landmannalaugar without doubling back (power station all the way to the ring road). I plan to go there in the first few days of July. I know that taking F208 into Landmannalaugar from the north is the usual way to get there, but how was continuing on F208 to the south towards Vik? Also, did you spend the night there or just the day? We had to double all the way back, around June 24th, which was the first day -any- road to Landmannalaugar was open last year. We would have definitely continued on the F208 if the road had been opened, since we were driving to Kirkjub anyway, so it was quite a lot of backtracking, but a closed road is a closed road at least if you're a tourist who's unfamiliar with the route and doesn't want any liability and safety problems. We did the entire thing in one day: got up at Hella bright and early, drove to Landmannalaugar, did a 5-6 hour hike, decided at like 6pm we didn't want to pitch a tent there, so we drove all the way back and around and camped near Vik at þakgil (which was by far the coolest campground of our trip). I hear there are a fair number of small rivers to cross if you do continue south from Landmannalaugar towards Vik, so keep that in mind. There are no rivers to cross on the other approach coming from the power station until Landmannalaugar. That part of the road can actually easily be done in a tiny Smart car (although your rental agency won't allow it, so don't do it unless you're borrowing a friend's car or something), while the road south definitely needs a large vehicle. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 23:40
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Oakland Martini posted:Awesome, very helpful. Any particular reasons you didn't want to camp at Landmannalaugar (that is our current plan)? Not really. We thought about it, but after our hike we weren't all that tired and felt good enough to drive for a few more hours. I'm glad we did since the Thakgil camp ground was amazing, but I think we would have camped in Landmannalaugar if the full 208 south had been open. Also make sure to stop at the Gjain oasis a few km off the F-32 road!! It's incredible, truly eye-popping. Stong's farm is close and worth a stop, but Gjain is stunning, especially if you're coming west from the F-32, as you suddenly go from a horrible desolate wasteland or dead, black, grey rocks, then incredibly suddenly, it drops into a large canyon which is an amazing incredible green and blue fairytale. The F-327 is incredibly rocky and if your car has lovely clearance you'll definitely wreck your oil pan, so keep that in mind if you don't have an SUV. It's only 2 or 3 km from the paved road though so you can hike it if you don't have a good enough car (or hitchhike if someone passes your way). Photos of it don't really do it justice, since the most stunning beauty of it is its contrast with the apocalyptic wasteland approach towards it, which requires going from west to east (i.e. direction on F-327 from Gjain towards Stong's farm). If you take the F-327 in the other direction (i.e. you pass stong's farm first) then it's way less interesting... and also it will be slower than taking the F-32 and backtracking a couple km, since the F-32 is paved and the F-327 is kilometers of sharp rock. We went there at like 8pm and we were the only people there (in full daylight). If you go this way, you'll come across a gate at some point: OPEN THE GATE then keep driving. It's not to block you out, it's to keep sheep from escaping! I recommend actually going to as many sites as possible on weird hours. For the Golden Circle it won't really matter, but places like Dettifoss, Gjain, Landmannalaugar, etc, it's way cooler if you're only one of a handful of people in the area. Everything on the south coast will be crowded even at midnight, but the rest of the spots really empty out outside the 11am--4pm times. I think all my favorite spots were the ones we hit at weird hours where almost no one else was there. Saladman fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 17:54
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Oakland Martini posted:Gotcha. Any other campgrounds you recommend? We are not going much further than Vik after Landmannalaugar, though.. we are heading back up to the Westfjiords area to see the bird cliffs and then spend a night in Hornstrandir. We only camped 4 times out of 11 days--half the time we were able to find hotels/hostels to book in the town we were in when it was 8pm and we wanted to go to sleep. The Thakgil campground was awesome but not worth driving way out of your way for; I'd only go there if you were planning anyway on spending a night in Vik. The Reykjahalid (Myvatn) and Landmannalaugar campgrounds were really crowded and unremarkable, while Thakgil and wild camping in the Berserkjahraun were great. If you want to wild camp in the Snæfellsnes peninsula, I'd recommend just driving on the Berserkjahraun until you see a grassy spot and then stopping there. There are a couple spots on it that are clearly used for parties every now and then, most likely by locals, but when we camped for the night there, I don't think even a single car passed us the entire night, and we camped right next to the 'road'. If you wild camp, just hope you don't need to take a poo poo during the night or first thing in the morning. Yeah, it's true that nothing local will be open between like 8pm and 8am, even gas stations, but only a couple major attractions in Iceland have visiting hours (e.g. Myvatn Nature Baths, which is super cool and also open until midnight or so) and it's sunny most of the day even in mid July. If you're doing hotels it's a problem, but if you're camping it's almost irrelevant since you can pitch a tent whenever even at official camping spots.
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Feb 14, 2017 22:52
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germskr posted:Super useful information in here, thanks! You're in luck: Tryggvaskali is in Selfoss. We ate out a bunch with no budget concerns, and that was our best restaurant in Iceland for a mixture of atmosphere + food quality reasons. They have a great selection of beers too. Book in advance or expect to wait 60+ minutes to get seated. It'll run you about $50 each, so it's not that bad considering Iceland. Saladman fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Feb 22, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2017 16:05
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germskr posted:Thanks. Any other recommendations? I'm looking for the freshest seafood I can get, think cod, salmon, etc. which I saw the menu for Tryggvaskali and it seems to be 50/50. There are really not that many restaurants to pick from outside of the southwest around Reykjavik and Akureyri, so you can feasibly check every single restaurant on tripadvisor in your area in about 20 minutes. Generally there seemed to be max 1 or 2 gourmet or gourmet-ish places per region, and everything else just sells hotdogs or your standard dry steak of some sort, mashed potatoes, and carrots. We went to at least 15 restaurants in our 11 days there, which come to think of it was a lot of time spent in restaurants, especially since we camped 5 nights and we weren't exactly doing a fancy-pants trip. In Höfn, we liked Humarhöfnin quite a bit which is largely a seafood place. In Akureyri, 1862 Nordic Bistro was also quite good. It looks and feels just like some random museum cafe where you'd get a cappuccino and a croissant, but they actually serve meals like you'd get in a fancy restaurant (at fancy restaurant prices). Hraun in Olafsvik (Snaefellsnes peninsula) was unremarkable but if you want a burger it's decent and it's not like you have a lot of choice. Rain in Keflavik was terrible. Saeta Svinid in Reykavik was quite good and had fancy pub-style food. Everywhere else we ate I can't even remember as it was all your average, forgettable, roadside diner cuisine. Saeta Svinid also served puffin, but you shouldn't really eat puffin as the puffin population has been dropped by 2/3rds in the last decade (though due to starvation and not due to overhunting; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140827-seabird-puffin-tern-iceland-ocean-climate-change-science-winged-warning/). Surprisingly, we did not see foal on the menu anywhere, even though Iceland is the foal meat per capita king of the world. Maybe they keep it off menu so as not to offend tourists. We didn't see whale on the menu anywhere, but we weren't looking either. Also Icelandic hot dogs are just American hotdogs in American hotdog buns. I have no idea wtf everyone is talking about when they rave about Icelandic hotdogs, but I can only assume it's some groupthink/emperor's new clothes style thing. In any case, you will certainly eat a few hotdogs since they're sold at every gas station. There's a super hipster hotdog place in Reykjavik, Baejarins Beztu Pylsur, that we didn't go to since it had a massive line, but maybe if we had waited 20 minutes in the rain I would have been wowed.
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Feb 22, 2017 23:21
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kri kri posted:I have read through the thread, great info. I have received a fellowship Yea. Easily to Vik and covering everything inbetween. If you super love driving you could go to Snaefellsnes -or- Jokulsarlon but I'd recommend just the Reykjavik golden circle vik route in your timing. All the F roads will still be closed so just get the cheapest rental car you can, no need at all for a 4x4. Google driving times were, IME, maybe 10-20% slower than we actually drove. But that's if you drive without stopping, and one of the joys of self driving is so you can stop and go "wow" every now and then. Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 22:53
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to study in Paris at the end of May, and am going to fly through Iceland for a stopover. I am thinking hitting the south part of the island via a rental car for 3/4 nights, is that doable?
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Kase Im Licht posted:So I and some friends were looking to do the Laugavegur hike from Landmannalaugar to Thorsmork. Then we saw the big solstice concert and thought that would be a fun thing to do as well, but that won't work at all will it? It sounds like we won't be able to start the hike til late June, well after the solstice, and we're hoping to do this over one week (weekend to weekend, so about 9 days). It depends where you start. The trailhead starts at Skogafoss which is open all year-round since it's on the ring road. The part at Thorsmork on the F249 road is never open to rental cars and you MUST go with a tour group if you do not start all the way back at Skogafoss. Landmannalaugar is reasonably likely to still be closed to personal cars on the 21st. I'm not sure what happens if you hike in to Landmannalaugar without a tour group and before the road opens. I guess worst-case scenario, if the F208 is still closed, you can just hike yourself from Landmannalaugar to the power station at Krokslon (6 hours? maybe less, it's not that far) and then hitchhike from there. That part of the road is open year-round and there will be some traffic even if Landmannalaugar is closed, since people actually work there. E: Just realized you and Aquila are not the same poster. The guided treks to Landmannalaugar start before the road officially opens, so if you go with a group (and expect to pay through the nose) you won't have any issue doing it. Aquila posted:I just booked June 17 to 26 roundtrip to Iceland and have also reserved my car rental. Hopefully weather is good and Solstice doesn't make things too crazy, this was the best time that I could take a week off work. My plan is maybe attempt the ring road (totally skipping Reykjavik) or if I can convince some friends to join me do a more leisurely circuit and also some mountain biking tours. Outside of Reykjavik, nothing happens during the solstice. We arrived the night of the solstice party last year (I guess it will be the 16-17-18 this year although I did not look) and I would have never even known about it except for the people I met up with the next day had, unfortunately for them, camped right next to where it was happening. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 10:50
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germskr posted:Do rental car places (specifically Hertz since I'm renting through them) have a map of where you can and can't drive? We're getting a 4WD SUV and spending a small fortune on it; I'd hate to get charged a penalty, but I'm also kinda tilted that even with 4WD they won't let you go where you want. Obviously, I'm not going to attempt driving up a volcano or something silly like that. You can't drive offroads in any car, rental or not. For roads, all rental agencies ban you from crossing the Krossa river on the F249. I don't think any other roads are expressly banned, but most-if-not-all rental agencies' insurance won't cover you if you do end up loving up a river crossing, even if you bought all the extra insurance packages. You're also (obviously?) not covered if you're on an F-road when it's officially closed by the Icelandic government. This will be pretty obvious because they always put up road blocks when a road is closed, so you'd have to specifically go offroads to drive around it to continue on the road and it would not be possible to accidentally end up on a closed road.
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Mar 26, 2017 17:09
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