For a college graduation trip, my DDs picked Iceland for next summer. Anyone been there? Did you plan it yourself or go with a tour? I’m open to any suggestions or info! I’m just starting my research and I’m looking for any insight. Unfortunately, we won’t see the Northern Lights since we’ll be going in the summer.
We saw the northern lights in September. It was small. Planned it ourselves using the Frommers guide for Iceland. Most speak english and really not that hard to plan. Would go back in a heart beat!
It’s my dream to go there
I’m going with D2 in July so will have more info for you later this summer.
This http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1729761-iceland-in-july.html#latest might be of interest.
We went for about five days on one of Icelandic Air’s packages. It was a fairly simple package, pick a hotel, pick some activities. The main advice I will give is if you land in Reykjavík, go to the Blue Lagoon when you land. Usually everyone gets to the hotel all at once and it’s a mess and a long wait to register. Go to the Blue Lagoon instead. Put your luggage in their lockers. Soak for a couple of hours. Have a drink. Then go to your hotel and check in.
Iceland was really one of my family’s favorite places. We would all go back in a heartbeat.
We did a similar trip to Iceland about 25 years ago! Loved it.
We went with the whole family a couple of years ago. Loved it!
OK, I was being bit lazy and after booking the flight just booked a few days at one of the top tourist sites in a guidebook someone had loaned me. The Latrabjarg cliffs in the far northwest. I finally looked at a map, not just google maps, and realized that the road to get there followed every fjord, in and out, and lots of it was unpaved! Thank goodness we went in the end of June and it was light the whole time, so we didn’t drive that road in the dark.
We did finally get there but our first stop was at the Blue Lagoon which is not far from the airport. We got in line but abandoned it as it is very touristy and the line is long. They also make you pay in Euros and it was about $40/person then (the Icelandic Crown was a better deal at the time). Since we could have only stayed for a quick dip before our long road trip we decided against it.
FYI, there are hot pools all over Iceland, and hot public pools too. I think there are 7 just in Reykavik. All the water is naturally hot from the ground and they don’t use much chlorination and that is why they have explicit instructions for how, and where, you have to wash before you get in. My girls were at a modest age and they didn’t want to get naked in a communal (same sex) wash room so we skipped it. I regret that because the public pools in Reykavik are said to be wonderful and all very different. However, once we came upon a pool on the side of the road. They had just piped the hot water into a small enclosure, surrounded it with rocks, and that was it. You changed in your car and then you could walk down and sit in this natural hot tub with water flowing over the side while you looked out over the ocean and the Snaefellnes peninsula in the distance. It was heaven.
We stayed in Latrabjarg for a few days, and then in Reykavik for a few days. It is very easy from Reykavik to take a day trip and see Pingvallir, Gullfoss, and Geysir, all in one day. They are all free and very accessible.
H and two of the girls went to an Argentine steakhouse in Reykavik and said it was really, really, good. Other that that, you aren’t going there for the food. Good coffee and desserts though and they sell whale and puffins to tourists (ugh). You don’t even see much salmon on the menus, they sell that and eat lamb mostly. If you go out into the country you will see sheep roaming free all over in the summer.
I highly recommend Willy Knudsen’s volcano movie in Reykavik. He’s quite a character.
My spouse went there many years ago with his family and he immediately said “Blue Lagoon!” when I asked. He also remembers there being an awesome volcano near there but can’t remember the name.
Have a wonderful trip- I’m jealous of your Ds 
There is a new discount airline called WowAir that flies out of Boston (and maybe NYC as well) that has flights as low as $199 each way. Travel experts predict that as a result, Iceland may become the jumping off point for shorter, cheaper flights to Europe.
I hate the summer heat, and will go anywhere that has a summer high temp of 54 degrees F!
That airline sounds great but I was surprised that it’s not so easy and cheap to hop from Iceland to other places in Europe. It’s pretty far from the mainland.
Loved Iceland. Geologist nerd heaven. We did a tour -after looking at road maps and all those long long names I knew I would fail as a navigator.
English is very widely spoken. The Blue Lagoon is a tourist trap but I wouldn’t have skipped it.
Realized that D1 (undergrad in geology) picked iceland for her wedding for that reason. D2 (also undergrad geology) loved it too. It really is hard to go wrong there, just don’t speed.
Hmmm, maybe that’s one of the reasons S plans to go to Iceland (he’s a geology & rock climbing hobbyist). We were surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been.
We got two speed camera tickets. If they say 80 kph, they mean 80 kph. We had brought our GPS and downloaded some free maps and the cameras had been noted but we didn’t realize it. The tickets were only about $27 so no biggie.
Thanks for all the info. I too have heard that Blue Lagoon is beautiful but can get pretty crowded. I’ve heard about the Golden Circle tour and Ring road tour. I’m assuming you rent a car (preferably 4x4) and drive yourself.
@stradmom Thanks for the link. Hope your trip is wonderful. Let us know how it turns out!
@grennwitch Thanks for your info about your trip and driving and speeding info. I guess no allowance over speed limit like they allow here in US!
I was there two weeks ago. We completely loved it! We planned it all ourselves, rented a car (with a completely useless GPS – Googlemaps on our phones worked much, much better). (Didn’t know about the cameras – maybe I’ll learn more when we get our next credit card bill!) We were only there for six days, but we would have been happy to stay longer and to see more things.
– Yes, you can do Thingvellir, Geysir, and Gullfoss in one day, but leave enough time for Thingvellir – it’s really beautiful, and there are tons of places to hike there. The main areas are very crowded, but when you get away from them it gets empty fast.
– One of our favorite hikes is not on all of the tourist circuits: Seltun, near Krysuvik (which is east of the airport along the southern coast). It’s almost an infernal landscape of lava-desert with various pools of furiously bubbling black water and steam vents (one of which was so loud it sounded like a factory). If you climb up above all the springs and steam, you get a gorgeous view of the coast and two nearby lakes which are completely different colors.
– Our other favorite hike was up the river from the Skogafoss waterfall – just gorgeous, one waterfall after another, and really dramatic scenery. If you get a guide and give it a full day or more, it’s about 20 km to a pass in between two major glacier/volcanos (one of which is Eyjafjallajokull, the one that erupted sensationally five years ago), where there are active lava flows, too. 30 km or so takes you through the range to Thorsmark on the other side. We didn’t go back that far – we turned back after 4-5 km – but if we went back going farther on that trail would be high on our list.
– We were “eh” on Reykjavik in general – it’s cute, but very touristy and very provincial. One thing we did really like there was the “Culture House” museum (one of the National Museum sites). The staff was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and the collection (a mix of old and new stuff) was interesting. We also had a great time and got some useful information at a very sophisticated, very hipster pop-up tea shop on Odinsgata, called Menghai, run by a couple from Budapest. It will still be there if you go in the next 6-7 weeks.
– My wife keeps saying that the food was bad. It wasn’t bad – and she didn’t think it was at the time – but it didn’t include many green vegetables, and that really bothered her. It’s tough to grow vegetables in Iceland. (It’s tough to grow trees in Iceland, something that becomes obvious as you travel around. Until the 20th century, driftwood was the only local source of wood.)
– One thing we did everywhere was swim in the public pools (and use the associated hot tubs and steam rooms). They are sensational – geothermally heated, no chemicals, friendly, a great place to meet people. It cost about $5 apiece for one-time admission, and well worth it.
– It was cold. I overpacked, by bringing shorts and short-sleeved shirts, neither of which was really of any use. I was more or less prepared for that. Two Icelandic movies I watched – a dark, sort-of-comedy called Midsummer Wedding, and Heima, a documentary of a Sigur Ros tour to small towns around the island in the summer of 2006 – took place in the middle of the summer, and I noticed that everyone was wearing jackets and sweaters most of the time. Also, when you are looking at average temperatures, keep in mind that 40-50 mph sustained winds, with proportionally higher gusts, are pretty common out in the country.
– If you want a great 5-minute psych for a trip to Iceland, I recommend the Sigur Ros video for a song called Glosoli.
Budgeting now for speeding tickets.
I hear there’s a speed camera on the hill going into Vik.
H who loves to cook was looking for an Iceland cookbook online last evening- the fish and soup and bread were great. One night before we left in 2013 he said- ‘lets go for ride’ he then proceeded to drive about 30 in a 45 and said ‘the fastest you can go is like 48 mph’ and he wanted to get used to driving slow. It was funny but useful. We had read that the tickets can be very pricey. D1 was very proud after warning the entire wedding party and guests- not a single one got a ticket.
Great thread. My D has been asking to go there, maybe next summer.
Agree. Great thread! My kid asked if she can have a stopover in Iceland on her way back from Switzerland because she liked what she saw out of her plane window on the way to Europe.