By Emily Volmar
Camperstory submission November 2024
The first time I wanted to go to Iceland was watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty snuggled in my college dorm room freshman year. This was a point when I started dreaming up different adventures I would go on in my life. I recently rewatched this movie and couldn’t help but feel nostalgic that I made a trip dream come true. 18-year-old Emily would be proud.
Experience:
My goodness, does Iceland live up to the hype. From chasing volcanic eruptions to running behind waterfalls, Iceland crushed every expectation I had for the trip. In my 25 countries, I have never experienced a landscape as awe-inspiring and otherworldly as driving the ring road. In an 8-day road trip, the terrain ranged from glacial mountains to wind-swept waterfalls. To call the weather “unpredictable” would be an understatement. In our week’s adventure, we experienced winds up to 75 mph, gorgeous sunny days, torrential downpours, and fog thick enough to hide our other van companions.
Overall, we checked many items off our bucket list in this one country but still didn’t get to see everything we wanted. In short, this was the most epic adventure, and we will be back.
The Best Way to do it:
After experiencing the camaraderie of caravanning through Iceland in a camper van (lovingly named Big Bertha) with 2 of my closest friends, I can say with complete confidence that is the only way I would want to see Iceland. Not only is “van life” a step up from our usual tent camping endeavors, but it killed 2 birds with one stone. It provided us with a car and our accommodation. We rented the Renault Trafic 3 automatic van from the broker Campervan Iceland, where we were equipped with plenty of storage, all essentials for sleeping, a fridge, cooking supplies, and even a heater (which we put to good use on the chilly nights). The staff was wonderfully accommodating and helped us with our many van questions along the trip.
Having the van allowed us the flexibility to choose our campsites based on when we were ready to stop for the day. Because we coordinated our trip to be at the end of the tourist season, we had no trouble rocking up to campsites without a reservation. We found all our campsites here and loved every single place we stayed. Many sites include kitchens, showers, and even washing machines for use. We stayed at Pakgil, nestled just north of Vik near Myrdalsjokull Glacier, where the highlight was a cave common room for cooking and drinking after a long day of waterfall hunting. We camped in Hofn, where we enjoyed the walkability to local pubs. We parked it in Skaftafell, where we washed our clothes and enjoyed 2 hikes to different waterfalls located just outside the campsite. We loved the ease and affordability of camping, and Big Bertha quickly became our second home, deeming us each our own van chores- bed transition, sweeping, cooking/cleaning, etc. She was good to us.
Affordability:
One thing that worried me about Iceland was the price tag I assumed came with the trip. However, after we dove into costs, the 8-day van trip was more affordable than I expected. We paid about $700 each for the van (far less than what hotel rooms and a rental car would have cost). Campsites ranged from about $15-$30 per night per person. Not charging by the vehicle did come as a bit of a surprise. Eating out was a pretty penny, so we ended up cooking most of our meals, with the exception of some fish soup at the lovely Cafe Sumarlina. Groceries were also affordable – we did all of our shopping at the Kronan, and prices were comparable to what you would see in a major US city. We spent our last night in Iceland in downtown Reykjavik and used points for that hotel since the sticker price was a bit too high for what we were looking for.
Itinerary:
Carly and I started our adventure by flying from Newark to KEF, landing early morning Icelandic time. We got picked up by the folks at Rent.is, and we were off with our van in under an hour. We drove straight to Reykjavik to putz around and eat breakfast before picking up Bianca later in the day. Once we secured our 3rd passenger and got used to driving our van (the city girls needed an adjustment period), we headed to Blue Lagoon. We camped near Keflavik, where we checked off bucket list item number 1: seeing a live volcanic eruption. It was insanely wild to see a ball of fire rising from the ground after leaving one of the world’s most remarkable natural hot springs.
We then proceeded to take the south route of the ring road (clockwise), traveling through the Golden Circle and beyond. From what I read before our trip, most people drive this route, but we wanted to be sure we were traveling with the good weather. On the whole, we got pretty lucky, experiencing most of our rain by night. Highlights in the south were Seljarlandsfoss and Skógafoss. Both breathtaking waterfalls. We dubbed this “foss city”. We threw on some crampons to hike Europe’s largest glacier the following day, checking off another bucket list item. As we traveled east, we experienced lands of moss and rocks until we reached the black sand beaches and foggy fishing villages. In Northern Iceland, we stopped at the iconic Dettifoss, where the wind relentlessly whipped us for a two-kilometer hike. If you plan on stopping here, bring wind-protective jackets and pants. I can still feel the tiny shards of rocks ripping into my leggings. While we had many stops on our list, some of my favorite experiences were pulling over at random locations when something looked intriguing. I loved being able to make our own itinerary as we drove.
The road trip itself is the best one I’ve taken in my life. I have never seen anything like Iceland, and getting to drive the country with the girls made it all the better. I will always cherish our nights in the van feasting on chocolate and wine and playing cards. Do you want to get close with 2 people? Go on this trip. While we may have missed out on a few bucket list items – AKA the puffins (they migrate at the end of August) and the aurora borealis, we now have 2 perfect reasons to return.
Iceland, you made me feel like Walter Mitty and fulfilled my wildest dreams.
– Bel & Ana
For day-by-day details, I made itineraries you can download below:
Google Sheets 8 day Iceland Itinerary
#VANcation #camperstories
