On June 1st, 2017 I boarded WOW Airlines from Boston and flew to Iceland. My friend and I heard so much about the country. The scenery, hiking and landscapes. We are both film majors and wanted to experience and photograph the amazing landscape. We could not afford to stay in hotels and also rent cars. We decided that the best most affordable and exciting way to see Iceland was to rent a camper and drive across the country. The flexibility of being able to drive and park around the country and sleep there sounded amazing. Being able to fall asleep to the colorful sunsets and wake up to the morning light was an incredible experience. After researching different camper companies we decided Rent.is was the best option for us and we rented with them.
I arrived in Iceland in the morning and was helped right away. The customer service person at the rental building was extremely helpful. He showed me everything about the camper that we needed to know. From the heating, GPS, fridge and gas. I felt like I was ready to head right out. My traveling partner actually missed our flight, so for the first day I was on my own. I was nervous about driving the camper in a different country. But Iceland was very easy to navigate and I had no problem driving. I stayed close to Reykjavik on my first day because I had to wait for my friend to land the next day. Navigating Iceland was easy and interesting. I followed down the main highways and there were many signs to let me know if there were sites to pull off to see. On my first day I saw some amazing things just 30 minutes outside Reykjavik. I was anxious for my friend to land so that we could explore more of the country. We knew we wanted to do so much but we were only staying for 5 days. We wanted to see mountains, glaciers, hot springs and more! We had a rough idea where we wanted to go but we decided to be spontaneous.
Read more: What’s included in your camper rental
My first night before my friend flew in, I pulled into a campground on the water. What I didn’t realize before coming to Iceland is that during the Summer it’s bright almost 24 hours a day. And during the middle of the night the sun is low and looks amazing. It was perfect for taking photos and video. Being able to see the sun all night was an incredible experience. The camper was very cozy my first night. Flipping out the bed and covering the windows was simple and made for a good night sleep. It was a bit chilly at night when I was there, but the heating system in the camper was fast and very warm. Even if it was the middle of the winter the heating would have kept us very toasty. I had a great night sleep and the next morning I picked my friend up from the airport and we were on our way.
Our first morning we were trying to get out of the city and into the country as soon as possible. We went to the market in Reykjavik and got all the food we would need. The fridge was big enough so we were able to buy enough food to last during our trip. We were able to save a lot of money because of the camper. We didn’t have much of a travel plan, but we knew we were going to drive south and make our way east. It seemed like every thirty minutes there was something mesmerizing to see. The highways were well marked with attractions and we got great cell phone service which made navigating across the country that much easier. As we drove we stopped at sulfur pools, hot springs, waterfalls, ocean cliffs and more. My favorite activity from our trip was on the second to last day.
We were pretty tired and had already been in two hot springs, but we wanted to try one more. We looked up and found Reykjadalur. We read it was a hike to the hot spring and we were nervous it would be a long walk, but it was a perfect hike. It took us an hour to hike up the mountain, we had an amazing view of the landscape and luckily we had our cameras and drones to capture the views. Once we got to the spring and got in, we knew it was well worth it. The warm water was so refreshing after the long hike, we didn’t want to leave. After we dried off we noticed the path kept going higher up. No one else continued up but we did and we got to witness some incredible waterfalls and birds in their habitat. We were lucky to have continued up the mountain. Once we were done with our hike we were exhausted and found a pull off, off the highway to sleep. Little did we know we were in store for one of the best sunsets we had ever seen. As I said before it doesn’t really get dark during the summer, so sunsets last all night. There was a colorful sunset all night ranging from orange to red to purple. It really was difficult to sleep because we wanted to take in the moment.
Every day in Iceland was better than I could have imagined!. It was full of adventures and scenery that we had never experienced before. We tried to stop at every spot we could. As a videographer, Iceland provided us with a landscape filled with so much beauty that it made it hard to leave. Getting the camper was a great decision because we could hike and drive all day until we couldn’t walk anymore, and luckily when we were so exhausted we could stop, sleep in the camper, refuel and go again the next day. I would highly recommend getting a camper and exploring Iceland to everyone! We were only able to explore the southern part of the island because we were only there 5 several days. But from what we saw we would love to come back and walk the glaciers, do a volcano tour and drive around the entire country so that we could experience all of Iceland!
Read more: Falling from the sky
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