By Geoffrey Gross
Camperstories Winner August 2024
How does one summarize a trip to Iceland? We came to celand without a plan. My wife and I are not what you would call “outdoorsy,” but we do love to travel, and we do love the beauty of nature. We got to Iceland by a non-traditional means; we arrived by ship. Our son works as a musician for a popular ocean cruise line; we both work in education, so we planned a summer cruise on his ship in the North Atlantic. That is why when a recent cruise we had booked on his ship departed from New York Harbor and ultimately disembarked in Reykjavik, we began to explore the possibility of staying some extra days in Iceland after the conclusion of the cruise. Initially, we hoped to rent a car, tour the island, and rent hotel rooms. However, while scouting out hotel prices around the island, it soon became apparent that the most economical way to tour the island was to rent a campervan. The more research we did, the more excited we became about renting a van and alleviating the need to reserve hotel rooms and stick to a predetermined schedule while being able to take advantage of the flexibility of camping and the front row seat to nature it provided. For that reason and because we were so excited about the cruise portion of our trip, mostly so we could see our son, we did not put much thought into the specific itinerary of the land-based portion of our trip before we ported in Iceland.
Once we disembarked our ship and got our campervan, we discovered that because we had never really put together an itinerary for our time in Iceland (this is not like us at all) we would simply follow our son’s ship back around to the north shore of the island from port to port. We usually plan and plan and plan which frankly tends to lead to more stress, but with no formal plan, we discovered that we really had no stress. We simply decided to follow our son’s cruise ship back along the northern coastal stops, and when those days were over, we would simply “wing-it” from there.
When we got our van at the distribution point near the airport, I was impressed with the system of getting from downtown Reykjavik near the cruise ship terminal to the airport on the FlyBus Shuttle and then to the van rental location via the Rent.is provided shuttle service. I disembarked the ship at roughly 6 am and had possession of the rental van by 8 am. Easy process all along the way including the hour trip from downtown Reykjavik to the Keflavik Airport to the rental van office.
Once we got the van we noticed that the exterior of the van was covered with different decals of various locations and activities around the island. Our particular van had fewer decals than most of the other vans we saw: a puffin, a portrait of legendary Icelandic strongman Jon Pall Sigmarsson, a sheep, a raven, a viking helmet, a guitar, and plastered on the hood-a sunset. These items proved to be the inspiration for our circuit around the island.
Day one: We drove the roughly 178 km from Reykjavik to Grundarfjordur on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. If you are a Game of Thrones fan, you will recognize Kirkjufellsfoss and Kirkjufell, the waterfall and mountain often used as a backdrop in the show. A short drive past Kirkjufell led to our first jaw dropping sights of waterfalls and coastline on the island. These sights were only a precursor to what we were to see the rest of our trip: a varied kaleidoscope of scenery, wildlife, flora, food, and people. This was also the first stretch of road where we began to see the countless number of sheep that we began to see along our journey. This is where we downloaded a couple of apps which explained the journey around the Ring Road and added to our enjoyment of what we were seeing along the route. We spent the night in Grundarfjordur at the local campground for roughly $20 USD (this was a typical price) and checked out the local pool, hot tubs, cold tubs, and sauna (this was a typical nightly ritual) which were located a stone’s throw from the campground.
Day two: We drove the roughly 386 km from Grundarfjordur to Hauganes which is on the northern coast on the Eyjafjörður Fjord, the longest fjord in Iceland, about a 30 minute drive north of Akureyri. As fate turned out, we became very familiar with this little village. We set up camp in the local campground and then proceeded to the local whale watching tour which was expertly guided. We found 4-5 humpback whales, some of which were within spitting distance of the vintage fishing boat we used on the tour. We took more pictures and videos than we could have imagined. If you have never experienced a close encounter with a humpback whale or other whale, it is a near-spiritual experience to hear the whale exhale as it surfaces, feel the mist of the spout, then see it gulp in a massive amount of air, and descend again into the arctic depths to continue feeding.
After we got back to the shore, we ate locally caught fish and chips at the neighboring restaurant, Bacalla Bar, and returned to our camper where we were in for a surprise–we had a flat tire. We thought this would throw a huge wrench into our plans for the remainder of our trip, but to the contrary, it simply added to our adventure, and gave us the opportunity to meet some incredible people. The first person we met was Eivers Sizemore, a retired local fisherman who served as the Hauganes campground host. Eivers bent over backwards to first help us inflate the tire, and then when it became clear that the tire was beyond repair, he helped us change the tire. He insisted that we would need to get a new spare tire to replace the one we had to use–”no one can circle Iceland on the Ring Road without a spare tire.”
I placed a call to the emergency number provided by Rent.is and was given detailed instructions; arrangements were made in Akureyri to have the tire replaced, which was all planned and executed by the Rent.is staff. While I changed the tire, my wife caught up on emails for work using the van provided wifi. This episode could have been very stressful, but due to the professionalism and customer service of the Rent.is team, this situation was little more, literally, than a slight bump in the road. The beauty of it was that this bump allowed us time to get to know the community of Hauganes more, we took in the local hot baths, took a dip in the cold waters of the fjord on the black sand beach, and bought local fish at the fish market, Ektafiskur, which we feasted on for the rest of our trip on a nightly basis. Thank you to the community of Hauganes, Eivers, and the Rent.is staff for helping us to avoid a very stressful situation. We hope to go back to Hauganes in the future.
Day Three: We drove the roughly 187 km from Hauganes to Möðrudalur. Along the way we stopped in Akureyri at the botanical garden, continued east, clockwise on the ring road and passed countless waterfalls, the most notable Godafoss, and then later in the day as sunset approached, Selfoss and Dettifoss until we finally camped for the night at the working historical farm at Möðrudalur.
Day Four: This day proved to be the longest day of our adventure. Early in the morning at the Möðrudalur tourist information center we learned of a glacial wave that had been released from Myrdalsjokull Glacier and wiped out a portion of the southern Ring Road. We drove the roughly 555 km from Möðrudalur to Vik. The trip south on road 95 south of Egilsstaðir may have been a hard packed gravel road for a better portion of the journey toward the southern coast as it ran along the Vatnajokull Glacier, but this trek proved to be as beautiful a section of road as anything on our journey. Consistent waterfall sightings, mountain passes, and areas in the highlands that could only be described as feeling like you were traversing the surface of the moon or Mars were common sites. Breathtaking and varied beauty along the way as the day climaxed shortly before dusk as we came upon Diamond Beach. We finally settled into a campground in Vik after dark.
Day Five: Finally on our last full day in Iceland, we drove the roughly 187 km from Vik to Reykjavik. We started the day with a stop at the black sand beaches and basalt columns and caves to the west of Vik. We were surprised by the thousands of puffins we saw nested there and flying there among the numerous other species of seabirds and some ravens–the bird representative of the Norse god-the all-father, Odin. From there we continued on to Seljalandsfoss, the famous waterfall that can be best explored and experienced from the back; we had hoped to see it nearer to sunset, but the timing put us there closer to noon; it was still beautiful. From there, we completed our day by taking in the Golden Circle on our way to Reykjavik. We took in the Kerid Crater, Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss, and Strokkur Geyser.
I am a child of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; ESPN was a steady menu item in my television diet; a main dish of that diet was World’s Strongest Man competitions, and the main ingredient of that strongman dish was self-proclaimed Icelandic Viking Jon Pall Sigmarsson who tragically died in 1993 and is buried just southeast of Reykjavik. No trip to Iceland would have been complete for me without stopping to pay my respects to this legend of my youth. From there we proceeded to the Hotel Viking/Viking Village in Hafnarfjörður to complete our Ring Road adventure as prophesied by the decals on our van. We saw a lot, did a lot, and put on a lot of miles; in hindsight, it is probably good that we did not have more decals on the van. I am not sure how we could have experienced more during our 5 days in Iceland. In total we put on roughly 1493 km total, or just short of 950 miles.
Our camping experience in Iceland proved to be an exceptional time with everything to the van rental process to the comfort of the van itself and the freedom of the open road to the well-distributed, well-furnished campgrounds that just seem to pop up just when you need them; our first camping experience was fantastic. We experienced the wind, the rain, and the beauty of Iceland from our living room-on-wheels. We live in eastern South Dakota in the United States. Our state is very rural and has a total area of 77,000 square miles and a population density of 11.5 persons per square mile. Iceland is about 40,000 square miles and has a population density of 9.5 persons per square mile. Needless to say, we felt very much at home in Iceland. The varied terrain was absolutely stunning, like nothing I have ever seen in my life in such a small area. My wife and I have traveled to all 50 US states; we have been to 7 Canadian provinces, and 13 foreign countries internationally; we have been blessed to see a lot of landscapes and experience many cultures. Iceland is a combination of the best attributes of the best things we have seen across the better part of the western hemisphere. It has the lava fields and black sand beaches of Hawaii, the rugged coastlines of New England and Atlantic Canada, the mountain peaks of Colorado, the calving glaciers of Alaska, the rural farms of South Dakota, the geothermal areas of Yellowstone, the waterfalls of Yosemite, the wave-beaten coastlines of Baja California, the rugged, wind-blown beaches of Oregon, the seafood of Maine and Great Britain, the horse-culture of Wyoming and the American Old West, the lamb of New Zealand, the moist, pure, refreshing rains of Washington state, the entertainment, museums, and culture of midwestern metropolitan communities, it has the purest water I have ever experienced which comes naturally from the tap as both the coldest, most refreshing liquid I have ever experienced and at the same time the warmest most invigorating liquid imaginable, and to top it all off, the friendliness and hospitality of the people is like nothing I have ever experienced. Now take all of those places I mentioned, their greatest attributes, and multiply those attributes exponentially and shove them into a place the size of Western South Dakota, and you have Iceland.
My wife and I have already started to plan our next trip to Iceland, the most beautiful place on earth. Well, I guess we missed a music festival indicative of the guitar decal on our van. That will give us something to start with on our itinerary next time!
