The CamperVan Vulpix

Hello! Ciao! Halló! We are Dayton, from the land of hamburgers (USA), and Margherita, from the land of pizza and spaghetti (Italy): a couple which is in a LONG-distance relationship. And what a better halfway place to meet if not Iceland?! With little planned besides a campervan for the last 5 days of an 8 day vacation, we ventured forth into the land of fire and ice. Who’s excited??

To start off, the Icelandic language is hell on earth. Is this a joke? Guys you want to make our lives impossible? Absolutely not! Why? Well, all the Icelanders speak perfect English and have a smile for everybody! What a great atmosphere! We learned about 2 words…. “takk fyrir” which means “thank you”. Other than that. The name of the buildings, waterfalls and mountains had nicknames and hand gestures to describe them. Survival training ?

The first day we toured the capitol and visited many places from the Parliament building to the beautiful church that looked like a geyser to the longest line for a hotdog and much much more.

We jumped on the bandwagon and took a trip to the world’s most breathtaking hot spring, the Blue Lagoon.

Disclaimer: When they say don’t get the mud mask in your eye…DON’T GET IT IN YOUR EYE!

Read more: How to drive in Iceland

From our Airbnb in Reykjavik, we were picked up and brought to the nearby office to acquire our camper van. Margherita was very anxious to see her living quarters for the next five days because she has never done such an adventure like this. Upon arrival at the Rent.is, we were quickly greeted by one of the employees who showed us our camper van and answered all of our questions. We gathered our bags and headed to Krónan for some grocery shopping: getting ready for our real camping life! Winter is cooooooming! We couldn’t wait also to give immediately a name to our camper van, Hey it deserves it! It’s so cute, with many nice colorful drawings on both sides; we loved so much the little fox on our door that we called our van “Vulpix”! (we’re grown ups but still love Pokemon, proud of that!)

For our first day we had planned to go on a very popular hike but (thanks Iceland!!) it started pouring down rain, so we had to change our initial idea. No worries by the way, in this country the weather seriously changes every five minutes and gives you the sight of soooo many stunning rainbows! That’s magic, peeps!

New route was chosen: the southern part of the famous road 1 headed to Vík. Just so you know, windshield wipers went on and off like a thousand times, ah! We stopped on our way to enjoy the magical waterfalls that this country has to offer.

Just: WOW! Is it all seriously real or are we on another planet?! Get ready to get wet, but so worth it! (Marghe’s hair doesn’t agree that much tho haha) We found also a hidden waterfall reachable just by crossing a little river; we got no words but just open dreamy eyes.

Going on, also the Black Sand Beach by Vík was very unique. It was a must see with the powerful waves crashing against the black sand.

Then, it was time to choose our first campsite! And we found for sure our fav one of our whole trip: right at the feet of Skógafoss, way better than any other 5 star hotel……don’t wake us up please! We can’t even explain how many stars were in the sky that night.

Day 2: yes! The weather had been good to us and that meant one only thing: hike time! The starting point was near Selfoss and our goal was to reach a natural hot springs river, couldn’t wait to soak in that! How many times in life you get to do such a thing?! Dayton was happy as a little kid in a candy store! Marghe was too, until she almost died because of the cold air after the dip in the river haha but she has no hope! A lizard can regulate body temperature better then her. ?

Already third day, gosh time passes by so fast when you’re having a great time! From Selfoss we decided to see all the Golden Circle main sites and to end up camping right inside of Þingvellir National Park, another great spot!

Main activity of the day: waiting for 30 mins in front of a spot we thought was a geyser with great anticipation but was later told by a fellow traveler that it goes off every 6-8 hours….

So we packed up and moved to a more active little water volcano…. We found a geyser that erupts every 5-10 minutes, applause for us (thank you, thank you). We also managed to admire the huuuuuuge Gullfoss waterfalls and a majestic colorful crater (we were told concerts are sometimes organized in it, isn’t it the coolest thing ever?) At the end of the day it was time for the Silfra Fissure with a 2ºC water temperature. Dayton attempted to ask Margherita if she wanted to go snorkeling… incredibly funny…!

Read more: Travel apps for Iceland

We woke up this sunny morning with no plans. We looked at our maps and decided to head north. We set our target on the large peninsula above Reykjavik. We drove for about 3 hours going from rainbow to rainbow and waterfall to waterfall until we hit the town of Grundarfjörður.  Margherita was the outstanding navigator that only had to pee about 500 times. We relaxed all day walking around the town and took great pictures at Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall and Kirkjufell mountain.

The day of rain had come upon us. We woke up and it was raining and didn’t stop till we went to bed. This day was especially bad because our wonderful van’s wind shield wipers broke!

Imagine going down a one lane road with no shoulders in the pouring rain when the wind shield wipers stop. It was like a geyser went off in the car when Margherita looked up from her Lonely Planet book and realized Dayton was trying his best to limp to a turn out spot we could safely stop. Once we had stopped the car in a somewhat safe location. We called Rent.is for help. They sent out their technician, Baldur.  Baldur was a ray of sunshine in the rain. He quickly arrived and escorted us to his nearby house. He was very open and friendly. While he worked to fix our van he talked to us about what it was like living in Iceland. He made our disaster into one of the highlights of the trip.

Language – impossible

Weather – changes faster then your behavior when entering a church

Internet – Very handy when navigating

Heater – Even Margherita was toasty

Read more:  10 days around Iceland

Happy Camping!  #CamperStories