This is our Iceland story

CamperStories

Do you think you can plan your trip to Iceland?

Know what you are going to do each day, where you are going to sleep or eat? I am really sorry to inform, but it is not going to work in Iceland. This is our story…

We are a couple from Spain and Poland. Each of us is totally different, but we love to travel together and we knew that one day we would like to visit Vikings’ and Elves’ country. In March we opened one blog created by people who were traveling around Iceland. We were impressed with the colors, nature, climate and their story. Few hours later we booked the flight.

We were planning our trip for two months and we had exiting schedule for seven days. First of all, we decided to rent a campervan to be more flexible and try something new. We had some concerns in the beginning, but after first night in Iceland we decided that it was great decision.

We started our trip in Reykjavik, where we had a chance to meet Icelanders, eat local hot-dogs and get familiar with Icelandic architecture. Next day we walked through Þingvellir National Park, we watched gazers and felt the power of nature next to Gullfoss waterfall. After the first day we already knew that this is an incredible country and we could come here only for one day to see these three spectacular places.

We are really lucky to know one lovely lady from Iceland who invited us to her home. She is baking magnificent bread in hot springs and she is a huge fan of Eurovision contest. We had a chance to support Iceland in semi-finals with her and we will never forget this experience. Strong wind woke us up few times that night, but this is nothing unusual in Iceland (at least this is what they say). We woke up early in the morning, ate fantastic bread made in hot springs and we got underway. That day Seljalandsfoss waterfall made us totally wet, Skógafoss was in our shoes for few hours and black sand from Vik beach literally entered to the car (of course it is all clean right now.

Wind was strong, but nothing could stop us and our camper. Not until Kirkjubæjarklaustur at least… We passed the village and turned right to Höfn, but the road was CLOSED. We had no idea what it meant. Can they close the road? The wind is so strong? We entered to the restaurant to find the answers for our questions. Inside we met 20 tourists looking at the screen with the red alert. We already knew that we are going to spend more time there.

Unfortunately no one is able to predict when the weather will change (not the policeman nor the local waiter in the restaurant – we tried them both). We decided to make new friendships and “enjoy” the moment together with other travelers. We had many hours to prepare an alternative plan. In the meantime the road back to Reykjavik got closed as well. We got stuck. We were not sure if we are be able to continue the trip, maybe we will not achieve our goals, maybe we will miss our plane… There was a possibility that nothing is going to change for a few more days, as the forecast was really bad. That time, we could only refresh Road.is website every 5 minutes and listen some good music in our camper. How lucky we were to have home on wheels.

After 12 hours we understood how Iceland works. Few minutes later the road was open again and we decided to continue our trip immediately. Even we could see green light on the road the conditions were still challenging and we experienced 4 seasons within 1 hour with winter snow and summer sun.

We can say that we lost one day or maybe luckily we discovered real Iceland?

Later on, we visited Skaftafell National Park and glacier, we saw swimming ice bergs in Jökulsárlón (wow, my number one!) and incredible eastern fiords.

We need to admit that road conditions were really challenging. We were in the middle of volcano dessert with flying stones and incredible wind. Obviously, this is nothing new for the reindeer that we met on our way.

On our way to the north we saw one of the most important geothermal areas – Hverir. We felt there like on a different planet walking between steam vents and dry, colorful mud. If you would like to experience trip to Mars, you can definitely do it in Iceland!

We couldn’t wait to see the whales in Húsavik. For us, “whale watching” is mandatory trip when I am close to the ocean. Unfortunately again, wind decided to remind us that we are close to the North Pole. The wind was really strong, it was raining and it caused storm on the sea. No one wanted to risk and go to open ocean. I need to say that accepting this fact was much easier this time, as we already understood that the weather is the most important in Iceland and you cannot disrespect her! We decided to run away from the storm and to look for whales in other part of the ocean. We had that opportunity in calm waters close to Akureyri. It was incredible boat trip in 60 kilometer fjord with humpback whales in the middle.

Later on, we discovered the rest of northern fjords with a beautiful town: Siglufjörður. The weather got much better and we had a chance to see beautiful landscapes and cozy villages on the coast. Our next goal was to see wild seals on Vatnsnes peninsula. We were there for few hours, but even with our touristic binoculars we couldn’t find them. One local Icelander said that they do not like rain and probably they are swimming in the sea, but we decided not to risk our lives and we stayed on the coast.

Right now we are still in the north and we have few more places to visit, but we are not planning anything. We will check what Iceland will let us to see and for sure we will let you know.

Dear travellers! Iceland is an amazing country with incredible natural history. Until now, we had a chance to see geysers, waterfalls, glaciers, volcanoes, black beach, ice bergs, hot springs, whales and really strong wind. Our recommendations and advices are simple – don’t hesitate to buy the ticket to Iceland, save road.is and vedur.is in your favourite websites and have Walter Mitty soundtrack with you.