Fireman78
Expedition Leader
Fireman78's Iceland Adventure 2013
Hi folks!! I wanted to post up a trip report of my recent trip to Iceland, March 12-22, 2013. I want to show some of the wonderful scenery, describe some of my adventures, as well as help out with some “Expence” and "Logistic" examples to help those who may want to take a similar trip.
Disclaimer- everything here is from my own personal adventures in Iceland. I will post some things with my opinions....please.. they are just my opinions.
Iceland is a wonderful place, full of wonderful people, amazing terrain, amazing waterfalls, and pure adventure. And it is cheaper to get there then you think. Although eating and drinking is kinda spendy. Any questions don't hesitate to ask via forum or PM. Also keep in mind, prices , in summer, will be inflated. In some cases substantially.
This will most likely be a multi day posting, as I don't think there is a draft feature and it may take a while to post my pics and narrate.
There are only a few cities in the US with direct flights to Iceland. I paid 500 dollars for a direct flight from Denver to Keflavik Airport. (Just 15 min. outside of the capital city of Reykavik). The plane was very nice and had video moniters with free movies and shows. The airport was great. It was like a mall. If you had to hang out there for a while on your return leg it wouldn't be a bad place to hang out. These pics are not in perfect order. I am not that orginized.
Our first rental.
Advice on a rental car. (OK.. I am assuming most of you reading on this forum would NOT be doing all the "trendy" touristy stuff via tourbus.., so the rental car stuff is probably approriate). Again.. my opinion only.. but from what I dealt with , in the future, I would suggest just show up at the airport and negotiate for a rental car. We reserved one months in advance and paid WAAAY too much for a piece of junk. The worst part was, we went through five different rental cars in a nine day period. I don't want to post the name of the rental place we used, but I will tell someone over a PM. Go with a newer model.... please....
Hotel is on the right. We stayed in Reyjavik the first night. A small simple room was 7,500 ISK (Islandic Kroner) or about 60 US dollars for a very small room in a small hotel. Everything is small in Icleand except the views! The exchange rate is about 125-1. So having to do math in your head is a garuntee. Most places have a small, simple breakfast in the morning, which usually consists of sliced cheese, meats, yogurt, juice and coffee. No breakfast burritos here!
Not sure where this was at but it was our second night I think. There is great beer here. Mori is great!!. Viking is good, standard beer. Touberg is great. Beer can be expensive.. can be roughly 6-9 bucks a glass.
Lots of snorkles here!!! LOTS!! I felt at home, although I missed my Power Wagon. Although, deisel and petrol was approx 10 dollars a gallon. So.... use that info wisely.
The town of Akureryi, second largest in Iceland, up north, lots of skiing, good pizza., (We did the "Ring Road"), mostly, had a few detours, a few road closures, but basically circled the island. This pic is of my first Iceland Geocache!! We stayed in a guesthouse here, roughly 100 bucks a night. Shared kitchen, some rooms had a shared bathroom, but my room had a bathroom. Make sure, if you enter any HOUSE in Iceland, you remove your shoes. Not hotels, but guesthouses, or regular houses.. remove your shoes please.
We drank right out of rivers. Nary a thought about it either. Cold, clean, perfect...
Icelandic Horses. From what we heard.. once an Icelandic horse leaves Iceland, it may NEVER return. They are very protective of the purity of these gorgeous animals
I love lighthouses, some were small and cute like this one.
Typical road conditions on Hiway 1. (The Ring Road). This was actually decent, as we had yet to see the bad parts.
From what we could tell, this was a milage marker to all sorts of points all over the country. Was was really cool is this is in the middle of flipping nowhere!
Godafoss. Waterfall of the Gods. The beauty of being there in March in the freezing cold, is we were ALONE at these "Attractions".
Reindeer! This was taken from the hotel room in "Eyyastaad" although that is NOT how it is spelled. I can't seem to find the spelling.
Where we got the Land Cruiser stuck searching for a waterfall. Decided to turn around and not chance it anymore. This area was like Hoth from Empire Strikes Back.
Closed means closed. Trust Us.
We were driving into the area where this guy came out of.
Visability was getting very poor over the mountain pass.
The last we saw of the Land Cruiser. We were a few hundred yards of the main highway checking out a Lighthouse when the A Arm bolts snapped, and the axle broke. Leaving us stranded. We were NOT "Off road". I know the rules in Iceland about that. There was a two track leading up to the lighthouse and we were going very very slow. This vehicle had over 400,000 KM on the clock and it was rusted out underneath.!
We found help via two Americans stopping by to let us use their phone. Hint.. Verizon doesn't exist here. But if you have an IPHONE (I of course did not).... with an IPHONE you can get an Icelandic SIM card and have a signal. I was without a phone unfortunatly. We got ahold of the rental car company that told us they would send a local farmer to pick us up. I started to think , now our trip gets interesting. Within 30 minutes a farmer and his boy showed up!!! I couldn't believe it. Keep in mind, it was bitterly cold and brutally windy and we were in the middle of nowhere on the east coast of Iceland.
So we spent the day on a farm while my brother figured out how to get another rental car. The farmers son drove my brother 90 miles back through a horrible storm to pick one up. Amazing. The farmers fed us, chatted with us, showed us around, took us into their homes and treated us like family. Amazing people.
The farmers! Our saviors!!! Best folks in the world.
END OF PART ONE....
Hi folks!! I wanted to post up a trip report of my recent trip to Iceland, March 12-22, 2013. I want to show some of the wonderful scenery, describe some of my adventures, as well as help out with some “Expence” and "Logistic" examples to help those who may want to take a similar trip.
Disclaimer- everything here is from my own personal adventures in Iceland. I will post some things with my opinions....please.. they are just my opinions.
Iceland is a wonderful place, full of wonderful people, amazing terrain, amazing waterfalls, and pure adventure. And it is cheaper to get there then you think. Although eating and drinking is kinda spendy. Any questions don't hesitate to ask via forum or PM. Also keep in mind, prices , in summer, will be inflated. In some cases substantially.This will most likely be a multi day posting, as I don't think there is a draft feature and it may take a while to post my pics and narrate.
There are only a few cities in the US with direct flights to Iceland. I paid 500 dollars for a direct flight from Denver to Keflavik Airport. (Just 15 min. outside of the capital city of Reykavik). The plane was very nice and had video moniters with free movies and shows. The airport was great. It was like a mall. If you had to hang out there for a while on your return leg it wouldn't be a bad place to hang out. These pics are not in perfect order. I am not that orginized.
Our first rental.
Advice on a rental car. (OK.. I am assuming most of you reading on this forum would NOT be doing all the "trendy" touristy stuff via tourbus.., so the rental car stuff is probably approriate). Again.. my opinion only.. but from what I dealt with , in the future, I would suggest just show up at the airport and negotiate for a rental car. We reserved one months in advance and paid WAAAY too much for a piece of junk. The worst part was, we went through five different rental cars in a nine day period. I don't want to post the name of the rental place we used, but I will tell someone over a PM. Go with a newer model.... please....
Hotel is on the right. We stayed in Reyjavik the first night. A small simple room was 7,500 ISK (Islandic Kroner) or about 60 US dollars for a very small room in a small hotel. Everything is small in Icleand except the views! The exchange rate is about 125-1. So having to do math in your head is a garuntee. Most places have a small, simple breakfast in the morning, which usually consists of sliced cheese, meats, yogurt, juice and coffee. No breakfast burritos here!
Not sure where this was at but it was our second night I think. There is great beer here. Mori is great!!. Viking is good, standard beer. Touberg is great. Beer can be expensive.. can be roughly 6-9 bucks a glass.
Lots of snorkles here!!! LOTS!! I felt at home, although I missed my Power Wagon. Although, deisel and petrol was approx 10 dollars a gallon. So.... use that info wisely.
The town of Akureryi, second largest in Iceland, up north, lots of skiing, good pizza., (We did the "Ring Road"), mostly, had a few detours, a few road closures, but basically circled the island. This pic is of my first Iceland Geocache!! We stayed in a guesthouse here, roughly 100 bucks a night. Shared kitchen, some rooms had a shared bathroom, but my room had a bathroom. Make sure, if you enter any HOUSE in Iceland, you remove your shoes. Not hotels, but guesthouses, or regular houses.. remove your shoes please.
We drank right out of rivers. Nary a thought about it either. Cold, clean, perfect...
Icelandic Horses. From what we heard.. once an Icelandic horse leaves Iceland, it may NEVER return. They are very protective of the purity of these gorgeous animals
I love lighthouses, some were small and cute like this one.
Typical road conditions on Hiway 1. (The Ring Road). This was actually decent, as we had yet to see the bad parts.
From what we could tell, this was a milage marker to all sorts of points all over the country. Was was really cool is this is in the middle of flipping nowhere!
Godafoss. Waterfall of the Gods. The beauty of being there in March in the freezing cold, is we were ALONE at these "Attractions".
Reindeer! This was taken from the hotel room in "Eyyastaad" although that is NOT how it is spelled. I can't seem to find the spelling.
Where we got the Land Cruiser stuck searching for a waterfall. Decided to turn around and not chance it anymore. This area was like Hoth from Empire Strikes Back.
Closed means closed. Trust Us.
We were driving into the area where this guy came out of.
Visability was getting very poor over the mountain pass.
The last we saw of the Land Cruiser. We were a few hundred yards of the main highway checking out a Lighthouse when the A Arm bolts snapped, and the axle broke. Leaving us stranded. We were NOT "Off road". I know the rules in Iceland about that. There was a two track leading up to the lighthouse and we were going very very slow. This vehicle had over 400,000 KM on the clock and it was rusted out underneath.!We found help via two Americans stopping by to let us use their phone. Hint.. Verizon doesn't exist here. But if you have an IPHONE (I of course did not).... with an IPHONE you can get an Icelandic SIM card and have a signal. I was without a phone unfortunatly. We got ahold of the rental car company that told us they would send a local farmer to pick us up. I started to think , now our trip gets interesting. Within 30 minutes a farmer and his boy showed up!!! I couldn't believe it. Keep in mind, it was bitterly cold and brutally windy and we were in the middle of nowhere on the east coast of Iceland.
So we spent the day on a farm while my brother figured out how to get another rental car. The farmers son drove my brother 90 miles back through a horrible storm to pick one up. Amazing. The farmers fed us, chatted with us, showed us around, took us into their homes and treated us like family. Amazing people.
The farmers! Our saviors!!! Best folks in the world.END OF PART ONE....
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