Iceland may not have been at the top of my list of places to visit, but I fell in love with the country after our trip and haven't stopped dreaming about returning. In September 2022, fresh from the lockdown and pandemic, I wanted an easy and outdoorsy trip, and Iceland seemed like the perfect fit. So we spent 8 days in Western Iceland, with long travel days and slow days in between.
I wrote a 4-day itinerary for a travel blog (post coming at a later date) to share some of the best things we saw and some tips to make the most of it. I’ll leave the practical stuff to the travel blogs, but for mine, I just want to talk (and show) some of the reasons why I loved it.
1. It’s so moody
Pictured: Gunnuhver hot springs a couple kilometers south of Reykjavik.
We got all sorts of weather while we were there. We traveled in September, which is the tail end of summer in the northern hemisphere, and we knew we’d be getting some cold days (we packed a lot of waterproof clothing). And we got sunny days and cloudy days, but most of all, we got a lot of drizzle. Rain doesn’t phase me, and I love a dramatic sky and gray clouds moment on a trip. Admittedly, dipping into the Blue Lagoon with freezing winds and the coldest temperatures we got the whole trip wasn’t the most comfortable for the head and hands sticking above the water, but it LOOKED cool, okay? And I’d do it all again.
2. The cute horses
Pictured: An Iceland Horse I med wandering the Snæfellsjökull Peninsula
I was very determined to see an Icelandic horse up close, but we kept just seeing them while driving when there was no safe spots to park. Looking on Google Maps the night before, I saw there was a Berg Horse Farm place located just a few minutes from Kirkjufell, and we decided to try to drive there. We ended up not going all the way to the farm, as we found a herd eating in a pasture by a dirt road with no traffic halfway there. So we parked in a safe location off the road (never stop on the road! It's unsafe and very annoying for other drivers) and walked to see the horses up close; they are adorable.
Fun fact I learned (either from a guidebook or because my dad texted me about it, can’t remember which): horses cannot be imported into Iceland. You can export those cute little guys anywhere (there’s even an Icelandic Horse Farm an hour away from me here in Vermont), but no horses can go to Iceland. I think even if you export one, they can’t go back.
3. Waterfalls, waterfalls, waterfalls…
Pictured: Seljalandsfoss waterfall in Southern Icenland.
I feel like this one is self explanatory! So I’ll just share some pictures!
4. It’s so EASY to visit
Pictured: Kirkjufell
As someone with a very sedentary job and very sedentary hobbies, a day of hiking tough terrains to see a. beautiful vista at the end of it is not my idea of fun. I DO want to see the beautiful views though, I just don’t want to work that hard for them. In that way, Iceland over-delivers to people like me: a lot of its beautiful landscapes were so easy to get to, some we can even see from the road! Almost everywhere we went the parking was so close to the attractions, and the paths were wide and easy to walk in. I expected Iceland to be much more rugged (I packed my hiking shoes – yes, I do own a pair, surprisingly) but it was incredibly easy to get around and see a lot of things without having to get muddy and sweaty. And if you do like some adventure with your trip, at the time I visited, they had a volcano eruption you could hike to. But it was a two hour hike each way and our available day for it was very rainy, so instead we opted for staying in the car and driving around.
5. The Blue Lagoon IS all that
Pictured: the Blue Lagoon
Yes it is incredibly touristy and crowded. But it is also absolutely wonderful. The color of the water reminded me of our trip to Banff and all the glacier lakes we saw that we didn’t get to swim in, but this one was even better because it was warm and it came with complimentary mud masks and a beverage of your choice. I could have stayed there all day.
6. Reykjavik is magical
Pictured: Rainbow road and Hallgrímskirkja Cathedral
We based ourselves in Reykjavik for the entire trip, with the idea we’d do day trips from it to all places within a 3- to 4-hour drive, and take a break to explore the capital in between day trips. It was fantastic because we got to see a lot of the city in all sorts of weather, we walked a ton, and got to try some interesting restaurants. We tried the “world famous” hot dog, had some Omnom ice cream and chocolate, and sampling the local beer. My absolute favorite thing though, besides our long aimless walks through the city, was the Reykjavik cats. We saw quite a few cute cats just hanging around downtown.
7. The black-sand beaches
Pictured: Djúpalónssandur
All the landscapes were so striking, but none more than all the black sand beaches I saw. My husband and I agreed that our favorite thing in this trip was seeing Reynisfjara, the famous black sand beach in southern Iceland, because we had never seen anything like it. We went on the low tide and were able to walk and explore some quieter parts of the beach, to touch the rocks, to play with taking pictures of all the textures. And a couple of days later, we traveled northwest to the Snæfellsjökull Peninsula where we saw Djúpalónssandur, a fantastic black-sand beach with shipwrecks wreckage strewn around; and we also had a stop at Arnarstapi, with their many outcrops of rocks shaped by the ocean’s moods. It felt like being in another planet.
Thanks for indulging me in this trip down memory lane. I had an amazing time on this trip, and can’t wait to visit Iceland again, this time to explore the Eastern and Northern sides.
