Our 9 days in Iceland was a phenomenal experience. We highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see the aurora and have opportunities to do more than just wait for aurora. Even if you visit during the summer when the aurora is not in view, there is so much to do all around the island. The south part of the island is the most popular for obvious reasons, but doing all of ring road is recommended if you want to see all that Iceland has to offer. We had cell signal on nearly every part of the island - especially along ring road. Most locals spoke English or a broken version enough to be able to communicate.
A few random comments/notes to help others considering making the trip. Camper vans and camping around the island is very popular. There are campgrounds and you can also just camp in certain parking lots or parks. They are much more expensive than our SUV so we opted to just get a larger SUV and periodically stay in Guesthouses. Guesthouses are extremely clean and comfortable - at least those that we stayed at. They are a neat way to meet other travelers and have the opportunity to cook for yourself. During the summer, many offer lunch services and/or have restaurants in them as well. Traveling to Iceland in winter sounds crazy but it is actually a very good time to visit - especially if you want to see the aurora. To see the aurora, there are a couple tools we used. 1) cloud cover weather app to determine what part of the island is expected to have cloud cover for the evening and 2) aurora app that shows anticipated KP index and active tracking of the aurora movements. A friend had recommended the grocery stores with a pig (Bonus) as the most reasonable grocery store and I agree. We were not able to visit one until our last night in Iceland. During the winter open hours of restaurants, groceries and gas stations are quite odd so you go where you can when you see them. Before you go, be sure to check your exchange rates, notify multiple credit card companies of your travels and most importantly have a pin # for your credit card. You must use the card after pin is setup in US at a store with signature before leaving. This is necessary because there are many unmanned gas stations that PIN #'s are required. It is not a cash advance - just your signature. WOW is a discounted airline that travels to Iceland from the US for very cheap. They are an a la carte airline where you pay for carry on and checked bags. We flew Delta. During the winter months, it is only light from approximately 10am to 4/5pm. Time activities accordingly.
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| We got a really nice SUV rental from Lagoon, but had some issues, broken windshield, broken mud flap, and chipped paint on rear door from another car. No biggie right, well, $2800 biggies! I filed a claim with MasterCard and patiently to get reimbursed for the damages. Note: our MasterCard coverage did NOT cover the complete claim. |
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| We didn't discuss under carriage damage. |
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| 1000$ Euro plastic mud flap... |
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| This is a 900$ Euro chip in the windshield |
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| Tiny 900$ Euro ding. Can you see it? Yeah... |
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| Gull Beer is pretty light and tasty...especially at 7:30am before our flight! |
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