We reached the bottom of the fjord to a town called Seydisfjordur and it was amazingly scenic.
Day 6
We woke up to an awesome cat in our AirBNB.
Went on a hike.
We then left the fjord and our drive out got interrupted by wild sheep
After our drive, we went to another thermal spring near Mývatn, but no pictures there this time
Day 7
We came across these mounds spewing steam but left some pretty colorful pools (pic doesn't show it well). This is just outside Mývatn at a place called Hverir
We then went to see Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe
And just around the corner was Selfoss
Yeah waterfalls are really everywhere.
I then went to stay with family in Húsavík.
Day 8
This was probably our most fun day. Here we are suiting up for whales in Húsavík.
But before the big guys were the puffins.
They were everywhere. We went out in the mist and as it cleared we found our boat encircled by them.
Then we saw a spinner dolphin. They said they maybe saw 10 a year up there. They're known for spinning in the air when they jump, and boy do they
But enough of the small guys, we wanted whales. We moved on and encountered 2 or 3 humpback whales. We got really close in the zodiac. It was well worth the moola.
We also got to see one fully breach. It was amazing and right in front of the boat. Unfortunately it happened so fast, I didn't get any pics.
We then continued on the ring road and got within 25 miles of the Arctic circle (probably the closest I'll ever get).
Day 9
This was our longest day of driving, 5+ hours back to Reykjavík. But we did stop to see some seals near Hvammstangi!
Day 10
We're now back in Reykjavík, but doing something called the Golden Circle. If you do a 1-2 day stop over in Iceland, this is something that you can easily do (took us 4 hours).
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The first stop was Þingvellir, a park built along where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes out of the ocean and onto land. This is us between the North American and European tectonic plates
Next is the geysir that started it all!
But that one doesn't do much anymore, but next to it is another one that does!
The final waterfall of our trip was Gulfoss, the largest in Europe.
Day 11
This is our last day. It was rainy again so all we did was see the Lutheran cathedral in town.
TL;DR
Iceland is a beautiful place. Waterfalls, glaciers, whales, waterfalls, and sheep everywhere. Everything there is quite expensive, but in my opinion well worth it. You can see much of what we did with a 2-3 day trip (for example they have tour buses that take you from Reykjavík to the iceberg lagoon and everything in between on a 14 hour ride) if you just want a taste though.
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If you want to ignore TLC's advice and chase waterfalls, this is the place to go.
Trip Details
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Lodgings
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Activities
Food (missing most as we tended to eat at road side locations)
Day 0
The vacation started with the flight on WOW Air
You all laugh, but I slept quite a few hours with that thing. Would've been more if it weren't for the super hard seats on WOW.
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Day 1
We got to Iceland at 4am and nothing was open, so we got our rental car, found a cliff and slept for a few hours. This was the view from our parking spot at 5am.
Next up was the Blue Lagoon, one of National Geographic's Natural World Wonders. This place is a geothermal pool. This means the water is heated by lava flows deep down and rises up to the pool. When it rises, it apparently picks up tons of silica, which gives it that cloudy, blue color.
After that, we hit the road and came across these awesome waterfalls. We parked the car and walked to a more secluded one first.
but the original, Seljalandsfoss, was amazing.
Day 2
The next day was glacier hiking/climbing on the Sólheimajökull Glacier.
One thing we learned that is really cool is that the black stuff in the ice is volcanic ash. This ash comes from explosions and then new ice forms on top. That ash insulates the ice though, so where it exists, the ice below it melts slower when exposed to sun, which creates mini ice peaks and where there is less ash (or none), it melts faster creating the crevasse.
Day 3
The next day was more hiking and waterfalls. The day started at the water fall that we'd been hearing from our hostel the last few nights called Skógafoss.
You climb to the top and can start an amazing all day hike called Fimmvörðuháls which takes you by the volcano that erupted and caused all of that commotion with air traffic to Europe in 2010, but we only did the first fourth of it which was amazingly beautiful.
What is crazy about Iceland is that everywhere you turn there are awesome waterfalls. This is due to the glaciers and volcanoes. The mountains are very "soft" so anytime there is glacier movement, they scratch things very easily, creating the valleys like the waterfalls above and giving the sides of mountains cliffs instead of gentle slopes.
We also saw our first black sand beach and they crazy basalt column formations. This was at Reynisfjara Beach.
After this, we came across a sandstorm. There are quite a few areas with little to no vegetation, so sandstorms are very common. If you every go, make sure to get the Sand and Ash protection for your car.
Doesn't this look like you're on the Mars?
We then made it to Jokulsarlon, the glacier lake.
They filmed part of Die Another Day here and somewhere beneath the ice are 2 wrecked Aston Martins.
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Getting up close and personal with my relatives.
Day 4
This day sucked. It was our first rainy day, but we did see reindeers!
Day 5
We started driving through East Iceland and their fjords. We saw salmon farms
and more waterfalls.
To cross one of the fjords, we had to drive up and over the mountains which put us into a cloud with snow covered, iced over lakes on either side of the road. Even then, people were driving 75 mph+ which freaked us out.
But over the pass was more waterfalls.
