There will be more pictures and video in the full album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/80pRIMXeFZ0Aa03o1
Gears you should have:
- Down jacket, waterproof even better but not necessary, however, the weather could get really bad easily and unpredictable daily
- Sweaters
- Thermal underwear and undershirt but not necessary if your down jacket is good
- Waterproof pants, highly recommend and it’s much cheaper than waterproof jacket
- Merino wool socks
- Swimsuit for blue lagoon and secret lagoon
- Waterproof shoes, got mine from Timberland
- Winter gloves, leather gloves aren’t good enough
- Moisturizer, really dry and cold winds all the time, could cause skin issue due to too dry
- Electronic adapter
- Recommended earmuff
- A regular camera and tripod for Aurora, doesn’t have to be DSLR. Tripod is a MUST
- Ice snow grips is a MUST!!! Get it if you are going there during Winter.
Day 1
Arrive KEF airport at 12:10pm. If your arrival time is
similar to mine or even later, don’t expect you would have much of activity on
the first day because the sunset is around 4-5pm or slightly earlier during
Winter. When you enter the arrival lobby, there will be information desk on the
left-hand side and some sort of a simple grocery store on your right-hand side.
You can purchase Wi-Fi sim card there. We bought 10G data for 7 days, and we
only used about 2-3G, and this is NOT for you to watch your daily shows or
video, use them wisely. We rent our car from Lagoon Car Rental, so they pick us
up from the airport around 1:30pm. Make sure you get AWD, it does make a
significant different if the weather turns out to be bad and snow heavily.
Don’t get their rental coverage if you have any credit card such as CSR and few
others because these cards cover it already.
KEF Airport 🠖 Car Rental: 3min
Car Rental 🠖 Bonus Supermarket: 44min
Bonus Supermarket 🠖 Welcome Apartments Olafsvik: 2hr 38min
After we got our car, we drive to an Iceland local chain
grocery store named Bonus. There are many of them, and we chose to go to the
one in the Reykjavik city and explore around what does city look like here.
Foods are extremely expensive in Iceland, so we brought a good amount of food
and also bought some from stores, so we can cook our meals. A lot of guest house
provides kitchen. Rumor states that coke is
really good in Iceland because their water is clean, and I thought it was
overrated, just a typical coke.
Bonus Super Market
Iceland Coke: Apparently it's supposed to be really good
After grocery shopping, it’s already around 3-4pm. We head
to our first guest house, Welcome Apartments Olafsvik. Its living room is
fairly large, and it has kitchen. It does self-check in and check out, but
their maintenance seem to respond somewhat slowly if any issue happens such as
light went out. It was decent for first two nights. Reason to stay here is that
this location is close to our sites for day 2 & day 3 schedules. Sleep early if your group is self-tour! A lot of
driving and it will make you feel tired.
Welcome Apartments Olafsvik: Living Room
We cook our own dinner! Delicious~
Outside of Welcome Apartments Olafsvik
Cook our own breakfast too!
Welcome Apartments Olafsvik: Entrance
Day 2
In the morning, we leave the apartment around 9am to our
first stop, Kirkjufell, because sunrise doesn’t happen until ~10-10:30am. You
don’t want to take picture of any scenes when the sky is still dark except
Aurora of course. There is a small waterfall on the opposite side of the
Kirkjufell mountain. BE CAREFUL when you walk toward the top because the road is
really icy and it could be extremely slippery. Walk on the right side, outside
of the regular road where there could be a lot of snow, it will be much easier
to walk on compared to the icy road. BTW, this is also a great spot for Aurora
at night time, so you can just drive from apartment if the prediction states
there will be good chance at night time.
Welcome Apartments 🠖 Kirkjufell: 22min
Kirkjufell 🠖 Stykkishólmur: 40min
Stykkishólmur 🠖 Búðakirkja: 57min
Búðakirkja 🠖 Welcome Apartments: 26min
Kirkjufell
WALK on the RIGHT SIDE where a lot of snow and grass there, easier to get traction on the ground
Then we move on to our next stop, Stykkisholmur Harbor, which is the place it took to film in the ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’. This harbor is ridiculously cold because of the wind! Be prepared, you would find the temperature feels like at least 10 degrees lower immediately just because of the wind. There is sort of a mountain where you can walk the stairs to the top of it and have a great view. Be extremely careful the moment you reach the top of the stairs because it was slippery and there were no handles you can hold on to after you reach the top, and it wasn’t that easy to walk back down for non-young adults in my opinion. The experience above was based on it was snowing and freezing there. You can park the car right under the stairs.
Stykkisholmur Harbor
Stykkisholmur Harbor
Stir-fried noodles for lunch in the car. Cooked from the night before, and it was absolutely the best!
Moving on to our last stop of the day, Budakirkja church. It was basically just a black color church on its external appearance. I feel like if your schedule is packed, maybe you can skip this place. We didn’t drive further NE to see the popular 15m high basalt which looks like a dragon who’s drinking. It’s about 3 hours drive from the harbor.
Budakirkja church
Day 3
Welcome Apartments 🠖 Thingvellir National Park: 2hr 41min
Thingvellir National Park 🠖 Geysir: 56min
Geysir 🠖 Icelandair Hotel Fludir: 21min
Went to Thingvellir national park as our first stop in day
3. We spent about ~2 hours here, so make sure you time your schedule properly
if you plan to come here. You can certainly give yourself less time, but then
you will feel so rush and not able to enjoy your trip. There are two major
scenes here, one is waterfall on the left, and another one is a high standing
ground place where you can view through surrounding area nicely on the right.
There are few different parking lots for this national park, and you can
certainly park in one of the parking lot (think it was maybe parking lot 5?
Don’t remember exactly) that’s near the high standing ground then drive to the
next parking lot for the waterfall. When it snows in Winter, it was not easy to
climb up to the high standing ground from the latter parking lot we parked at.
After we were done with Pingvellir, we moved to our next
stop, Geysir. The sequence of each eruption of Great Geysir is between
3min-6min ish, so you can just film it and cut off the parts you don’t want
later instead of just missing it each time. TRY to get there when the daylight
is still there. We got here relatively late and the sky has already turned
dark, so the view wasn’t as good as I anticipated.
There is another site scene called Gullfoss waterfall, which
along with Pingvellir and Geysir, they are part of the Golden Circle that make
up the most famous tourist route in Iceland. However, like I mentioned earlier
the sunset started a lot quicker than you would expect in States, so we didn’t
have enough time and leave Gullfoss waterfall for the next day.
We arrive the hotel, Iceland Hotel Fludir, for tonight.
There was a secrete lagoon place nearby, about 10min drive, but they close at 8pm during Winter. If you
can’t make it on time, it’s ok because there is a spa at the hotel too! The
room is alright, nothing stood out to me particularly, however, I was not a fan
of our bathroom because the way how it was constructed clearly had some issue.
Our room could be flooded relatively from taking a shower compared to my
friend’s room. They don’t have hot water machine in the room, but you can get
hot water by asking the front desk, so instant noodle would still be fine here
(save money!). There is a Secret Lagoon next to this hotel, but we didn’t go because we forgot to check the hours ahead of time, and it closed too early lol...
Iceland Hotel Fludir: Entrance
Iceland Hotel Fludir: Front Desk
Iceland Hotel Fludir: Restaurant in the lobby
Iceland Hotel Fludir: Lobby
Iceland Hotel Fludir: Our Room
Iceland horses on the side of freeway! On the way to the golden circle. There are many places that you can see Iceland horse or sheep in the nature, in the middle of nowhere right next to the freeway.
Day 4
Icelandair Hotel Fludir 🠖 Gullfoss Falls: 30min
Gullfoss Falls 🠖 Seljalandsfoss: 1hr 36min
Seljalandsfoss 🠖 Skógafoss: 26min
Skógafoss 🠖 Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: 1hr 22min
Today I called it a WATERFALL DAY because we visited 3
different waterfalls. First stop is Gullfoss waterfall, which people normally
put it into the same day with Geysir and national park since they are all
within the golden circle. Out of these 3 waterfalls, I like Gullfoss the least.
It was so cold that it wasn’t even funny…felt like -20F(-28.9C) around 10am at
least, and the view wasn’t as beautiful as it would have in Summer. There are
two parking lots here, one is closer to the waterfall, so you don’t have to
walk as much, and another one is closer to the restaurant/souvenir store. You
can get some hot coffee, drinks, gears, or many other souvenirs here. Most
importantly, there’s a WC (water closet) here and it was pretty clean! Small
trick about avoiding the strong wind is hold your friend’s hand and walk
backward haha! Don’t laugh! When you encounter the ridiculous wind in Iceland,
you would understand what I mean.
Gullfoss
It was too god damn cold...and windy
Our next stop is Seljalandsfoss waterfall. When you about to
enter the last intersection, between Þjóðvegur (same as freeway 1) and freeway
249, there is a parking lot area where it has a special bird sign that you can
take a picture with! There is also a food truck here that sell foods. We got
some Iceland hot dog, which the meat is made of lamb, pork, and hmm forgot the 3rd
type of meat…but it was fantastic, however, the price was not so much, 500 króna.
Some part of Game of Thrones was also taken in here! Have you watched the show
yet? If not, please go watch it lol. There are some stairs you can walk upward
toward the waterfall closer, but it had some snow while we were there, and all
the snow was freezing and became icy, so no one really went up there. On the
left-hand side, there was an area where people literally climb up to the top of
the mountain and slide down like they were having a lot of fun, but it looked
quite dangerous to be honest. During the Summer you can walk behind the
waterfall but certainly not in Winter unless you want to get sick…The parking
lot here I believe you are supposed to pay, but a nice guy just gave me his
parking permit ticket. You don’t have to pay for it, but don’t blame me if a
random Iceland cop decided to give you a violation ticket for his year-end
bonus!
Seljalandsfoss
Food Truck at the Seljalandsfoss
Delicious Iceland Hotdog
Lastly, we went to Skogafoss waterfall and this was my
favorite because of how amazing it looks in the picture! The closer you are to the
river, they tend to be more slippery, so just walk slowly and be careful. A lot
of tourists would be here as you probably would expect, so if you want to take
a nice picture without having others involved in your picture, you need to be
quite patience or pay extremely attention to catch the right timing. There is a
route on the right-hand side of the waterfall where you can walk to the top of
it and view the waterfall from the top. We didn’t do it because it would take a
good amount of time under the Winter condition, so you should evaluate your
schedule whether you want to go up there or not.
We stayed at Icelandair Hotel Klaustur at the end of tonight. I was starving when we arrived the hotel, so we went to a local restaurant, Systrakaffi, for dinner and it was just a few minutes drive from the hotel. I DO NOT recommend ordering the lam combo. Not only it was expensive but the meat was very dry. Just get the burger or Cod and you should be fine. Hotel has its own restaurant, but it was extremely expensive in my opinion, so we decided not to eat at the hotel.
Skogafoss
There's a path on the right where you can reach to the top. Be careful during Winter time!
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: Hallway
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: 2nd floor lobby
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: Bathroom in my room
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: Our room
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur: Breakfast area
Restaurant: Systrakaffi
Systrakaffi: Waiting Area
Systrakaffi: Cod Fish combo
Systrakaffi: Lamb combo. I DO NOT recommend it.
Systrakaffi: Lamb Burger
Day 5
Icelandair Hotel Klaustur 🠖 Jökulsárlón: 1hr 38min
Jökulsárlón 🠖 Seljavellir Guesthouse: 58min
Day 5 is the best day of entire trip hands down. Jokulsarlon
glacier is beautiful along with the sun. Blue ice cave was pretty interesting,
but it was different than what I expected because you can only go into the cave
up until a certain point (pretty short honestly). You would need to gather in
the general parking lot and your tour group will take you to the ice cave using
Jeep. It’s somewhat impossible to get there with your own small rental car. The
route to get there was pretty bumpy even with Jeep, and I found it interesting.
Outside of the cave was a completed open area, so it was SO COLD when the
strong wind just blows your face one after another one. Definitely wear a lot
of clothes for this place. Waterproof pants and down jacket are not necessary
at all if it’s a sunny day. However, if the weather predicts it would be a bad
weather, you better have that waterproof gears ready, otherwise, it will make
your experience pretty miserable. At the general parking lot, there’s a store
where you can use WC and buy some small snacks or souvenirs. I should have
bought a mug that has aurora on the outside, but I didn’t pull the trigger in
the end even though the price was pretty fair and relatively cheap. The blue
ice cave may not be what you think it is from the picture you saw online. A lot
of these beautiful pictures were taken by professionals or posted-edited version.
You would need to get the right angle and the right setting to see the
reflection of blue part of ice, so just play around and twist your setting here
and there and have some fun!
Blue Ice Cave: With Cousin
Blue Ice Cave: Entrance
Our driver from Jokulsarlon to Blue Ice Cave: He drove so fast lol...
Blue Ice Cave: Entrance area
Jokulsarlon. There's souvenir inside the stores.
After we spent good hours in both blue ice cave and
Jokulsarlon glacier, we head to restaurant, Humarhöfnin Veitingahús, near Seljavellir Guesthouse for one of the most expensive dinner we had in Iceland! I would definitely recommend this restaurant.
After our huge dinner, we drove to where we stay tonight - Seljavellir Guesthouse.
This property only has 20 rooms, so they get filled easily, and they have
really high standard reviews by everyone, one of the best guest house to see
Aurora. The back area of the property is completely empty filled with grass,
and its surrounding basically doesn’t have any light, so it’s a perfect spot to
see Aurora if you are lucky. Luckily, we were able to see the Aurora, and it
was such a phenomenal event to witness, definitely live up to the hype. In
order to take a decent or good picture, you would need any sort of camera more
than just your phone, and you need a tripod to make sure the camera is not
shaking while the picture is being taken. Any movement on the camera will cause
the quality issue on the resulting picture. Also, the wind is strong at night
as well, so I have friends working together to cover some of the direction to
prevent wind causing any sort of movement. This guesthouse also provides free
breakfast, standard American breakfast but it was good! The room and bathroom
were clean, really nothing to complain about whatsoever! I HIGHLY recommend you to book this guesthouse if it will fit into
your schedule.
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Entrance
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Either owner gave us for free or it's complimentary. I forgot LOL
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Langoustine pizza
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Whole langoustine
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Grilled loin of lamb
Humarhöfnin Veitingahús: Grilled loin of lamb
Seljavellir Guesthouse: On the back side
Finally see the northern light!
Seljavellir Guesthouse: On the back side
Seljavellir Guesthouse: On the front side
Seljavellir Guesthouse: Breakfast Area
Seljavellir Guesthouse: Breakfast
Seljavellir Guesthouse: Breakfast, good stuff!
Day 6
Seljavellir Guesthouse 🠖 Vik: 3hr 9min
Vik 🠖 Kirkjufjara beach: 18min
Kirkjufjara beach 🠖 Halldorskaffi: 19min
Halldorskaffi 🠖 Apartment 19: 1hr 36min
It was a pretty far distance from guesthouse to Vik town, so
plan it accordingly and leave early! First thing we do in Vik town is we go
visiting the church on the top of this town. Not many tourists got here yet, so
we could take some picture without having some random in our background.
Then
we went to Kirkjufjara beach, which is filled with bunch of black basalt.
Iceland is an island with active volcano, and these basalt is the result of volcano
activity. There was a restaurant/WC store at the beach here. DON’T eat food
here, it was expensive!
Go back to Vik town and eat at Halldorskaffi, right
next to the information center. Not really cheap exactly but at least cheaper.
The plan of today is just going from far east back to somewhere near the west,
so we will be ready to end our trip tomorrow in day 7. As a result, we didn’t
do much after these places, and we head to where we stay tonight, Apartment 19.
Apartment 19 located in Selfoss city. I like this city a lot because it’s
filled with many decoration and it didn’t feel like I was in an Iceland city.
Apartment 19 is another guest house, and the quality of this place is probably
the best out of our entire trip. I would also
recommend this place. We ran out of time for Kerio Crater Lake because it’s
far to drive from East to West.
Vik: Church
View from top of Vik, in front of the church!
Kirkjufjara beach
Kirkjufjara beach: Beautiful black sand
Kirkjufjara beach: Only restaurant here. Foods are quite expensive
Bunch of them on top of the rock. I lost count!
Halldorskaffi: I ordered a very typical pizza for lunch xD
Vik: Street View
Vik: Street View
Vik
Apartment 19: Street View
Apartment 19: Room 2
Apartment 19: Kitchen
Apartment 19: Room 1
Apartment 19: Living Room
Apartment 19: Bathroom
Cook our own dinner. Too spicy because we used too much sauce...
Customers left their notes in this handbook, so we did it too!
Day 7
Apartment 19 🠖 Blue Lagoon: 43min
Blue Lagoon 🠖 KEF Airport: 42min
The last day of this trip!!! My flight is at 5:10pm, and our
blue lagoon entry time is at 12pm. Heard it’s the best if you come here either
right before the flight or right after the flight. We also planned to go to
Kerio crater lake in the morning but ended up couldn’t make it on time. When
you get to Blue lagoon’s lobby, line up as soon as you can and there are 2
different lines, one is for premium/luxury, and another one is for
standard/comfort. The line will fill up quickly before you even realize it! You
will be given a wristband when you show them your reservation, and you will use
this wristband to open/lock your lockers as well as getting a free drink and
Algae mask at the lagoon. After this experience, I personally suggest people to
get PREMIUM if your flight and entry
time is as close as mine. Otherwise, comfort should be fine.
We ended up
staying at the lagoon for about two hours, but we felt like it was rushed and
not fully enjoyable since we have to catch a flight. The lagoon was fairly
close to the Lagoon Car Rental and KEF airport, but you wanted to give yourself
a decent amount of time instead of assuming everything will go smoothly in case
something unexpected happened. After you put your clothes/bags into the
lockers, you will do a quick shower using their body wash and most importantly
their conditioner with your hair, DON’T
WASH OFF THE CONDITIONER! The lagoon had a high level of silica and it
could become stiff and difficult to manage your hair. You can also do a nice
shower AFTER you finished with the lagoon. When you first enter the lagoon,
left-hand side is where you would get your algae mask, and right-hand side is
where you would get your first drink from. They are not exactly really close to
the entrance, but you can ask around too if you really can’t find it.
The first
moment you walk out of the building right before you enter into lagoon, it was
extremely cold haha. The lagoon temperature was about 100.4F (38C), and I
thought it could be better if the temperature was slightly higher. Nonetheless,
it was a great experience and made me feel relaxed right before my flight and
of course remember to take a lot of pictures and video here because that’s what
you do during an amazing trip! There were also massage at blue lagoon, but I
would say you probably wouldn’t want to add some extra expenses unless you are
really under too much of stress because it was not cheap. Since we had a flight
to catch, we didn’t get to try out the restaurant food in the lobby. At the
shower area, they had dryer as well, so it was really like a full package deal
to me. I took Icelandair for return flight, and there weren’t that many people,
so I would say give yourself about 1.5 hours before departure time should be
good enough. There was a silica hotel right next to the blue lagoon, and it
looks quite nice, but I wouldn’t recommend it because it wasn’t a practical
option honestly.
Blue Lagoon: Parking Lot. You can store your luggage in the building on the left
Blue Lagoon: Entrance. Small walk distance from parking lot
Blue Lagoon: Algae Mask
Blue Lagoon: Algae Mask
Blue Lagoon: Algae Mask
Blue Lagoon: We got 1 free drink!
Blue Lagoon: Drink Menu
Blue Lagoon: View right after you enter the lagoon
Blue Lagoon: somewhere around the middle of entire lagoon
Blue Lagoon: End of lagoon
Blue Lagoon: Wanna drink some water!?
Blue Lagoon: 2nd floor
Additional
pictures to share (full album is provided at the beginning of this article!)
Found bunch of Iceland sheep while we were driving
They are adorable
Hi there~
KEF Airport
Icelandair
My driver who took me to the KEF airport on the last day
See yall next time during our next trip
Reykjavik: Church of HallgrÃmskirkja
Few tips I can think
of
- Drive SLOW under snow condition in Winter, plan your schedule properly. For example: If your first stop takes 2-hour drive, then leave your place at 8am, so you can get to the first stop around 10am, which is around sunrise.
- DON’T speed past the speed limit, there could be a lot of camera before you realize it. You will certainly see a lot of people speed, but a lot of them may end up getting some speeding tickets.
- If you plan to save as much as you can on the expenses such as food, then bring some instant noodles or go to bonus super market to do some grocery shopping. Our total expenses including Blue Ice Cave (~$200), Blue Lagoon (~$100), Gas (~$250-350), and everything else such as hotel stays and food is about $1,000 per person + and – for 7 days!
- Food is easily $20-50 per meal depends on the quality if you eat out
- Check this periodically to keep track of Aurora activity: http://www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-forecast
- Check weather and road condition periodically!
- Don’t get gas from N1 and few other specifically I forgot, but there were like 3-4 different chain, and most likely you will always see two different set prices. ~$66 got me about half of a tank…it was pricey for gas in Iceland
- There was H&M and Deloitte office. I found it interesting
- There is some local tour you can join AFTER you get there. Pretty much each hotel / guesthouse will have some sort of flyers such as northern light on the boat, watch whale, etc. I personally found the cost is expensive for these local tours. Do your diligent and research before you go to Iceland!
- If you plan to get gas in Iceland, there are few options
- Get a gas card
- Use debit card (you need to know your 4-digit pin)
- Use credit card (you need to know your 4-digit pin, this is like cash advance, so it’s different 4-digit pin from your debit card)
- Some basic information about capturing Northern Light
- Manual focus
- f/2.8-5.6
- Shutter speed between 15-30sec
- ISO between 400-3200
- Make sure no lights surrounding your area, the darker the better
- Adjust these setting depending on overexposed or underexposed
Gas Card
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