Trip around Iceland. Summer 2018. Highlights
Highlights
It took me a long time to finally start writing about this trip, but I did. It all began on a chilly day in March. My wife and I were walking in the park and asked ourselves: "Why not fly to Iceland this summer?" There were many options, but Iceland seemed the simplest one because it is relatively close, the island itself is not that large, and driving around it in two weeks looked realistic. Right there on the spot we roughly estimated that the whole two-week trip would cost about 220,000 RUB. I used our New Zealand trip as a reference. But once I got home and tried to calculate every expense properly, the estimate jumped to something like 350,000 to 500,000 RUB, much more than the original figure. Yes, Iceland is expensive. Still, by that point we were already hooked, so we had to prepare at least the minimum amount and also rely on credit cards if necessary. After that everything followed the usual pattern: I ran my own weather app that had gathered 14 years of Iceland weather data, we chose the dates, quickly collected documents for the visa, and then spent three months preparing the route in Google Maps. We dug up beautiful places and marked them on our map. In the end the trip went well. It was cold, sometimes windy, but I would not say the conditions were unbearable. There was rain too, but probably not more than what you get on average in the Moscow region. The coldest place for us was the Westfjords, where the temperature dropped to +4 C. Knowing that, we booked a guesthouse room there.
If I compare all our trips overall, I cannot say Iceland ranks first. That spot is shared by Norway and New Zealand. Then comes Iceland, and after that our summer 2017 trip around Europe, where we visited many countries but especially Austria, Switzerland, and France. We were in Iceland from July 14 to July 28, right in the peak tourist season, and everywhere people wrote about huge crowds. In reality the crowds were mostly limited to the most popular places, which was completely acceptable for us. I can think of only two or three locations where I truly wished there had been fewer people. Everything else was fine. Often it was enough to wait until one group left and another had not yet arrived. Since we were traveling in a rental car, we could stay wherever we wanted for as long as we liked.
If I think about what we would change if we could go back in time, we would probably spend three weeks there in our own car, plus another week for getting to and from the ferry. Three weeks would let us travel at a more relaxed pace. A rented car that expensive does not let you do that, because every single day matters. Car rental prices in Iceland are absurd. For two weeks we paid 177,000 ISK, about 109,000 RUB at the April 2017 exchange rate. In New Zealand we paid only about 51,000 RUB for three weeks with a Hyundai Getz.
We also got lucky with the flight to Reykjavik. Apparently because of the FIFA World Cup there was a direct S7 flight from Moscow to Reykjavik. Before that there had only been flights with connections. So five hours in the air and you are already there.
In the end this trip took us to the westernmost point of Europe, Cape Latrabjarg, and to the largest glacier in Europe, Vatnajokull.
Now to the details.
Visa
First of all, you must make an appointment before submitting your documents. I thought there should be no problems with the visa. Usually we came to a visa center with our papers and everything was accepted without any issues. This time it did not work like that. While preparing the documents I read that, as usual, we needed passports, scans of all documents, proof of funds, and hotel bookings. On the last point I behaved as I often do: I wrote a letter with an approximate route and explained that I could not book hotels in advance because we would be traveling by car and sleeping in campgrounds along the way. The woman at the desk looked at my itinerary note with wide eyes and said she could not accept the documents because I needed campground bookings or at least messages from campgrounds saying they would take us without reservations. But I am stubborn. I do not want a trip planned down to the minute. I want to be able to travel at a pace I like, and in some places I want the freedom to stay longer because of the scenery or because rain makes it pointless to move on. So right there at the visa center computer I threw together a random list of campgrounds along our route, paid to print it, and took it back to her. Then she did not like the fact that there were no phone numbers or coordinates, so I went back and quickly made a new list with phone numbers and GPS coordinates. Only then did she accept it, while saying we would most likely be denied. In the end a courier brought our passports back in two or three weeks with the visas inside. So, as usual, everything turned out fine.
I recommend being careful with the proof of funds. It must be printed on official bank letterhead, not on a home printer. Travel insurance must cover the number of trip days plus another 15 days on top. Keep in mind that the website mentions a maximum visa decision time of 8 weeks, which is why we applied so early. You also need copies of every page of your Russian passport and your international passport. If you had an old passport with Schengen visas issued in the last three years, its copy is required too. If you are unemployed, write "unemployed" in the occupation field, but then your bank statement becomes especially important. You also need a purchased airline ticket, including the ticket number.
Transport
To rent a car you will need an international driving permit, so get it in advance.
Car rental in Iceland is outrageously expensive. I read somewhere that it is among the highest in the world. Why exactly, I do not know. Maybe because Iceland is an island and bringing new cars there is costly. Maybe because inexperienced travelers often crash cars or damage them on difficult roads, and the companies need to recover those costs. Maybe the state taxes rental companies heavily to squeeze more money out of visitors. Or maybe they are simply afraid of a supervolcano eruption that would damage every car on the island.
If you want to save money, avoid the famous rental brands like Hertz, because they are too expensive there just like everywhere else. I read a lot about car rental in Iceland. At first I wanted to choose https://www.bluecarrental.is, but I found many negative reviews and instead picked another company that inspired more confidence in terms of reviews and booking process: https://www.lotuscarrental.is. There you can choose all insurance types. But be careful: no matter what insurance you buy, some kinds of damage are still excluded. For example, if you drive an SUV through a ford and the engine seizes after swallowing water, that will not be covered.
There are really two different Icelands. One is easy to travel through, and a normal sedan or hatchback is enough. The other one requires an SUV because you have to cross rivers. Some of those crossings are deep, and those harder roads are usually labeled F-roads. In my opinion, if you are going for only two weeks, a normal car is enough, because Iceland will already give you more scenery than you can cover, and you simply will not have time to get to the places that require a real 4x4. But if you want to explore the center of Iceland and get close to glaciers and mountains, then yes, you can rent an SUV. Just remember that it will cost much more.
I also recommend taking a tire repair kit. Not every rental company provides one, and puncturing a tire in Iceland is easy. Fortunately we avoided that problem, even though we drove a lot, about 3,800 km. Very often we had to drive on gravel, and sometimes quite fast, dodging potholes. I did not expect Iceland to have so many places without asphalt roads.
Besides rental prices, Iceland is also one of those countries where gasoline is very expensive, about 120 RUB per liter at the exchange rate back then. Some rental companies give you a discount card for certain gas stations, so use it if they do.
One more thing: washing the car in Iceland can be free. You can do it at gas stations, though not all of them. I noticed that the closer you get to Reykjavik, the fewer such stations there are.
Accommodation
Be prepared for very expensive accommodation in Iceland. During this trip we tried to stay in campgrounds whenever possible. We already had sleeping bags and a tent, but specifically for this trip we bought warmer sleeping bags rated for +5 C. Even in those we were sometimes cold, so we had to pull them over our heads to trap heat and, of course, sleep in some clothes: a hat, a sweater, sweatpants, and warm socks.
We also stayed in normal hotels from time to time. That was unavoidable because we needed somewhere to charge all our devices and power banks after nights in campgrounds. Most of our hotels cost 72 to 76 euro per night. In one place, though, we could not find a room that "cheap", so we had to take the least expensive one available for 96 euro. But that location more or less forced us into a hotel because the nights there were very cold. Prices like that for that time of year were more the exception than the rule. On the road we always keep an eye on somewhat cheaper hotels, because hotels sometimes try to sell the remaining rooms cheaply at the last minute, and if we find one, we stay there instead of camping. But in Iceland cheap hotels are rare, so campgrounds were often our only realistic option.
Traveling with a tent is actually very convenient even if you can afford to drop 100 euro per night on a hotel room. In Iceland it can happen that the cheapest place nearby costs 24,000 RUB per night, and that is exactly when a tent and a campground save you. Our cheapest campground, aside from one free one, cost 1,230 RUB, and the most expensive one cost 2,200 RUB. Quite often you had to pay separately for hot water if you wanted a shower.
Once we even stayed in a cabin. We often saw cabins like this in Norway and a bit less often in New Zealand.
Internet And Mobile Service
The year before that I had bought a DrimSim SIM card. But here I was afraid that we might end up without internet somewhere at the edge of the world, so I also bought a SIM from a local operator with wide coverage across Iceland. For 1,800 RUB I got 10 GB of data, whereas DrimSim would have given me only 2.5 GB for the same money. We used that local SIM the whole trip through a mobile router as usual. I still used DrimSim once, right after arriving at the Iceland airport and before buying the local SIM.
Climate
We were in Iceland from July 14 to July 28, and during that time temperatures were generally around +14 to +18 C during the day and +8 to +10 C at night. Once in one particular area it reached +20 C, and we even had to change into lighter clothes. Otherwise we walked around in jeans with extra sweatpants underneath, plus waterproof jackets, sweaters, and several other layers. I do not think we ever needed an umbrella. Either we simply walked in the rain as we were, or we stayed put when the weather was bad. An umbrella would have been inconvenient anyway. We also never took our rain ponchos out. I recommend bringing gloves, a hat, and a warm waterproof jacket with a hood. Yes, this was July, and I think we were actually lucky with the weather. Although when we were in the northeastern fjords, a Polish woman who ran a guesthouse told us that this was the coldest summer Iceland had seen in the last 100 years. We did not really believe her, of course, because this was more or less the kind of weather we had expected.
One of the best feelings is waking up at 5 a.m. in a tent, badly needing to pee. You crawl out of a warm sleeping bag, open the tent, and it is already almost light because of the white nights, the air is +8 C, and everything around you is silent because everyone is asleep. Then you walk 100 meters to a cold toilet block and then go back.
When we picked up the car, they warned us to open the doors carefully because the wind could twist them. We never had winds that extreme. In fact, the craziest wind I can remember from our travels was in Norway. We drove to Nordkapp, and yes, the wind there was unbelievable. You could almost lean on it.
Before this trip I wrote small scripts that built weather maps as GIF files so I could quickly see what kind of weather was waiting for us in the next few days. Also, my father guided us with weather updates throughout the trip. He tracked the forecasts and sent us a message every morning about the weather for the day and the next few days. Based on that, we decided how fast to move and which places we could skip if the weather there was hopeless.
One more thing about climate: in some parts of Iceland, especially near bodies of water, you can run into lots of tiny flies in summer. They are similar to the ones we saw in New Zealand, but at least these do not bite. They do, however, constantly try to fly into your eyes. In one campground where we foolishly stopped, there were an unbelievable number of them. We honestly had no idea what to do. We sat in the car unable to get out and start setting up the tent. In the end we forced ourselves to do it, putting on glasses first. While we kept opening and closing the car doors, the inside of the car filled with flies. There were fewer inside the tent because we got good at opening and closing it quickly. Before entering the tent we even ran in circles so the flies would lose our heat trail. So in truth it would be smart to bring a head net too. At that campground people were actually walking around with nets over their heads.
Food
Food in Iceland is of course more expensive than in Russia. But if you do not eat in restaurants and cafes and cook everything yourself, the total is still manageable. We averaged about 1,350 RUB per day for the two of us. As usual we brought a gas burner and part of our groceries from home: noodles, buckwheat, salt, sugar. Drinking water we bought in supermarkets. Water for washing hands, food, and dishes we took from hotels and campgrounds and poured into our bottles. We also took water there for cooking, but always boiled it. People say Icelandic water is very clean, but we did not want to test that on our own stomachs.
We often stopped at a supermarket chain called Bonus, which was somewhat cheaper than the others.
What To Bring
For a trip like this it helps to have several large power banks with you to charge your equipment on the road.
I already mentioned that you need warm, waterproof, windproof clothes and hiking boots. We basically lived in those boots. Always leave them in the car overnight so they do not get soaked next to the tent and leave you without footwear. Inside a campground it is better to walk around in rubber flip-flops because they are not afraid of getting wet.
Be sure to check how many kilograms of luggage your airline allows. We flew S7, and our allowance was 23 kg per person. I thought there would be no problem, but once we packed, we discovered we were overweight. So we had to stuff some things into carry-on bags and wherever else we could. Sveta had oatmeal and pasta in her jacket pockets, I had other things in mine. So a small portable luggage scale is a useful item too, especially for the return flight.
Also bring a power strip so you can charge all your devices at once. I do not remember the plug type there, though. As far as I remember it was the same as in Russia.
Trip Cost
Here is the cost breakdown for the trip. As you can see, the clear leader by a huge margin is the car rental. Prices are in RUB.
- car reservation 108 500
- airfare 61 100
- activities 50 800
- hotels 46 900 (8 nights)
- fuel 34 600
- supermarkets 17 800
- visa 17 800
- campgrounds 8 500 (5 nights and one free)
- transport 5 200
- mobile service 1 800
- food 1 000
- parking 700
- toll roads 600
Total: 356,000 RUB.