Arriving to Iceland 🇮🇸

There were some nerves leading up to this trip. With the Northern Lights the number 1 thing on my bucketlist, and Iceland being Jessie’s #1 "Must-go" destination, the pressure was on. Not only is it known to be the most expensive country to travel to, but the weather conditions can be extremely harsh.

I had been watching the long-range weather forecast from about a month out from our arrival. But the reality is that a highly volcanic island covered in glaciers in the middle of the Atlantic and close to the Arctic is never going to be mild. As we got closer the forecast began to confirm we had a pretty wild week ahead of us. At this time of year, each day has only 4 hours of daylight so we had planned our 6 days to fit in as much as possible.

We flew into Keflavik International Airport at 8 pm Wednesday and picked up a little Dacia Duster 4X4. By 8 pm it was already pitch black with the sunset already 5 hours ago. Unlike our usual way of travelling, we needed to set a fairly firm itinerary. During Winter a lot of the roads become impassable, especially in the North of the island. Accounting for the weather as best as possible we had booked all our accommodation at short intervals across the South Coast. We hoped that this would give us the most use of the available daylight and not require too much night driving. Our only risk now is the weather closing roads and throwing our plans out.

Our first night we booked into the cheapest place we could find on the outskirts of Reykjavik, the capital. Tomorrow we finally see this crazy place!Read more