Iceland

Got a bunch of questions about Iceland and I thought I will just write up answers to questions that people have asked and I will add along the way..

Giant iceberg on ice beach at sunrise. Jökulsárlón, Iceland.

Giant iceberg on ice beach at sunrise. Jökulsárlón, Iceland.

Itinerary. I didn't have one but I knew where I wanted to check out and I plan according to weather. I will add a map of the places i checked out and also the places I hope I had went. some places off my head in counter clockwise direction on the map. 

  • Reykjavík (city)
  • the usual golden circle (all the good stuff) 
  • Brúarfoss (my fav waterfall in Iceland)
  • Vík (beach, church)
  • Vatnajökull Ice cave (in the winter, more below) 
  • Skógafoss (waterfall)
  • Seljalandsfoss (waterfall)
  • Jökulsárlón (glacier lagoon AND ice beach) check both out!
  • Kirkjufell 

Places that I didn't get a chance to go due to the severe storm/lack of time..

  • Gljúfurárfoss (hidden waterfall near Seljalandsfoss)
  • Höfn (Vesturhorn or batman mountain)
  • Sólheimasandur DC-3 Plane Crash (heard its gated now, 2km walk one way)
  • Goðafoss (waterfall)
  • Hvítserkur (the famous sea troll)
  • and of cos the highlands/fjords that are only accessible when its not winter. 
Reflections of Skógafoss, Iceland

Reflections of Skógafoss, Iceland

Accommodation/Car. To keep things simple and flexible as we wanted to catch aurora and headed towards clear sky every night, we rented a camper van and basically slept in the car. The car is pretty well equipped and I will post pics to illustrate that better later. We could cook simple meals and sleep in a bed in the car. I went with Happy Campers and was really happy with them and would definitely rent from them again when I head back again sometime. Great service also note they only have Manual/Stick shift. They have pillows and blankets but I opted to bring my own sleeping bag and pillow for comfort :) Check them out at http://www.happycampers.is/ One thing to plan ahead though, they do airport pickup to their rental place but they can drop you off at the main bus terminal in Reykjavík and u can get a bus ticket all the way to the airport. Those bus runs every hour I believe so plan ahead (free wifi onboard)! :)

Showering. It was kinda cold. We basically showered every other day at local pools. There's plenty of those swimming pools/ thermal pools around and you can get a "showering facility" for less than 10 bucks a per entry. I don't mean showering in the swimming pool.. They have hot water showers available. http://www.swimminginiceland.com/

Vík Beach, Iceland.

Vík Beach, Iceland.

Wifi/Hotspot. I got my wifi dongle from http://iceland.trawire.com/ came up to about 10 usd a day. they can deliver and drop off at happy camper for no additional cost. hence no hassle. Unlimited data for instagramming. unbeatable LOL. Service was actually pretty good all over Iceland, there was a couple of blind spots here and there but at most places u will have 4g network. I did look up other companies like Vodafone for wifi but they didn't offer micro sim back then and i would need to use my old unlocked iphone.

Electricity and charging. I had 9 DSLR batteries. I got a 300w battery inverter and also a car cigarette socket dual splitter. one for battery charging and one for gps. and several usb socket on those to give u enough juice on ur cellphones and the trawire wifi dongle. And one addition note.. remember to unplug ur power before leaving the car/sleeping or the charging will just keep running and u know what will happen after. :p  Didn't happen to me but happened to a friend and I was pretty careful about it when I was there. I also tested it and somehow the cigarette lighter socket doesn't disconnect power when the car engine is off/car key removed.

Aurora in Iceland!

Aurora in Iceland!

Aurora. I basically checked for predicted clear skies every night and drive in that direction for the day. I saw aurora 5 of 8 non stormy days we were there. I was there for a total of 11 days but was stormed in Reykjavík for 3 days lol. I used this for cloud cover check and I found it really accurate during the time I was there. http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/cloudcover/

Ice Cave. There's 3 big companies that does the tours. I went with http://www.localguideofvatnajokull.com/ book early. I mean WAY early. My trip was basically planned around available space in the ice cave tour. haha.

Diving. More on this later. I wanted to do the Silfra fissure dive. Did some research and booked it. Things didn't work out as planned. Hence didn't do it in the end.

Hope it helps. Let me know if you got more questions and I will expand the list and go on from there. For the record, Iceland probably the most awesome place I ever been to. And yes i will be back! :)