How we organized our trip to Iceland
By Two World Backpackers
Before travelling somewhere we always do a little research about our destination. We always look for any information that may be useful to us, we read many travel blogs, we watch many videos on YouTube about those places and we read many comments and opinions of people about it.
Sometimes, depending on the destination, we also email the tourist info of the place asking for recommendations, advice, and help with any doubts we may have.
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Iceland was in our bucketlist for such a long time, and after searching and searching non-stop deals… we found one for a £50 return trip from London! So once the holidays were confirmed in our respective jobs, we bought the flights that same night. It was finally official. We were going to Iceland in February!
We were super happy and very excited about it. We were also going to go with another couple of friends from Spain. So we would have to make many Skype calls to organize the trip well between the 4 of us.
Itinerary:
The main idea was to rent a camper and doing a road trip around Iceland with it. But after emailing the Tourist Info of Reykjavik with some questions, we changed our minds. We were advised not to do the road trip in a camper that time of the year if we wanted to go to the north because there are strong winds and the nights are pretty cold. Thank goodness we paid attention to them, it was freezing!
We read many blogs and travel pages about what to see and what to do in Iceland in February. We also searched if there were any tourist sites closed those dates; which points of interest we couldn’t miss, curiosities, etc. We also saw plenty of videos on YouTube about Iceland and comments about recommendations of where to eat and sleep.
We agreed that each couple would create a list of all the places we wanted to see and excursions we wanted to do to share them later on Skype.
Along with that list, the next step was to create the route. We began to look at the distances between one point to another by car, and we decided a maximum of 3 and a half hours drive per day. Therefore we would visit properly everything we had planned, leaving a margin in case of unexpected events.
Accommodation:
Once we decided the route, we began to see the accommodations where we were going to sleep. In our case, we prefer to sleep on Airbnbs or in hostels sharing a room practically the entire trip because we only went at bedtime and therefore save some money.
Except on the last night that we had a whim, and we decided to stay more comfortably in a hotel without having to share with anyone else. In general, it was quite easy for us to find the accommodations and we liked them all very much.
Food
Many times we had read in several blogs that the food was expensive in Iceland, so we decided to check in two more luggage between the 4 of us and take with us some food.
But beware, there are some restrictions:
- You cannot carry meat. We did not bring it, but many people have done it without problems.
- Milk and raw eggs are not allowed.
- The food cannot exceed 3kg in the luggage; hence we decided to check in two.
We took pasta, canned food, soup, cookies, soluble coffee (unopened, otherwise they don’t allow it), rice, beans, nuts, energy bars, olive oil, and Yakisoba.
So we only had to buy some milk, bread, garlic, onions and or anything else we liked in BONUS supermarkets, since they are the cheapest.
Rent a car
Finally, another important detail when organizing this trip was renting a car.
We were certain that we were going to rent a 4×4 car with all-risks insurance, because we knew the roads would be difficult in February. Above all, because we wanted to go to the North and the Tourist Info of Reykjavik already warned us about the weather in that area.
Of course, it always depends on every person but every time we go somewhere and we have to rent a car, we prefer to do it with all-risk insurance.
Always read the fine print!
When it comes to renting a car, there is a lot of fine print, different types of coverage, and hundreds of companies. Read and inform you well of what is included and what it’s not in the insurance you choose.
Currency
The currency is the Icelandic crown (ISK). Currently, the change is to:
1 GBP = 172.203 ISK
1 Euro = ISK 147.123
In Iceland, you can pay anywhere and anything by card. So we decided not to change cash and we only use the REVOLUT card. It is a card in which you can change money to the currency you want, and they only charge you the exchange currency. Then we exchanged around £500 to ISK, and there we paid for it in ISK by card.
Get ready your photography equipment!
One of the reasons we chose to go to Iceland in February was to be able to see the Northern Lights.
So we started searching for a lot of information on how to take beautiful photos of the northern lights, the best places to see them in Iceland, and the conditions you needed to meet to be able to see them among others.
What was quite an achievement was to place the tripod in the backpack before boarding the plane, since it was our friends in Spain who checked in the bags and we were only carrying our backpacks.
Well, after thousands of Skype calls, thousands of articles read and YouTube videos seen, all the reservations made and making sure we had everything ready, all we had to do was to enjoy the trip!
And you, how do you organize your trips? Are you watching a lot of videos on YouTube and reading many blogs & travel guides, or are you more of going on an adventure? Don’t miss our blogpost about the 10 days Iceland roadtrip
