Iceland Expedition 2024

We arrived in Iceland late Sunday March 3th after a day and a half of travel, ready for 2 weeks of fun exploring the land of fire and ice! The next day we picked up our camper van and headed into Reykjavik, spending the afternoon wandering the streets and sights along the sea front. The city has interesting architecture and loads of good places to eat; we had an excellent lunch at the Bastard Grill. 

Tuesday the 5th we spent several hours in the hot waters of Blue Lagoon. Quite a unique experience with blue waters, rising steam and white silica face masks. The lagoon had been closed for a few days due to volcanic activity just 10 km away, and we were lucky it reopened. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and continued to stop at hot springs for the rest of the trip.

After a stop for groceries, diesel and water for the van we headed to our first stop in Thingvellir National Park. We arrived at dusk in wet and windy conditions, something that was repeated for most of the week. Since it is winter most camp sites have basic facilities and we just parked the camper van in the parking lot with the other campers, had a quick snack and crawled into our sleeping bags. The camper van is a Volkswagen Transporter 4x4, converted to sleep two in the back, and a small area with a sink and camping stove. It worked amazingly well for the trip. 

The next day we drove what is called the Golden Circle - an area with stunning mountains, and waterfalls, including Gullfoss and Seljalandsfoss - two very large water falls. It was wet and very windy all day - good thing we had full "foul-weather" gear! We stopped to see some Icelandic horses, who are very friendly and very furry with their thick winter coats. 

We had lunch at a very cool restaurant that is inside the largest indoor tomato farm. Fridheimer's had amazing tomato soup and bread, and we took a delicious olive loaf with us to enjoy in the van. Iceland has huge heated and lighted greenhouses to grow their vegetables inside since the growing season is so short, with cold and dark winters. Energy in Iceland is very cheap, with 73% coming from hydro power and 27% from geo thermal, they lead the world in renewable energy.

We spent the night at Skogafoss campground, right next to the waterfall and were treated to a magnificent view in the morning (Thursday 7th). The weather is very changeable and by the time we had finished breakfast and made the short walk to the falls it started to rain. This was a pattern to be repeated most of the trip. Luckily by the time we got back to the van, rather damp and a little irritable, the weather cleared and John was able to get an excellent photo!

Click here for the photos and videos!