Iceland is getting hot. Don't believe us? In 2017, over 2 million tourists traveled to the Nordic destination. That's more than six times the island's population. The country is blanketed by lunar landscapes, hot rivers, black sand beaches, and amazing highlights of the earth's geological resume. It's refreshingly easy to snap shots of the scenery without other tourists crowding your view but we're thinking not for long. We're hoping to get another trip in before Iceland becomes the world's worst-kept secret. Will you?
When you live in South Florida, a lot of places just feel too far away to even think about. Even Las Vegas seems like it’s on another continent. To be honest, that’s why Iceland didn’t really make it on our list of go-to’s until last year. Fortunately for us, we had instant gratification. After seeing tons of incredible posts of Icelandic views, we knew we had to see it for ourselves and since we were based in Ireland at the time, it really wasn’t so far.
In fact, want to hear a joke? What separates Iceland from Ireland?
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We’ll wait
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Ok we’ll tell you: the c! Get it?
So with just the sea separating us from gorgeous, breathtaking Iceland, we planned a summer trip in 2017. We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but we did know one thing: It is impossible to get an underwhelming photo of any place in Iceland. Knowing that, we couldn’t go wrong no matter where we went.
We decided to spend 4 days on the island. There wasn’t a time difference to throw us off so we figured we wouldn’t lose any time recuperating from jet lag. Little did we know, we’d actually get even more time since the sun basically never set. Apart from an evening in Reykjavík, we spent most of our days driving, getting out of the car for some life altering natural wonder, jumping back in the car and driving to the next spot. We were literally chasing waterfalls and between those waterfalls we had ourselves, some grazing sheep, an occasional car, a fire playlist, and the road kept us company. The best real-life channel surfing we’ve ever done.
Here’s a basic synopsis of our 4 days in Iceland peppered with highs and lows, warms and colds, greats and even greaters.
Day 1: Flight, Reykjavík, Bónus grocery shopping stop
Day 2: Þingvellir National Park, the Blue Lagoon
Day 3: Seljalandsfoss, Sólheimasandur plane wreck, Víkurfjara (black sand beach), Svínafellsjökull, Jökulsárlón, Skógafoss
Day 4: Snorkelling in the Silfra fissure, Strokkur geyser, Reykjadalur Hot Springs in Hveragerði
Day 5: Early flight back to Ireland
Stay tuned for our coverage of Gabbi’s favorite place on the planet (so far). Spoiler alert, not even photos do it justice so bear with us as we try to convert Iceland and all its splendor into a few blog posts. And as they say in Iceland, takk fyrir komuna (thanks for coming)!
