2018 ICELAND 1 - Preparation and Research

A couple of years ago friends Mike and Jan took a trip to Iceland. They rented a car and just drove. Didn't do any of the "touristy" things, but did see Gullfoss (Golden Falls) and highly recommended that.

More recently, neighbors Tom and Lisa (not our California Tom and Lisa friends) took a cruise ship around this island-country, stopping at various towns and enjoying inland tours.

All of their stories and descriptions totally intrigued us. So it has been on my radar for a while to visit this island-country. Well, I turned 70 the first of this year and wanted to do something special for my birthday trip. Iceland popped up as something special, something different, something most people haven't experienced.

I approached other family members, but my sister Lauren and her hubby Tom were the only ones available. So the sisters started planning. We researched numerous possibilities and browsed the travel book loaned to us by Tom and Lisa.

Was the Ring Road open year round? What were the temps compared to Michigan? What were the major attractions? When were we most likely to see the aurora borealis (or northern lights)...my biggest must see? How would we get to the island? Etc, etc.

The Ring Road circuit was another big to do. See the yellow line around the map. If you drove non-stop at the speed limit (ranging 50-90 kph or 31-55 mph), it would take 12-13 hours to cover the 828 miles under ideal conditions. That meant two to three days of just driving.

After watching a cold weather surf documentary ("Under an Arctic Sky" on Netflix streaming) filmed in the dead of winter in Iceland, we saw the perils of taking that route. The surfer van was stuck and delayed by fierce snowstorms. We also discovered the Ring Road does not follow the seaside most of the time. So we ditched that original plan.

Recently I met artist Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson at a Western Michigan University-Richmond Center exhibit opening of her work. She currently lives in Cleveland, but is a native Icelander. One example of the work I saw was a rendering of a rock and surrounding flora, which she converted into a painting maybe 10x12 foot in size. It was unrecognizable from its original form, but truly beautiful. She works in varied media and has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Cleveland. Ah, but I digress.

Anyway, we had time to chat about the trip. She answered many questions and even recommended Glacier View Guesthouse owned by a friend. Unfortunately, due to previously booked arrangements, it did not work out for us to stay there. She made other suggestions which we did incorporate. Thank, Hildur.

Oh, I also asked her how to properly pronounce Reykjavik. It is somewhere between Rake-havik and Reek-havik, but definitely not Rike-havik.

We also learned the closer you travel to one of the equinoxes, the better chance of seeing an aurora borealis. So we delayed our trip to early March, a little closer to Mar 20, the vernal or spring equinox.

This was our final itinerary plan:
Day 0-1: Fly to and overnight in Reykjavik
Day 2: Via Vik drive to Skaftafell in the Vatnajokull National Park area
Day 3: Visit the glacial lagoon and ice caves in Jokulsarlon before backtracking (again via Vik) to overnight in Skogar
Day 4: Return to Reykjavik via the Skogar Folk Museum, Lava Center, and the geothermal plant
Day 5: Side trip to the Golden Circle (Geysir, Golden Falls, Thingvellir / Pingvellir)
Day 6: Side trip to the tomato greenhouse, the Perlan Center, and then shopping in Reykjavik
Day 7: Happy ending at the Blue Lagoon
Day 8: Return home

This map of southwest and south Iceland, shows a fair description of our route. Disregard the numbers and the lines; just look at the cities. The greenhouse (not indicated on the map) was a little south of the line between Thingvellir National Park and Gullfoss.

If we had ten days, I would have definitely rode the Ring Road. As it was, we covered 914 miles, but some was backtracking and no bad weather at all. There was pure sunshine until the Day 7 when we left Reykjavik for the Blue Lagoon. I was kind of glad of that. The cloudy skies and light rain made our last stop a little more mystical.

Most of the major sights in Iceland are in the area we traveled. I wished we'd had time to see the peninsula to the northwest. They say that is were the best puffin watching is. We saw lots of puffins though, but they were art pieces or incorporated into clothing or a few taxidermied for sale (yuck). This big guy was at the entrance to our first waterfall sighting.