Calling all visitors to Iceland
- Thread starter The_Abyss
- Start date
Same. For a first time and in winter, not confident about renting a car myself.
^what's the pole on the bottom left? It's quite distracting.
We had a package tour deal which included Golden Circle Tour, Whale Watching, and Northern Lights. We went so time in Feb last year.
The bus was ok for the Northern lights tour which I think started at 9pm ish and we just drove around till we decamped at some farm type building on a large concrete forecourt. Those of us with DSLR's or something similar wondered off across the broken field of rock to set up tripods.
As for me I only had a gorilla pod as I hand luggage only for holiday. Others tourists had so decent tripods. It wasn’t a bad experience and I had some reasonable results.
but imagine how much better it would have been if you hadn't had to ride a bus around the countryside, we just strolled out to the patio of our guest house and took photos for about 3 hours while the guesthouse owner made us coffee. The guest house hot tub was also available if needed! I really would advise anyone travelling to Iceland to only stay in Reykjavik for a night or two the experience staying in guest houses out of the big towns is much nicer and don't be scared of driving the main ring road is hardly ever snow bound and will take you pretty much anywhere your going in a coach!
Rent a 4x4, they all have studded winter tyres from Nov to April anyway as it's a legal requirement.
There's a regularly updated site that tells you what the conditions are like so you can plan routes accordingly and the roads are cleared properly too. There's really no reason not to rent a car as long as you get something suitable.
http://www.road.is/travel-info/road-conditions-and-weather/
There's a regularly updated site that tells you what the conditions are like so you can plan routes accordingly and the roads are cleared properly too. There's really no reason not to rent a car as long as you get something suitable.
http://www.road.is/travel-info/road-conditions-and-weather/
Hi guys, look like we are going in September
Just started looking for booking ideas.
Did you book a self drive tour or Car and accommodation separately?
We booked flights , cars & accommodation separately
We used these chaps for car rental - they were pretty good. http://www.bluecarrental.is
We got blown off the road... twice
nice doubt the busses were running in that wind!
blue car rental are superb, brilliant car we hired. I'd rent from them without hesitation.. we returned our dacia duster without washing it and in a right state from eating in the car - no stains or stickiness - just crumbs and stuff from eating food, he didn't care a bit. returned it with half a tank and he did say we'd be charged to fill the tank back up but that was fine, just saved us having to do it and it was a normal price for filling up which was billed to my card. 10/10.
Old post resurrection...
So far we've booked the flights.. Commitment or what!?!
I need to pick a route now. What were your highlights and what would you skip knowing what you do now?
How long are you going for and when, this will have a bearing on suggestions!
For me the best advice is get out of Reykjavik we stayed a night in town at each end of our trip and that was plenty to see the sights! Our absolute favourite spot was a guesthouse just outside Vik (Guesthouses are a great alternative to hotels and the owners can be a really good source of info) Vik is lovely and the surrounding countryside amazing it also puts you within easy(ish) reach of the big south cost attractions.
Vik has the Black Sand Beach which should be on your list of places to see.
it is beautiful on a clear day and I would imagine pretty terrifying in a big winter storm!
We went last November and it was very windy. The waves were around 10 feet high and the tide was coming in. So, I did the only thing you should and walk around the rocks to get a photo of a cave. I've never ran so fast lol.
End of September is a good time to visit the weather has a chance of still being good, your into the northern light season (ie it gets dark at night) and you'll be just about out of season so things will be a little cheaper (Still expensive though!)
2 weeks is a good length for a trip if you don't mind long days and sticking to a reasonably tight schedule you could drive the whole ring road and see a bit of everything or if you prefer you could concentrate on the areas around Reykjavik and along the south coast. Things we really enjoyed were walking on a glacier for a few hours it was pretty good fun and really interesting to see the melting of the ice caps so graphically illustrated. We also had a great few hours snow mobiling on the biggest ice cap the ride up in first a massive super jeep followed by an ex military snow tractor was pretty hair raising but blasting round the ice cap more than made up for it and out of season we were in a group of 4 with a guide rather than 30 in the summer! The south coast is breath taking and there is something to see every few miles be it a water fall or an interesting rock formation so budget lots of time for stopping and starting. The Golden triangle is clichéd and busy but there is a good reason for that all three sights are pretty special, the café at Gullfoss had an amazing Lamb stew with a free refill that made it decent value!
Food wise Iceland is amazing Rekjavik has some great medium/high end eateries just avoid eating whale or puffin people will say it is an Icelandic tradition but to the locals it is pretty much dead about 75% of the whale eaten in Iceland is eaten by tourists and the percentage is even higher for puffin. If tourists stopped eating the stuff the trade would die.
Lol almost forgot this is a photography forum so don't skip the big waterfalls Gullfoss and Skogafoss being particularly stunning and make time for jokulsarlon aim for sunset and it is beautiful, the three sisters and the black sand beach in Vik are well worth pointing a camera at as is every single church in the country!
2 weeks is a good length for a trip if you don't mind long days and sticking to a reasonably tight schedule you could drive the whole ring road and see a bit of everything or if you prefer you could concentrate on the areas around Reykjavik and along the south coast. Things we really enjoyed were walking on a glacier for a few hours it was pretty good fun and really interesting to see the melting of the ice caps so graphically illustrated. We also had a great few hours snow mobiling on the biggest ice cap the ride up in first a massive super jeep followed by an ex military snow tractor was pretty hair raising but blasting round the ice cap more than made up for it and out of season we were in a group of 4 with a guide rather than 30 in the summer! The south coast is breath taking and there is something to see every few miles be it a water fall or an interesting rock formation so budget lots of time for stopping and starting. The Golden triangle is clichéd and busy but there is a good reason for that all three sights are pretty special, the café at Gullfoss had an amazing Lamb stew with a free refill that made it decent value!
Food wise Iceland is amazing Rekjavik has some great medium/high end eateries just avoid eating whale or puffin people will say it is an Icelandic tradition but to the locals it is pretty much dead about 75% of the whale eaten in Iceland is eaten by tourists and the percentage is even higher for puffin. If tourists stopped eating the stuff the trade would die.
Lol almost forgot this is a photography forum so don't skip the big waterfalls Gullfoss and Skogafoss being particularly stunning and make time for jokulsarlon aim for sunset and it is beautiful, the three sisters and the black sand beach in Vik are well worth pointing a camera at as is every single church in the country!
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