During the last week of May, 2013, we had an awesome trip to Iceland. There are a ton of resources about Iceland online and I did a lot of research before we left. Two of my favorite sites were We Do Iceland and International-Photographer. (If you haven’t been to those sites, you’re in for a big treat.) The more I researched, the more excited I became about our trip. I ran across an amazing number of well-traveled people who declared Iceland their favorite place on the earth.
We only had nine days available for our trip, so we decided to concentrate on the western and southern parts of the island. Our connecting flights to Iceland were late and we missed our original flight into Keflavik. (If you’re interested, you can read about that whole debacle here.) This was the original itinerary that I had planned:
Day 1: Keflavik to Reykjavik (a full day in Reykjavik)
Day 2: Reykjavik — with a side trip to Thingvellir National Park, Gulfoss and Geysir
Day 3: Reykjavik — with a side trip to The Blue Lagoon
Day 4: Reykjavik to Flokalundur
Day 5: Flokalundur to Selfoss
Day 6: Selfoss to Vik
Day 7: Vik to Hofn and Back
Day 8: Vik to Gardur
Day 9: Fly Home
We arrived in Iceland 36 hours later than originally planned and in order to preserve some of our hotel reservations, I had to make some changes in our itinerary. We lost 1 1/2 days, but managed to recover by adding an extra day to the end of the trip and by squeezing the original plan for Day 2 into two other days.
So, below are the links to our trip as it played out. I liked that The Blue Lagoon ended up being at the end of the trip, but otherwise, the original plan is probably better. And, in an ideal world, we’d have a LOT more time along the southern coast of Iceland — two days just isn’t even close to long enough for a place with such stunning and diverse beauty.
Day 1: Keflavik to Reykjavik
Day 2: Reykjavik
Day 3: Reykjavik to Flokalundur
Day 4: Flokalundur to Selfoss
Day 5: Selfoss to Vik
Day 6: Vik to Hofn and Back
Day 7: Vik to Reykjavik
Day 8: Reykjavik to Gardur
Day 9: Fly Home
If you’re planning a trip to Iceland, I hope you’ll learn a tip or two from our trip. We certainly learned a lot and I can’t wait to return. Next time, I’m hoping to have a lot more time to explore this amazingly beautiful country!
