How NOT to Visit Iceland in the Winter
Processing a journey can take time. (This can be read metaphysically or literally, and in this case, I’m talking about a literal international trip.) For one reason or another, I never did a full trip report of my extended layover in Iceland last year. But as I have learned, “reasons” are often really excuses in disguise.
“Reason” 1: when I got back, there was a lot of other stuff going on that demanded my attention.
Reality: when I got home, I was entering a period of unemployment when I literally had weeks to myself. I should have used every moment to write, but resistance is real.
“Reason” 2: thinking nobody would care. It was a very short trip and besides getting some cool pictures, was relatively uneventful. What’s to report?
Reality: Iceland is one of the most popular travel destinations of the last three years. Having a variety of perspectives - especially those that aren’t insta-perfect! - is valuable.
“Reason” 3: I did it in a pretty ridiculous way. From travel itineraries to food planning, I did Iceland in one of the silliest ways I’ve ever heard. Who would want to replicate that?
Reality: It’s not about doing it perfectly for others to replicate, it’s about the story of it.
So here’s what really happened when I went to Iceland. And I brought the receipts. Strap in, it’s a 3-parter.
PART 1: PLANNING
Iceland has been on my big destination list for many years - and of course it has. Volcanic land of elves and Björk? What’s not to love!? So when my parents planned to go “home” to Germany last year, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to flex my budget travel skills and link up a destination that I might not get to visit otherwise. I planned to have a 48 hour stay in Iceland, and mapped out every minute using my handy-dandy spreadsheets to keep track of confirmation numbers, addresses, travel times, and budget. With my limited stay, I decided to maximize my time by sticking to the southern ring road, or the Golden Circle. I would rent a car and drive as far as I could to get the most out of every minute of daylight available (more on that in a second).
I believe that with every major endeavor (from commercial production to weddings to travel), it is important to have priorities. What is essential to you? What is your non-negotiable? And what, most importantly, are you willing to pay extra for to ensure you get what you want? For some folks that might be food - so you budget for good meals at cool restaurants. Someone else might want to do more guided tours, so you set aside time and money to make sure you have a good local guide who can show you around. When I travel - particularly when I’m solo - my priority is sleep. I know that I am more able to be present and enjoy where I am if I have gotten my beauty rest. Even when I was a young 20-something backpacking in New Zealand, I opted for quieter, off the main path hostels and got single rooms when I could.
When I lived in Europe, I learned that farm stays were often exactly what I was looking for: hospitable homes in beautiful places, with bonus animals and quirky farmers. Iceland had these in spades. I reserved a private room each night using, of all things, Booking.com. (not sponsored) I was very pleased with the good user and owner photos, ease of contact, and great confirmation documentation.
Everything having a trade-off, I place less value on the food I eat when I am traveling. I am Celiac, so cheap street food for me is not always a reliable source for me, and I really can’t play foreign-language-label-roulette at the grocery store. I know that in many situations, it is better for me to just bring my own snacks or even freeze-dried meals than chance it with local options. Which is what I did for Iceland. I packed in a bunch of bars, snacks, and pre-packaged meals from the USA and Germany. Don’t tell customs, maybe?
Enter: WOW AIR. This now-defunct airline is/was the Spirit Air of international travel. Their marketing and in-flight banter was notoriously silly and their prices are notoriously cheap (see also: now-defunct). Seriously, I’m talking $80 from Boston to Reykjavik! $300 from NYC to Frankfurt! It was madness.
Piecing together a flight itinerary quite the endeavor because, as with many budget airlines, they only fly out of certain international hubs. Not, for example, my home base of Nashville, Tennessee. I found a flight from Los Angeles (where my best friend lives) to Reykjavik to Frankfurt for $480. Score! I’d use Southwest points to get from Nashville to Los Angeles, stay the night with my girl Peggysue, and then head back to the airport in the morning for a WOW Air flight to Keflavik (arriving at 5AM local time, which was 9PM Los Angeles time) and then onwards to Frankfurt (arriving at 11am local, and god knows when for my internal clock). I got there. It was cheap. Would I do it that way again? NO MA’AM.
LESSON: I am too old for red-eye flights in economy. My body does not bend in the ways it did when I was 19 and I do not recover as quickly.
PART 2: THE ISLAND OF FIRE AND ICE (and wind, and rain, and fog, and darkness)
After a beautiful week in my German “hometown” (more on that here), I hopped on a WOW flight back to Keflavik ($130). We arrived in Keflavik amid a huge storm. Hurricane-force winds baffled our plane and then each of us personally as we used uncovered stairs to get from the plane down to the tarmac and across to the terminal. We were lucky, we got off the plane and our baggage did too. The British Air flight that was right behind us was unable to offload luggage and passengers were sent on their way with no bags.
I previously arranged for a car via Lagoon Car Rentals (as promoted by travel influencers peddling discount codes). But it turns out that the rental service does not have an office in the terminal and you must be ferried to their offices in a van driven by one of their cute, young sales reps. Without any hiccups, I got the keys to my Subaru and was turned loose into the encroaching darkness.
I turned on my international data plan, so I could use my phone’s GPS to get me from Keflavik, through Reykjavik, and out to my first farm stay in Skeiðflötur, a three hour drive away. My flight arrived at around 3pm, but any notion of making stops along the way was quickly revealed to be a pipe dream. The storm was immense and intimidating. But, stubborn person that I am, I careened onwards at full (legal) speed, trusting my Subaru to be comfortable navigating the crosswinds and slashing rain. Do not tell my mother about the weather I drove through.
My absolute priority for this trip was getting the shots. I blame Sorelle and Benjamin for my expectation that every single frame on this island is a banger. I did some Instagram location scouting and had a whole Google map charted out with must-sees and spots to check out. All of this, I must note, being dependent on the available light. When they say that winter days are shorter closer to the arctic circle, they are NOT KIDDING. By the time I got to Reykjavik (an hour away from the airport, which they don’t tell you in the brochures), it was full dark. At 4pm. And I had another two hours of (storm-battered) driving to go.
The Farmhouse Lodge, my first night’s lodging, was lovely and accommodating. Exhausted from travel and from wrestling the Subaru against the gale-force winds, I turned in for the night at around 7pm. If there’s one golden take-away from this series of misadventures, let it be this: there is nothing in the world as wonderful as sleeping under fluffy duvets with the radiator blasting and the windows open in the winter.
I have a full day planned so I rise at 7am to have a little breakfast (complementary) and revisit my map.
7am - full dark. I wait in the communal lounge and read.
8am - still full dark. I originally meant to be on my way by now, but to what end? I couldn’t see anything.
9am - the sky begins to lighten slightly. I load into my car, crank the Björk, and head towards the apex of my journey: the glacial bay, Jökulsárlón. The original plan was to hit the gorgeous geological features at Reynisfjara near the Farmhouse Lodge at first light, but the sun had other plans. First light was much later than I had anticipated and I needed to get on the road if I was going to get to my destination with any daylight. The stop at Reynisfjara moved to the return trip.
10am - the sky is as light as it is going to get because it’s another incredibly overcast day. I am driving through the inside of a pingpong ball, or the world’s most densely packed snow globe. I can sense that there is epic landscape on all sides, but my sight is limited to about 100 yards. When cliffs peeked through, or when an odd-looking roadside feature presented itself, I swerve my trusty Subaru into the nearest pull-out to snap some shots despite the icy rain. (Mixed results.)
Things they don’t tell you about Iceland: single lane bridges. The country has been so sparsely populated and lightly visited until recently that about 1 in 4 of the bridges on the main ring road along the south coast are single lane - and some are quite long. Meaning, if you start onto a bridge unable to see the far side due to fog and rain, you might get halfway and meet an oncoming vehicle who was equally unable to see you at their starting point. Thankfully, I didn’t have that exact experience, but the teeny, narrow bridges with very low guardrails did raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Not for the timid driver. Again, don’t tell my mother. (Hi, Mama.)
I reach Jökulsárlón and Diamond Beach at around lunchtime. As I get closer, the massive glaciers reflected light back up into the clouds, creating a blue glow in the low cloud ceiling that beckons from across the plains. As the glaciers calve into the bay and then migrate out into the open ocean, chunks get thrown back on the black sand beaches by the winter waves. The contrast between brilliant ice and volcanic black sand was truly otherworldly. Across the bridge was the parking lot for the glacier bay. Drones hum overhead as the crowds angled to get their shots. The cold rain falls steadily now and I am soaked through. But the gently drifting icebergs in all their milky blue beauty were a special kind of peaceful. Still photographs hardly do it justice, you need to sit and watch them sway.
Right behind my priority of sleep is dryness which seems to be a non-option on this trip. Hypothermia, on the other hand, is. My second night’s accommodation is not far from the bay, so I decide to go ahead and see if I can check in early.
This farmhouse won my booking by having horses and a cemetery on the property. Sold. Problem: the light is so low already when I pull into the driveway that I can’t get any good images on my entry-level MILC. Disappointed and wet, I am very grateful to the farmer for letting me in early to warm up, dry off, and hunker down for the rest of the evening. It is 4pm and dark again. I have almost finished my books and snacks. I’m the only person in the guesthouse until around 8pm. It’s times like these that being a solo traveler can grate on you. But I sleep well in another cozy room with windows open onto a shrouded landscape.
LESSON: Take daylight hours seriously and plan accordingly. If you’re prone to getting stir-crazy, maybe don’t travel to far northern latitudes in the dead of winter.
Part 3: THE RETURN
The second morning, I awake to kitchen noises and am treated to a lovely breakfast before loading out. The skies are a little lighter this morning and the rain has stopped. Today is the most ambitious day, partly because of the long drive back to the airport, and partly because light and weather has condensed some of my highest priority stops into these few hours. It’s 8am, not even close to light yet, I have 6 hours of driving (without counting stops) and my flight leaves at 5pm. I have never, ever had such a tight schedule on a trip.
Deep breath, here we go.
I barrel back through the glacial planes, thrilled to see the landscapes obscured by clouds in the first 24 hours. I stop for photoshoots with ponies, other different ponies, sheep, a distant waterfall, other different sheep. There’s one shot I didn’t get that I will probably kick myself over until I get back to Iceland one day: a tiny shed-cottage built in such a way that it is nestled practically under a giant boulder in the middle of the field. Is the fourth wall of the cottage made of rock? How long has it been there? I may never know.
I take the road down to Reynisfjara Beach, eager to get a shot clambering on the gorgeous basalt columns by the sea. The parking lot is full, even in November, and I check the clock. I have allowed myself 15 minutes to hoof it across the sand to the rocky outcropping, snag an angle without other people in it, and then get back in my car to keep going. I get what I’m looking for, but it takes me more time than I had anticipated - the beach walk is longer and looser sand than I had imagined, and it is slow going. 20 minutes later, I’m shouting at myself that “YOU HAVE TO GO, WOODBERY” despite the fact that these geological features are absolutely mesmerizing. Basalt columns form when lava cools very quickly. These giant columns resemble the Devil’s Causeway in Ireland and the tip of the Otago Peninsula on the South Island of New Zealand. I’m a nerd and justify the delay because these are some damn special rocks.
Back in the car, I’m quickly re-renegotiating as there are several beautiful rams hanging out in the village who need their photos taken. Snap, snap, snap and back in the car. This time, it’s a non-stop blast back to the rental car office. Icelandic roads are famous for speed cameras. To my knowledge, I did not trip any and I am genuinely surprised. (Sorry, Mama.)
I pull up to the offices at 4pm and basically throw the keys at the cute, young clerks and beg them to drive me as fast as possible to the terminal. This is not the day for your dad’s “arrive two hours early for an international flight” rules. (Sorry, Papa.) Thankfully, Keflavik is a small airport. I’m especially thankful due to the amount of running while wearing a heavy backpack that I am about to do.
Here’s one of my primary rules of travel: DO NOT RUN IN AIRPORTS. I hate it. I hate the feeling of stress. I hate the sweating in layers intended to keep me cozy mid-flight. I hate the shuffling for papers and passports. I hate the inevitable tediousness of queuing and security officers who seem to respond to my fidgeting anxiety by moving at a proportionally glacial pace. Keflavik proved my rule. But I made it to the gate right as they were boarding my group. I had three more flights and another mile or so of running before I would be home, but for the moment, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Done. Iceland. Check.
Do I recommend you go? Hell yeah.
Do I recommend you go in November? Um, nope.
Do I recommend you use my itinerary? Please do not.
But have fun out there!