Short trip to Iceland

Why did I go to Iceland? Simply because I got cheap plane tickets! The return ticket in November from Riga ‘’robbed’’ me for 50 euros. Not even kidding, you pay approximately the same price for the airport bus there.

My plan was to find a cheap accommodation to reduce the costs as much as possible; Iceland is comparable to Norway when it comes to prices – or at least so I heard. So, winning a lottery or selling an organ before your trip will make your trip easier.

I have arrived late in the evening on, apparently, the coldest winter day this season. In fact, Iceland is less cold than tourists expect, -8°C is considered as ‘’pretty cold’’, and I was not prepared very well to be frank.

What surprised me during the walking the city was, first of all, the size of the capital. Reykjavik is where most people live in Iceland and it is still quite tiny and has typical colorful Scandinavian-building-style houses by some of the main promenades.

Another thing was, well, the prices. Iceland’s economy was saved by tourism and just exploded once the tourists discovered it. The country gets 3 million of tourists each year and imagine that in a country with 300 000 inhabitants and one main road around the island! That is why the prices of restaurants went into the sky, even to the extent of being much more expensive than Norway. There is also hardly any ‘’street food’’; if you find any, you will get an awfully small portion that will leave you as satisfied as eating a McDonalds cheeseburger. Only that you’ll pay 13 euros for it. Speaking of which, McDonalds, Burger King and similar chains are long gone in Iceland. You will, however, find Subway.

The city itself is very cute, especially before Christmas time. It is theoretically wheelchair accessible, yet quite a large part of the city requires you to walk slightly uphill. It has it all, the coast is very pretty, the views are lovely and the choice of activities is amazing. However, no one goes to Iceland to experience the city life, really. It is a good stop for a day or two.

I admit, the cozy, alternative, ‘’hipster’’ bars are my weakness. That is why I visited one of them after my first sightseeing, it was one of the most comfortable places I’ve ever seen and I really wanted that cheesecake and cappuccino (9 Euro is a normal price for a piece of cake).
In addition, I have visited the EVS volunteers working on a similar project as myself – in HI hostel Loft, which is also amazing place with a great variety of services offered and activities for young and old. They offer the concerts, sustainability events, broadcastings of RuPaul’s drag race and the movies, free Sunday yoga. There are boards for carpooling searching/offering guests. The volunteers were welcoming and I simply loved the hostel!

Golden circle trip

Since my trip was only 4 days long, I decided to take a trip, organized by touristic agency Sightseeing Reykjavik where you can see the most beautiful locations around the capital in 8 hours. The agency made a really good impression already with picking up the guests in front of their hotels/hostels and the guide was very jolly despite the complete darkness at 8:45 in the morning. Every tourist had an android tablet to be able to follow the way and read more about the spots we see. I started thinking whether booking at this hour was a good idea after all, Iceland sees only 5 hours of daylight per day at the time. But turned out it was perfect – we arrived to our first location, the national park Pingellir, the point where American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet – right as the sun was rising slowly while we enjoyed a short hike. It lasted for approximately and hour above the snowy landscape and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life. This place has an important historical role as it was the meeting point for the scattered population living all over the islands, and it was also the place where Game of Thrones was filmed. It is hard to describe the wonderful landscape or even catch it on the picture.

The agency took us to a typical Icelandic farm with homemade ice cream, allowed us to pet the animals and enjoy the traditional cakes. Confirmed, their ice cream was delicious. Shortly after that, we stopped to pet the Icelandic horses, a typical, pure-blood and the only type of horse existing on Iceland. They were surprisingly small and their fur was so fluffy!

We continued to the famous geyser Strokkur, which was one of the most visited places around there. This is the active geyser, erupting every few minutes 2 to 20 meters high. Plenty of tourists are standing around it with their cameras, which was a bit irritating, but overall it was still fantastic to see the hot springs and geothermal activity – smoke coming from tiny brooks. It is not recommended to touch the water as it has 80 °C.

The next stop was Gullfoss waterfall, which is giant and fascinating, 32 metres high on two different ‘levels’’. That made me think how lucky I am with the weather as I’ve even seen the rainbow and that I really want to see these fascinating landscapes in the summer as well.

Last stop was the waterfall that literally translated means ‘’horse hair’’ and I was one of the few tourists that managed to gather enough energy to leave the comfort of the bus and catch one last sight of the beautiful scenery.

We were dropped in front of our accommodation again in the complete darkness and left fully blown away by the fascinating and perfectly organized trip, finding hard to believe that something so wonderful has been in existence for millions of years in our beautiful planet.

All that and even the price of it was very affordable – 57 Eur. Worth every cent. So I can only recommend – if you are a solo traveler or don’t intend to rent a car, this is a trip for you – regardless of the season!

Thanks a lot for reading and remember to keep yourself updated on our articles – soon the practical survival tips in Iceland will be published.