Third in my Iceland Itinerary series is a real one, the one I plan to use next month! I haven’t been to Iceland for nearly four years and I’m very excited, and a bit nervous (I’m going on a plane!). And so this itinerary is both a blog post and me making plans.
This is a week-long itinerary for April with no car, making much use of tour companies. I daresay it would all work just as well in the summer. In the winter, I might reconsider the horse trip and the volcano and I’d add a Northern Lights activity evening. But April isn’t prime Northern Lights time so if I spy them while I’m in Reykjavik in the evenings, excellent. If not, I’m not really expecting them anyway.
Day One
On Day one, my plane lands at Keflavik at 4.15pm. That means by the time I’ve got the bus in and arrived at my accommodation, it’ll be somewhere between 6 and 7 in the evening.
First, I’m going to go to the supermarket and stock up on enough food to last me for the evening and morning, at least. That means pear juice and star-shaped crisps, which are the two food items I’ve missed the most. And I’ll need a few flavours of Sirius for a Chocolate Wars post. You know, a good healthy wholesome food shop. I don’t entirely know which supermarket is going to be closest yet, let alone which one is going to have the food I want (do they still exist after four years?) so the exact details of where I go shopping are still a mystery.
Second, and whether I do this straight from the shop or whether I take the food home depends on where I end up staying and where I end up shopping, I’m going to the pool. I’d like to go to Laugadalslaug but that’s a bus ride out of downtown Reykjavik and best saved for when I have longer than an evening, so I’m just going to stroll to Sundhollin. I spent an evening there in 2018 but it’s not enough. It’s like going to the pub in Iceland, so I’m going to have a very pleasant evening bobbing between the lane pool, the relaxing pool and the rooftop pot pots.
Day Two
I intend to go to the Sky Lagoon and that means one of three things. Either I pay a tour company an absolute fortune to transfer me there, which will mean I only get a couple of hours in the water, or I walk (about an hour and a quarter from downtown Reykjavik, or a short boat ride across the bay on a boat that still doesn’t exist!) or I get the bus. I’ve got my bus times written down but I’m struggling with the ticket. It’s now Monday and I’ve been trying this since when, Wednesday? Maybe Thursday?
Straeto now works on a system called Klapp. You either buy a plastic refillable ticket or you buy your tickets via an app. I have the app but buying the tickets is proving difficult. It refused my debit card point-blank. It took at least four attempts to get my credit card registered on there and it’s still refusing to let me buy tickets with it. Exactly the same will happen with a physical card: I’ll still need to top up online and it’s not letting me! I’m also concerned that I’m going to need internet access to use the app and I may not have that. Brexit may have done for non-expensive mobile data abroad. On the other hand, Iceland isn’t EU. My provider says “you can use all your allowances as you would at home, at no extra cost” so that sounds ok. But if I can’t buy the tickets in the first place, I’m probably going to end up buying a 10-ride plastic ticket and then I’ll have to make bus journeys for the sake of it. On the bright side, something physical to go in my scrapbook at the end!
Anyway, bus from Reykjavik to Kopavogur, walk the last 12 minutes and spend the afternoon luxuriating in hot water. The first (easy) bus appears to leave Laekjatorg at 10:48 so that leaves me a couple of hours to top up my shopping and enjoy Reykjavik before I go. I don’t know how long I’ll stay but I’ll have time in the late afternoon/evening to enjoy Reykjavik a bit more. Or indeed to decide that being on holiday is exhausting and just lie in bed with my phone.
Day three
This is the most exciting day! I mean, I have nothing planned after this yet (I will by the time this is published, otherwise there’s nothing to publish, but I only booked the flights two hours ago) but nothing is going to top this.
Obviously, I want to visit the new volcano. I know roughly where the car park is and I gather it’s not too difficult to figure out where the volcano is. But I’ll need to hire a car, or make investigations into public buses. Or, you know, book a day tour with a reputable company like Reykjavik Excursions, who will give me a professional guide to visit the thing. I have no idea what the weather is like in Iceland in April. I’ve done February and June so the best I can guess is that it’s somewhere between “everything is icy and cloudy” and “the Highlands are still under six feet of snow but it’s quite nice around the edges”. If I was to do the volcano on my own, I genuinely don’t know whether I’ll be trekking over gravel and lava or whether I’ll be making my way through thick snow, fog and blizzards so in this case, a guide is a good idea.
Even better, since you’re already on Reykjanes and it’s only just up the road, they’ll finish off the day with a trip to the Blue Lagoon. Volcano and Blue Lagoon, yes please! I daresay we don’t get as long in the water as I would like but still, I get to go to the Blue Lagoon. It’ll make for quite a long day: departure at 10am and it sounds like I’ll be getting back at 8pm so I’m making no more plans for day three, unless I pop to the supermarket again on my way back from the bus stop. This one’s going to get a whole blog post to itself in a month or so and I’m already excited to write it.
Day four
I thought I’d like to go for a hike today and when I was flicking through my Iceland hiking book, I spied the hot river at Hveragerði. I’ve never been there. I tried once but there was quite a substancial river and a very narrow log bridge over it right at the start and I gave up very easily. But I would like to try it. I didn’t mean for this itinerary to be trying out a different source of hot water every day but let’s go with it.
First, and biggest, problem, transport. Hveragerði is 45 minutes to an hour from Reykjavik and public buses are few and far between, not to mention that they land you at the roadhouse at the entrance to the village. That means at least a mile to walk just to get to the start of the hike and I’m not 1000% where it even is. But because it’s a pretty simple hike, there’s no guided tours. Why would there be? It’s too simple. I’m not hiring a car for an entire day, driving in Reykjavik, just so I can drive an hour in both directions.
But you know who does do guided trips to the hot river? The horse trekking people. I’m not a horsie person but I like to have a little horse trip occasionally, provided the horse stays in low gear. I have two options with the horse trek. The one I’m not opting for is the day trip to the hot river, believe it or not. If it was the only options, I’d take it but I’m just not horsie enough to ride for 5-6 hours. So I’m going for the Riding and Hiking tour, which means the usual beginners 1-2 hour nice slow ride on easy terrain followed by a hike to the river. I’m much better at hiking than riding and this way I get my interesting activity, my transport and someone to help me over that log bridge.
Day five
I’m thinking today I’ll do the Golden Circle and Secret Lagoon tour. I always like the Golden Circle, it’s the best of Iceland condensed into one day, and I’ve never been to the Secret Lagoon. I’ve done the Golden Circle so many times – I’ve done day tours definitely twice, probably three times and I’ve driven myself around most of it a few times. I can never resist Þingvellir and once you’re up there, you really might as well go and see Geysir and then it’s only an extra ten minutes to the big waterfall with the good restaurant and before I know it, I’ve added the Golden Circle to my day.
On this occasion, as a bonus, this is extremely unlikely to involve a 60+ seater coach, which the cheapest and most basic Golden Circle tour does, and I’m always into a less-packed vehicle. I need to do something dry one day – we’ve got a pool, two spas and a hot river so far and here I am adding more hot water to my schedule. But I haven’t done the Secret Lagoon and it looks nice! It’ll be another long day – a Golden Circle tour can easily take eight hours on its own. With a lagoon stop, I imagine the Golden Circle part will shave off things like Kerið and Skalholt and any extras and concentrate on the big three but it’ll still be a long day so no need for any other planning. Not that I ever do extra planning, I just get back and see what I feel like.
Day six
I feel like I’ve had quite an action-packed week and so I’m going to take today gently. I haven’t see a whole lot of Reykjavik and I’d like to do some shopping: some of my favourite Icelandic snacks to take home, see if any books catch my eye (note the titles and buy online when I get home because books in English are expensive in Iceland!) and roam a couple of souvenir shops. After several busy days, I must have a few pennies left in the bottom of my bank account and I might as well empty it completely.
And then, to be quite honest, I’m going to spend most of the day in Laugardalslaug, the big exciting pool a short bus ride from the city centre. Because of the plague, I’m still wary of indoor pools, which is why I haven’t been swimming since my own local outdoor pool closed at the beginning of last September. By the time I’m actually on day six of my Iceland trip, it’s probably only another month until my pool reopens but for now, I’m going to alternate a few lengths of Laugardalslaug’s beautiful outdoor geothermal 50m lane pool with visits to the assorted hot tubs. I’ve already got in my notes how many lengths make up a mile in this particular pool (it’s 33. I generally swim 80 lengths of my 25-yard outdoor pool, which equates to 37 of Laugavegur so I’m going to try for that, but it’s been a long time since I’ve swum so 33 will be my main goal).
Day seven
I’m going home today. My flight is at 17:10, so I need to be at the airport around 3ish, which means getting the bus by 1.30 or 2pm. I’m tempted to do the Blue Lagoon on the way but I’ve already done that and I’d only get a couple of hours so no. There’s not really anything else you can do with a suitcase so I’ll probably do what I usually do which is wander aimlessly while periodically yelling at my burden. Then I’ll go in the 66N shop at the airport and not buy anything even though I really want to and then I’ll go in the bookshop and not buy a book and then I’ll get back on a plane and get home at about midnight, just in time to be back in work the next morning. Oh. Oh. Well done me. I’m not at work the next day! Good, then I’ll get back home after midnight in time to not get up until at least 11am the next day!
Sticking this in at the bottom: I’m also going to be doing my Rebel World Traveller badge on this trip and as the clause says “and make a visual record – this could be a video, a scrapbook, a photo album or a series of sketches”, I’m going to make that video. I’ve been wanting and trying and failing to make videos since at least 2015, and this might be the push I need to actually finish one. I’ve just upgraded my semi-non-functional GoPro to one that actually works and even if I don’t manage to put together a coherent video, I will at least end up with clips of most things that I can insert into future posts as clips.