What I packed for Iceland in August

Posted on by Juliet Frost

Have I still not wrung out the Iceland content? No, apparently not because I’m going to do a post today about what I wore.

Is this “what to pack for Iceland in summer” or is this “Iceland active/unpredictable weather capsule wardrobe”? I’m not the capsule wardrobe type. Having one for travel might be handy, so I never have to think about what I need to pack but on the other hand, while I favour cold places, it’s still always going to have different requirements. What I took to Iceland in August, however appalling the weather, is not the same as what I’m going to take to the Christmas markets in Germany.

But… three jumpers, four tops, three trousers, two sets of footwear and some accessories does kind of make a capsule wardrobe and most of it is what I took in April too. Iceland’s weather is rarely brilliant but outside of winter – when it’s not snowing – it’s not actually that cold. It doesn’t have tropical summers, you’ll rarely be out and about in shorts and t-shirts but with a few simple layers, you can actually put together a “capsule wardrobe” that will suit a drizzly summer. It’s a bit of a volcanic colour palette – mostly black, with red and yellow for a big splash of bright colour and of course, it can all be combined in any way, depending on how warm I needed to be – or more realistically, what was reasonably dry and clean. You don’t need to take 27 items, you don’t need a “going out outfit” when you’re camping and you certainly don’t need any skirts or dresses.

I’m going to put links, either to the company or the specific item where I can. Full disclosure – none of these are affiliate links. I’m not a member of any of the programmes and have no idea how to become one so you can click without fear of accidentally giving me a few pennies!

So let’s see what I took.

Let’s start from the outside in. I took my full waterproofs – jacket and trousers. Quite frankly, if you don’t take waterproofs to Iceland any time of year, you’re a fool. All the cashmere sweaters and leather-look leggings and heeled hiking boots can’t protect you from torrential rain. Waterproofs!

Me in the corner of my office, with a large tectonic Iceland map on the wall behind me and an 8-hole Kallax unit next to me. On top are various pictures of my travels, with a postcard of the recent Iceland eruption prominent. I'm standing in front of it in a blue waterproof jacket with the hood pulled up and too-big black waterproof trousers.

The three outer layers I took were my yellow Solo jumper, which is a very soft sweatshirt with a lot of fleece in the mix. It’s cropped but not to the point that it looks ridiculous, although I have gradually realised it’s precisely the wrong length on me.

(Solo doesn’t exist right now – you wouldn’t know from the website but the company behind it that actually makes all the stuff went out of business, so don’t go looking for it just now.)

Me in a cropped mustard-yellow jumper standing in my Iceland corner. My hair is in plaits and I'm wearing black hiking trousers with a longer black t-shirt camouflaged but sticking out under the jumper.

Then I took my Cintamani technostretch jacket which I bought in the downtown Reykjavik outlet a few years ago. It’s fleecy on the inside and smooth, almost like a very fine neoprene, on the outside. It has a great big asymmetrical zip and you can unzip the collar to reveal a bright orange mesh so you can zip the collar up to your nose and still breathe through it. I’m fond of this thing – I got mistaken for an actual Icelander while buying it because I was wearing this next item at the time.

Same place, same hair etc. Now I'm wearing a black jacket with an asymmetrical zip. The collar has a large orange triangular insert so I can cover part of my face when it's zipped to the top. A yellow top is escaping the bottom of the jacket.

This one is my black technostretch 66° North Vik jacket.These come in hundreds of colours and styles but basically, they’re all a long-sleeved jacket in that same fleece/neoprene fabric. Mine has a two-way zip and is black. They also come with half zips and hoods and in various colours. The 66° North one is a bit softer than the Cintamani one, a bit more comfortable to wear. But the Cintamani one has inside and outside pockets where as the 66° North one only has one small chest pocket that I can’t even get my sunglasses in.

Now I'm wearing a large red t-shirt. Over it is another black jacket, this one open, although I'm holding it by the zip. It's very simple, with no pockets or hoods or weird insert.

Underneath them, I took four tops. I travelled in a soft loose bright yellow long-sleeved Lucy & Yak t-shirt, which got damp on the first day and stayed damp until about day four.

Wearing a thin long-sleeved t-shirt in a shade of yellow brighter and more canary-like than the slightly mustard yellow of the jumper earlier.

I took a big red Primark t-shirt which I wore to hike to the volcano. It was subsequently sweaty and disgusting and I didn’t wear it again until I’d gone home and washed it.

Posing with a hand behind my neck in a big plain darkish red t-shirt.

I had a black t-shirt I bought in 2016 at Skaftafell – it has the logo of the Vatnajökull National Park – the incredible Icelandic word “Vatnajökulsþjóðgarður” – on it. I like this t-shirt, I like how it feels, I like how Icelandic it is and I’m not a huge fan of how suspiciously passport control look at you when you wear it to depart the country without any kind of working documentation, because this is the t-shirt the park rangers wear. Sorry, no. I bought it in the visitor centre.

Leaning into the camera, wearing a black t-shirt with a national park logo on it. There's a stylised mountain in bright blue and underneath, the long name of the national park in small white letters. Underneath is ICELAND in bigger letters.

The fourth top is a long-sleeved black thermal top to wear underneath things. No photos because 1) I don’t know where it’s gone 2) it’s kind of see-through.

Then we get to trousers. They’re all walking trousers from Decathlon. I have two identical pairs, which differ only in that the grippy patches are peeling off the old ones and the right-hand pocket zip jams on the new ones.

The yellow top photo cropped so you can see the grippy diamonds on my trousers and an extra hem just above the knees where the legs zip off to turn them into shorts.

The other pair doesn’t zip off into shorts in good weather and it has an extra thigh pocket.

The red t-shirt photo cropped so you can see a zip on my right thigh and some lighter reinforcing panels on my knees.

Honestly, all three are pretty interchangeable. A proper travel capsule wardrobe would have more variety in the bottom half. But hiking trousers that dry quickly are absolutely ideal for summer in Iceland.

Footwear? Ok. I live in sandals as long as possible because I’ve developed something against socks since the plague. Sandals are easy to put on and if you get the mountain type rather than the decorative type, they can cope with any kind of surface Iceland can throw at them. Looking for the link, I realise these are actually mens’ sandals. *shrug*

My legs and feet. My toenails are painted a bright metallic glittery blue. The sandals are low-profile ones with solid black straps across toes, forefoot and around heel.

Obviously I’m not stupid and I took my Mammut mountain boots to hike up to the volcano. I’m pretty sure that’s the only day I bothered putting them on. They’re not as comfy as the sandals but fine, they’re better for long hikes over mountains.

My legs and feet, now clad in a pair of grey boots, reasonably well worn. The hooks for the laces are pink and the grey laces have a pink thread through them. I did not clean this boots before taking the photos.

All that’s left now are the accessories and there aren’t many of those. I took some fleece gloves and the Tom Hat 2 because that’s called Being Prepared When Hiking Over a Mountain and much to my own surprise, it was chilly enough that I put them on before I’d even set off. I wouldn’t have bothered carefully packing them into drybags and deciding which bag pocket to put them in if I’d realised I’d be putting them on as soon as I got out of the car.

Me in the yellow jumper. I'm wearing a hat in stripes that are both neon and pastel at the same time, with a bobble. The gloves are thick navy fleece.

I took my swimming stuff. Three swimsuits – one on, one drying and one in case the others didn’t dry quickly enough. I have a polar bear one from the Bluetits which would look wonderfully on-brand in geothermal spa photos and then an ordinary undecorative one for ordinary pools where I wouldn’t be taking photos. A lightweight travel towel, my prescription goggles just in case I decided to swim lengths, and a drybag finished off my swimming collection.

Me in the Secret Lagoon, floating on two blue noodles. I'm wearing a one-piece swimsuit striped in various shades of blue underneath a large polar bear sitting down looking over its shoulder.

Do you want the accessories? Really?

A pair of tiny silver hoop earrings hanging from a brown thread; a silver rune pendant hanging from its chain with a necklace made of twisted brown threads and threaded with stainless steel circles engraved with various things. Lying underneath are two bracelets in the same style, with more "steps" on them, and a webbing bracelet with reflective thread around the top and bottom. The plate giving my emergency contact details has mostly been blurred out.
I only realised as I posted this that I forgot my watch and I probably wore a ring or two as well. Never mind.

I keep it fairly simple. Other than when I took off rings and bracelets for geothermal pools, these went on in the morning every day and the chunky stuff came off at night.

I live in my watch, which is the Baby G of my twelve-year-old self’s dreams – although perhaps I wouldn’t have dreamed of it having pink accents.

I wore my Energy/Orka bindrune, which is a simple silver pendant (perhaps it shouldn’t have gone in some of the thermal pools; it’s lost its gleaming shine and no matter how I polish it, I can’t quite get it back).

I also wore my El Camino Bracelets necklace. It contains a couple of travel “steps” and one you don’t get to see and is so long that it tends to get tangled in things.

And now I’m travelling, I’m finally wearing the matching bracelets again – they contain various country steps and a few special places and events. Ordered a custom Meradalir August 2022 as soon as I got home. The black one is my more Arctic/polar bear-themed one. The red one is more mainland Europe.

Then there’s my webbing & velcro ID bracelet, which I’m not going to show you for obvious reasons – well, not what’s engraved on it, anyway. I bought it in 2013 when I first went camping around Iceland and it seemed a good idea as a precaution in case… well, just in case. Not that it’s any of your business but it’s not a medical alert bracelet; I don’t have anything that anyone would need to be alert about.

And last, I have a tiny pair of silver huggie hoops from Argos which are tiny enough to not get in the way but just look a tiny bit more put-together than not wearing earrings – even though I put them in a week ago and haven’t given them a thought since then!

You’ll spot other bracelets in pool photos – they’re the locker keys and range from the elastic band with a keyring at the Secret Lagoon in the swimsuit picture above to the silicone chip/credit card one at the Secret Lagoon.

And that’s my summer in Iceland capsule wardrobe/what I packed for my summer trip to Iceland. In theory, other than perhaps the sandals, that lot should have all fitted fairly comfortable in hand luggage. Because I was taking a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping mat, I had to go hold luggage and because those three take up most of the space in my big bag, I had to reduce the clothes more than perhaps I usually would. I took the same bag in April, filled so full I panicked a bit about zipping it up on the last morning, and there wasn’t any camping stuff in it that time!