December 2021

A 1 week road trip around Route 1 became 6 days as we missed our inbound flight because my friend Jack was buying sunglasses at the airport. It is worth noting that there are only 4 hours of sunlight in Iceland in December!

During our road trip we stayed in small cabin airbnbs dotted around the country and drove an average of 4 hours per day to ensure we covered the entire 1,332km of coastline.

Starting in Reykjavik we drove to climb the active volcano Eyjafjallajökull. At 11am the sun rose at the summit of the volcano. We then visited the famous Blue Lagoon to relax after our hike. On days 2, 3 and 4 we drove to the northern town of Husavik anticlockwise around the ring road. On the way we stopped at; Skogafoss waterfall, Black sand beach in Vik, Diamond beach, Vatnajokull Glacier, Fagurhólsmýri waterfall hike (Grófarlækjarfoss and Hundafoss). On day 5 we stopped at Mývatn nature baths, which in my opinion were even better than the Blue Lagoon!

On night 5 we stayed on a farm near Akureyri. En route to the farm we took a wrong turn and our car got stuck in snow and we were stranded for 3 hours. We were planning to sleep in the car until a local man appeared from the darkness on skis with a shovel and dug us out of the snow! We saw the Aurora Borealis that night from the farm cabin.

The final two days of the trip we picked up the Golden Circle route driving through mountains and lakes, stopping off at the Great Geysir en route back down to Reykjavik. Before heading to the airport we swam in the Sky Lagoon, Reykjavik.