Iceland-The Self Drive Loop around the world’s most scenic country
Here is the itinerary we used for this trip:
Our approximate route going East from Reykjavik and looping around…(click on image)
Iceland (Greener than you think) is a country that has always fascinated me because of its isolation and scenic beauty. My friend Steve and I decided that we would organize a self drive through a company, and that was probably the smartest choice I have made in my life thus far. Basically we booked through a company Iceland Unlimited and they booked all our Guesthouse/Farmhouses for us and we drove in a loop around the whole island at our leisure. They were a very big help in the months leading up to the trip, answering any questions we needed. Stopping to see stuff we wanted and ignoring stuff we did not want to see. One thing I can say about Iceland is even the most desolate places have better wifi than most cities in the world….so that made the trip more enjoyable….
Reykjavik is a beautiful city. It was the summer there when we arrived but I can assure you it was colder than hell. We took a jaunt around the city and tried the local beer and ate and just enjoyed ourselves. We obviously stocked up on winter clothes as we came ill prepared (it was not cheap). We had a chance t o have some beers are various little pubs and just see what the city has to offer. There was also the only Phallological (Penis Museum) in the world there, which was a quite interesting place to check out
The Freakshow Carnival
On our jaunt around the city, we saw that they had a carnival in town so we got tickets for later that night. What we didn’t know is that this carnival at night turned into more of an adult carnival as we went to two shows: one of them was people swinging around to music which was very calming, and the other one was two guys that basically were eating glass and shoving pointed objects into their skin. I actually liked this a lot as they had a great act, however I would not bring our kids here!!!!! For more information, please follow this link Pain Solution
The Golden Circle
Next morning we rented our car to start our self drive. We went around what they call “The Golden Circle” which is the most popular attractions outside of Reykjavik. The day was rainy as all hell, but we managed to get to a two beautiful waterfalls, a geyser, a small volcano lake and to top it all off we ate horse and whale at a TEX-MEX restaurant in a small town…go figure…
The South Coast
After getting up in the morning at our little guesthouse, we proceeded to drive along the southern coast, stopping at some of the most stunning scenery I have ever found in my life. Beautiful valleys that looked like they were from an impressionist painting, more waterfalls (the theme of the trip), and also icebergs. As we got closer to our destination that night, we managed to fit in two French backpackers as we drove them to their destination then enjoyed a rather expensive lobster dinner with lobster soup, lobster appetizers and then just plain lobster. Price was not an object as it was delicious…..
East Iceland
After checking out from our little guesthouse, we made our way up the East Coast and saw beautiful Fjords. We stopped in a small town and did a walkabout around there which was amazing, finally cutting inland west through some beautiful mountains and making our way to the small little town of Egilsstaðir, which was one of the most interesting little places as there was not much to do, but we ran across a small little bar and listened to live music where it looked like most of the town emptied out into. This was a great place with even better atmosphere……
The next three days we will be in this area:
Through the inland to Husavik
Cutting inland more, we were trying to get to Husavik/Myvatn area and this proved very difficult with the weather. We had to change our route because our little Hyundai H10 was not doing too well on the non paved roads. We were literally in the middle of nowhere!!!!! Of course it started raining again and so we stopped off at some beautiful sulfur springs and sulfur geysers and I took my lightsaber out to get pictures!!!! We finally got to Husavik and what we found was a gem in the rough!!!! This was literally our favorite city of the whole trip as it was an old town with a very few restaurants and bars, but we did manage to find a bar with a pub trivia and of course we won it!!!! We just didn’t win it, we decided to smash the competition. I believe we were out pretty late that night….
When in Northern Iceland, you must do whale watching!!!!! It was colder than all hell, but we paid our high amount and went out on a boat, we were not disappointed as you can see form below :
Lake Myvatn area
We hung around the Northern area and made our way to the most quaint little farm house for the night that I feel in love with, it was literally in the middle of nowhere!!! On the way, we stopped in the Myvatn nature baths. Now everyone in Iceland talks about the Blue Lagoon, but this was a lot less crowded and in my opinion better, so we took a nice little dip in there and relaxed for about an hour. Then went back to our little farmhouse.
Akeyuri (Capital of the North)
Now it was time to get to Akureyri (the capital of the North.) This was a scenic drive and not really that long. This was the biggest city we had been in since Reykjavik and decided to go out and explore (where most of my photos were lost because my camera got broken. We had some beers at different places then went back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit, then went out for the night. I believe we ended up at a few different bars and I ended up at a nightclub at the end of the night, finally getting back at four or five in the morning!!!!!
West Iceland
The next day both of us woke up rather late for obvious reasons!!!! We had our longest driving day, but along the way we stopped to ride the Iceland ponies which was great!!!! When going to Iceland you must do this. After looking at our map and realizing that we were running behind, we had to cut out parts of our drive and take a shortcut to our destination for the night. It was a quaint little guesthouse on the foot of a mountain in the middle of nowhere…..
Waking up in the morning we made our way back to Reykjavik where I did some more sightseeing and reflected on the last ten days. It was a great adventure
We did IT!!!!
