Iceland Adventure 2022 – Intro

Next: Sky Lagoon, Silver Circle, Hraunfossar

As with last year’s adventure to the Pacific Northwest, this year we anchored our trip around a Backroads hiking trip.  It was our Backroads travel pal Charlie’s turn to pick where the group was going this year.  As a college graduation present to himself (which his dad, John, happily paid for), Charlie selected Iceland.  Where else would a Geology major want to go? Iceland is one of the more fascinating geological splendors of the world.

The Backroads trip was to be 6 days and 5 nights.  We added 3 days, not including arrival day, to the front end of the trip to explore Iceland on our own before joining the Backroads group.  For this first part of the trip, we had our adult daughter Elizabeth with us.  We also were joined by our Backroads travel pals John, Ann, Charlie, Luise, and first-timer Brenda (John’s new fiancé).

We were on the Backroads adventure from July 12-16, so July 9-11 and July 17-18 required planning, as we were on our own these days.

Our friend Ann had arranged for a private bus tour for us on July 11 to the southern part of Iceland. So, all I really planned was activity for 2 days, plus a rental car and hotels.  Basically, the plan called for Sky Lagoon (a newer alternative to the famous but old news Blue Lagoon), a tour inside a volcano, and driving the famous Golden Circle (which is on EVERY list on the internet for Iceland MUST DO).  In between we would tool around Reykjavik.  Most of this happened per plan. The volcano tour was cancelled on us last minute and so we took that day to explore some truly amazing landscape, geothermal sites, and waterfalls via a reasonably priced (pause for laughter) rental car.

Emilie and I packed for all kinds of weather. Our other daughter, Suzannah was in Iceland the week before us and she said it was sunny, but cold.  So, we packed cold weather clothes along with warmer weather clothes.  Turns out, we really didn’t need our cold weather clothes.  It was warm, in the 50s and 60s most of the time, and it rained very little.  We lucked out in terms of weather.

This is the Backroads portion summary as provided by Backroads:

July 8

Arriving in Reykjavik

We flew Icelandic Air out of Boston and arrived at Keflavik airport, just outside of Reykjavik at around 9 PM local time. Surprisingly, the first thing we saw of the natural wonder of Iceland from the sky was a golf course!  Apparently, Icelanders play lots of golf…who knew? Well, they really aren’t too far from Scotland so it must be a North Atlantic thing.

Immigration/passport stuff went quickly due to our arrival late in the evening. After claiming our luggage, we grabbed some to-go airport food for dinner and then picked up the Flybus shuttle to downtown.  I had arranged for Flybus to transfer us while in the airport in Boston.  It was very easy to reserve. Flybus was easy, efficient, friendly, and truly reasonably priced…aka: cheap! It first dropped us at a central hub, where we immediately boarded a smaller bus that took us right to our downtown hotel. The driver was very helpful with providing us some touristy information. Everybody speaks English here, which is, of course very handy.

We got to our hotel in Reykjavík, the chic Eyja Guldsmeden around 11 PM.  It was still light outside.  After checking in, the low-key but helpful and polite desk clerk served us a couple of drinks from the adjacent closed hotel bar, which we took to our room, and we called it a night. This funky, contemporary hotel is situated just off the main drag, so it was quiet, yet convenient to walking downtown. It was very comfortable for the 3 of us. Typical of a European hotel, the room was small but comfy.  This one came with a view of the ocean and hills.

Next: Sky Lagoon, Silver Circle, Hraunfossar