Fabulous Trip Report, and great pictures !

Great report and beautiful pictures! The one of the canyon is spectacular! The Bad Taste record store made me laugh. I’ll definitely be making note of your itinerary for future planning! Hope you’re both doing well!

Brava, ms_go! The photos were so wonderful, I forgot to read some things. Striking scenery. I loved trying to "read" the pizza ingredients. Did you notice there was no other word for pepperoni? LOL,

Thanks, everyone. I realize I lost track of this and still need to wrap it up and add a link to some more photos. Maybe next week, if work doesn't get in the way. I also am noticing how much punctuation got dropped when I copied stuff above from Word into this site. I do, in fact, know that didn't has an apostrophe in it.

indiancouple, I enjoyed your report as well. We both covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. This was one trip where I kind of came home feeling like I needed a vacation after the vacation.

Florida1, hope you're doing well and that we bump into you again soon at another GTG! That canyon photo is one of my favorites. At one point I was getting tired of carrying the big camera around, but I got a few photos that made it all worth it.

TDudette, I did notice the pepperoni. Kind of the opposite of Italy, where pepperoni means something very different!

I too hope we can meet up at another GTG soon! I know how you feel about the camera. We were just looking at photos of our Berlin trip, which were all taken with my iPhone, because I forgot my camera! I was disappointed, but I’m a way it was really freeing.

The Exorcist pizza was hilarious - I would have had to order it because of the name too!

Looking forward to more photos!

So that I can feel that sense of closure, here is the finish to our trip report:

Some more notes on driving
As mentioned earlier, I forgot to take note of how many kilometers we drove. I can tell you that we filled up four times and spent a total of $410 for gas (our vehicle was a hybrid and ran on diesel).

Some lessons learned:

Don’t underestimate the time it takes to get from one point to another. Said another way, don’t plan your time too tightly, as we kind of did on our arrival day. Distances are deceiving. And allow plenty of time for unplanned stops.

Having GPS was very helpful. On a few occasions, we made a wrong turn at a roundabout and were able to use it to check and correct our route right away, before we got too far off course. The GPS also provides an estimate of both distance and time to the destination, and we generally found it to be fairly accurate.

That said, it is also important not to over-rely on the GPS. For example, our first accommodation was in a valley, on a road that reaches it from both ends of the valley. Our host warned us many visitors try to come in from the east because the GPS directs them that way – and then they find themselves trying to cross unbridged rivers. There was an article about issues with Google Maps recently in the online Iceland Magazine.

If possible, make sure your vehicle has good windshield wipers. Ours did not, making driving in the rain a little more of an adventure than it already was.

And to repeat, since it is buried further up, fill up when you see a gas station and the gas gauge is getting low. You may not see another one for a while.

Final thoughts…
In summary, this itinerary, while not too far off the beaten track, gave us a great variety of scenery and activity. We probably did a little more driving and a less hiking than we had planned – and wanted – to. Fortunately, mr_go likes to drive. That said, we were happy with our decision to pick a couple of bases rather than changing accommodations every night. We probably could have used an extra day or two at each.

What was it like traveling in the peak of summer?
Upon arriving at the very busy airport, I was kind of expecting swarming crowds, but that really wasn’t the case. There were definitely a few sites with a fair number of people, especially on the Golden Circle and at Seljalandsfoss – but certainly not with the magnitude of crowds you’d experience at, say, Yellowstone in the summer. In other words, it was never so overwhelming that it ruined the experience of whatever we were doing. Aside from the roads around Reykjavik, the traffic was never all that bad and, for the most part, fairly scarce. The longest “wait” we probably experienced was at the gas station in Vik. And there is definitely a benefit to having the abundant daylight and not needing to worry about having to drive in the dark.

Has tourism ruined Iceland?
I wouldn’t say ruined – rather, strained. This is, after all, a country with a population of about 350,000. There are definite signs that the infrastructure needs to catch up with the demand. According to one of our hosts, the boom has leveled a little bit, which may help in that regard. The one place where this sentiment really stood out to me was the Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon, where they have had to put up a fence and walkway to keep people off the vegetation and away from the very edges of the canyon – and still some people climb over the barriers. We can thank Justin Bieber for this particular one:
Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon Hit By ?Bieber Effect? Iceland Review

Was it as horrendously expensive as advertised?
Using Airbnb brought our lodging costs closer to being in line with what we are used to paying – and was more enjoyable for us, as well. The farm stays, including interactions with our hosts, ended up being one of my favorite aspects of the trip. It just gave all of this a different feel than coming back to a hotel room every evening. Eating out just once per day helped keep the costs in check, again more in line with what we probably would have spent elsewhere. So yes, it was expensive, but there are ways to mitigate that somewhat – with planning.

Would we go back?
I’ll let mr_go answer for himself. Me – yes, I would. I am never one to say no to spectacular natural scenery. I’m not sure it will go back on the very top of my list, as there are many very scenic places in this world, and some we have yet to visit (Patagonia, anyone?). But Iceland is a pretty easy country for us to get to, all things considered. If I do go back, I might pick another season, maybe a few months later in the year, partly for a chance to see the northern lights and partly for the fall color. I’d probably stick to the upper west, north and east coasts and allot more time for walking.

Would we recommend it to others?
Sure, if it fits with how you like to travel. There’s a lot of hype around visiting there. I can see how the experience could end up a mismatch with expectations, so be sure to do plenty of homework.

Would we have enjoyed it as much if the weather hadn’t cooperated?
Probably not – but that is the case just about any time you plan an “outdoor” trip. Our week of hiking in the Dolomites or our long-awaited trek on the Milford Track could have been a big wash out, also.

And that’s it. We hope this is helpful to others who are planning to visit. If anyone needs planning inspiration or ideas, here is the link to more photos (and a few videos of waterfalls and such):
https://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/iceland2018

Wow, great read. We've decided on Iceland and Norway next June, now to start researching. We are thinking of RV's, as everything I read is about the expensiveness of EVERTHING...so we've had a quick look and while they aren't cheap, either are hire cars accommodation food etc. So this may be a way to economize a bit.

Thanks for such a thorough report, I'm printing for further research.

aussie - if you are serious about Iceland next year, can i put in a recommendation that you include the western fjords to see the bird cliffs? They are truly spectacular, with millions of birds, mainly puffins and guillemots, and worth any amount of hassle to get there. If you can find it, my trip report gives further details and what might be described as a "warts and all" account of our trip.

Mr & Ms Go - loved your Trip report, which brought back many happy memories. Thanks for coming back to finish it.