Iceland

Visited: June 2018

Duration of visit: 7 days

Capital city: Reykjavik

Population: 350.000 (2018)

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

• Icebergs, geysers, glaciers, waterfalls, lava fields and lunar scenery with stinky fumaroles.
• Perversely high prices, especially for services.
• At each place I stayed, it was necessary to remove my shoes upon entering.
• Prolonged summer daylight hours without the presence of darkness.
• Cute, tranquil, colorful puffins.
• Three mega-aluminum plants, powered by inexpensive geothermal energy, account for 16% of GDP.

Iceland was never high on my bucket list, while exploring the possible next destinations: too far from Europe, too expensive and impossible to connect it with neighboring countries. It has been the question of time, when I could overcome most of these obstacles.

Based in Europe, and already having visited most of the countries and places on my list, I couldn’t postpone the trip to Iceland any more. In June 2018, finally, the opportunity to conquer one of the last places on earth to be settled by humans, appeared.

I purchased a reasonably priced airplane ticket from Budapest to Reykjavík and started to plan the trip. Hardly any hotels under 150EUR, renting a refurbished camping car starting from 1,200EUR per week, Blue Lagoon visiting 85EUR.

What is this? Why so expensive? Did I make a mistake?

After hours and hours of investigating, I found the best option for accommodation through Airbnb (staying in a room with shared bathroom) and renting a car in order to have a chance to make a big loop and visit also the northern part of the country.

As soon as I was leaving the typically Scandinavian style designed airport, practically located in the middle of nowhere, 50 kilometers outside of Reykjavík, in a compact Suzuki Swift, I noticed that the countryside would be different than anything else I have seen so far: volcanic rocks of different formation, fumaroles on the horizon and hardly any cars or houses along the way.

Even though I had earlier decided, that I would not pay extremely high entrance fee to Blue lagoon, I made a stop to walk around and surprisingly, I managed to enter the main building, sip a cup of coffee in a bar, use toilets for free and take some pictures of the lagoon from inside. Squeezing with a crowd of people in hot, thermal water can be done elsewhere for less money.

Exploring the southern part with quite a lot of tourists, plenty of waterfalls and some short walks were just the warming up before heading to the north along the West Coast. The southern area is probably the most visited by groups of tourists that have a few days to explore Reykjavík and its surrounding areas.

Instead of luxury Blue lagoon, I soaked in Seljavallalaug hot spring, only 15 minutes walking uphill from the main road. Hundreds of affluent guests were replaced by a dozen of nature and adventure lovers in a small pool with only basic facilities. It is easy to understand why hot springs are so popular in harsh environment of Iceland.

It is not easy to find good food at reasonable price in Iceland. Especially after 2009, when the last McDonald’s restaurant exited the country. A personal size salmon & rocket pizza at 35.00 EUR was an excellent deal, while a usual meal was above 50.00 EUR, per person. The food is in general delicious and well presented, restaurants are nicely decorated, service is professional. Tip is not included, but I am not sure if it is expected!

We preferred to buy grocery during the day and cook our proper meal in apartments that we rented mostly though Airbnb.

The majority of the apartments offer a fully equipped kitchen. Usually small, but practical and functional.

We fully enjoyed long daylight exploring the island of Vestmannaejar with a great volcano climb and interesting Eldheimar museum showing the most recent volcanic eruption that increased the island size by one third and almost covered the whole city with lava. Strong wind and occasional precipitation were on the daily menu even in the summer time, but that didn’t spoil a fantastic view from the top of volcano.

The museum was actually built on the base of an excavated home that was buried by ashes during the eruption of 1973. This building, that has been dug up from the ashes, is the highlight of the exhibition. Due to the damage of the eruption, archeologist nicknamed the island Pompeii of the North.

Among the most beautiful scenes I saw in Iceland (and there were many), were glaciers; there are plenty of them to observe, even in the summertime. It might be due to the fact that I had never seen them before, but the serenity of the nature and the attractive combination of colors, ice structure, size and remoteness, caused an extremely big impression on me.

Visiting these areas at 10:00pm and seeing a mild sunset at iceberg area of Jokulsarlon made my trip to Iceland so impressive that I placed the country at top 5 destinations in Europe immediately!

Glaciers are persistent bodies of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years. Currently, still about 11% of Iceland is covered by glaciers, but their size has been reducing rapidly. Considering the fact that the next generations will not have a chance to see these beautiful ice structures due to continues melting, makes them even more unique and special.

The glaciers in Iceland represent one of the most remarkable locations to truly appreciate the beauty of nature.

Beside the small, at times pony-sized Icelandic horses, puffins are one of the most remarkable habitants of Iceland. Thanks to how incredibly cute, tranquil, colorful, gathering in big groups and relatively used to human proximity, puffin watching has become one of the top activities for visitors in Iceland. Beautiful bright orange-colored beak, contrasting with black white penguin look body, makes them visible from a distance.

With more than 60% of the Earth’s entire Atlantic puffin population, Iceland is definitely the world’s puffin capital!

I found them in perfect harmony in Borgarfjordur Eystri fjord. It’s a long drive through scenic nature – most of the road was unpaved but easy to drive, even for my Suzuki Swift. I am not a big fan of bird watching in general and always saying that I am too young for this sport (excluding flamingos). However, puffins completely seduced me with their beauty, tranquility and the fact that they spend years of their lives in the middle of an ocean, away from mainland.

The northern part of the island is very different from the southern. Besides being much less visited by tourists, and the feeling of remoteness in some areas, the volcanic countryside makes it very unique and special.

There are around 130 volcanoes in Iceland, and roughly 30 of those categorized as currently active. I had seen something similar in Hawaii a few years ago, but all in all, the area around Myvatn and Hverir is even more spectacular: all kinds of lava rock structures and colors, stinky scenes of lunar landscape, lava castles and craters that are still warm with smoke coming out from the cracks.

Unbelievable, impressive!

Smoking fumaroles and boiling mud pots, surrounded by sulphur crystals of many different colors fill the air with an overwhelming smell of egg. This raw and surreal landscape is amazing, while hundreds of flies are as annoying as they can be. I need to be focused to take a photo without them and keep my mouth closed to avoid them getting in.

If Gulfoss is the most beautiful Iceland’s waterfall, how to describe Dettifoss waterfalls?

With the greatest volume in Europe, noise and a chance to approach so close to the waterfall, it could probably surpass the Gulfoss in glamour. You can actually approach it from two sides through a dirt road that made me suffer. The waterfalls are so remote that there weren’t any toilets, restaurants or other infrastructure operating at the time of my visit in the late afternoon.

It was probably the first time that I visited the capital city of any country at the end of my trip. Even though Reykjavík is a nice small capital city, I consider the rest of Iceland much more picturesque and worthwhile to visit. More than 60% of the Icelandic population live in the capital city, but with roughly 120.000 inhabitants, it is still smaller than any other mayor city in Europe.

It looks like a big shopping place for tourists with some nice architectural sightseeing such as Harpa and Hallgrimskirkja Church. One of the most bizarre museums is the Icelandic Phallological Museum, where you can admire different kinds, types and sizes of penises, mostly Islandic fauna.

Icelanders are friendly, well educated, very practical and live in harmony with nature. Due to the harsh environment, they appreciate sunny days and mild summers for outdoor activities. Recently, tourism has impacted their lives considerably. Many farmhouses transformed partially into guesthouses to diversify income.

Comparing to other European nations, where the trend is reducing working hours, Icelanders on average work 45 hours a week – longer than any other country in Europe! Especially in the capital city, many young people tend to have two jobs to cope with the extremely high costs of living.

Iceland is very remarkable for the fact that 100% of its electricity comes from renewable sources.

Even though geothermal power facilities currently generate 25% of the country's total electricity production, Iceland is a leader in the use of geothermal energy for heating.

When I was doing a research on Iceland’s economy, I noticed two interesting sectors with the highest proportion of income: tourism 42%, aluminum 16%. If the impact of tourism could be somehow understandable, I didn’t understand how aluminum production could be so important if there is no bauxite ore mine on the island. Bauxite ore is the world's primary source of aluminum.

It turns out that there are three mega-aluminum plants in Iceland and aluminum melting is the most important power-intensive industry in the country.

Electricity prices in Iceland are so low, that it is more profitable to ship bauxite from Australia, process it here and then ship it over to manufacturers around the world where aluminum is used.

How bizarre!

Another phenomenon of Iceland is sport. I have been a great sport fan in general and couldn’t miss the great performance of their handball team winning the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

An even bigger success that united the whole nation and put Iceland on the world sports map, was the success of its football team, which qualified for the World Cup in 2018, making Iceland the smallest nation in history to take part in the event.

Iceland is a small nation that lives on diverse and remote island, which offers a unique natural experience for adventure travelers with deep pockets and interest in volcanos, glaciers and waterfalls within quiet and peaceful environment.

I love it!

Visiting Iceland at any time of the year is a unique experience due to the weather conditions and geographical position. During the summer, daylight extended the active time to midnight, while in the winter constant darkness is the best guarantee to observe the Aurora Borealis. I will need to come back one day to observe this natural wonder.