Oh hey! Remember me? It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here because its been many minutes since I did anything noteworthy. I’m happy to say, I’M BACK, BABY! Well for now, who knows when I will do anything cool again.
Anyways, buckle your seatbelts kids, because there’s 9 days worth of fire and ice coming your way. Yes, thats correct, I FINALLY made it to Iceland!
Obviously the virus who must not be named has really put a damper on travel plans this year, and that’s really how we ended up going to Iceland. After it became obvious that the UK was not going to let us in without quarantine for the trip we had planned, we decided to look elsewhere. Really our only easy, quarantine free options for getting out of mainland USA were Hawaii and Iceland. I think you probably know by now I’m not a huge beach vacation person, so for me, Iceland was the obvious choice.
We went right in that perfect window where all restrictions were dropped in Iceland (they are back now, sadly), so all we needed to get there was proof of vaccination and to fill out a form prior to arrival. This is all checked before you leave the US and when you land/before exiting the airport in Iceland.
Okay, enough about that. We landed at about 8:00 on a Tuesday morning and found our rental car facility. I booked the car through Economy and let me tell you, big mistake. HUGE. I mean it was fine in the end, but their facility is far away from the airport, and it took FOREVER to get the car. If you can, just spend the extra money on one of the big name car rental companies that is located right at the airport and save the headache.
Once we got our car we headed into Reykjavik and straight to Braud & Co for some delicious pastries. We ended up going here for breakfast every day we were in Reykjavik, and getting a loaf of sour dough to take with us for the road. I’m still thinking about that ham and cheese croissant.
After filling up on pastries and coffee from the nearby Reykjavik Roasters, we wandered around the city a bit more, then were able to check into our hotel. In Reykjavik we stayed at the Canopy by Hilton City Center and it was a great location. Parking right next door and in walking distance to pretty much everything you need! We changed clothes and got some fish and chips for lunch while constantly checking the volcano webcam.
In case you didn’t know, the Geldingadalir volcano on Mount Fagradalsfjall erupted in Iceland in March and it was (and is) still active. My hobby before this trip became obsessively checking the webcams of said volcano to see what kind of activity was going on up there. Well, much to our luck, the day we landed the webcams were showing a clear view of the crater. After our fish and chips, we packed up all our warm clothes and were on our way! The volcano parking is about an hour from Reykjavik, just outside of Grindavik. You can find directions to this on a bunch of websites, like this one, and when they all say “you’ll know the parking lot when you see it” they are correct. Round trip from our hotel in Reykjavik this adventure took about 6 hours and we walked about 4.5 miles (round trip) to see the volcano, and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. We got sooooo lucky. After days of not much activity or clouds blocking the crater, we saw FOUR eruptions while up there. It was amazing. Watching liquid hot magma explode out of a mountain is nuts. 10/10 would recommend.
While struggling your way up the hill in absurd winds, keep an eye on the crater, it starts to smoke and glow orange before it starts spitting lava. It is truly epic. But seriously, the wind is also epic. I’m not joking when I say the wind blew one of my contacts out of my eyeball, watch out for that, you guys.
The combination of jet lag and dragging ourselves up a mountain to see a volcano made us very tired. We got back from the volcano around 11:30pm (when it was still fully light out), so we slept pretty late the next day and just leisurely wandered around Reykjavik. We of course made a stop at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, aka, the best hot dog I’ve ever eaten. Crispy onions on a hot dog?! Who knew!
After some wandering and dinner, we decided it would be a good idea to hit up Sky Lagoon to soak our sore bodies in some hot water. I LOVED Sky Lagoon, it was definitely my favorite lagoon of the trip. Its right outside Reykjavik, and they’re just crushing it over there. My mind was blown that you just get a little wrist band that locks your locker, and has your credit card on it to buy things at the swim up bar. Technology, man. It turns out all the lagoons have these because Iceland is just better at things, apparently.
The next day, it was time to leave Reykjavik and head up north to Húsavík. I’m not going to lie to you, 99.9% of the reason I picked Húsavík was because of the movie Eurovision. I just needed to go see the home of Fire Saga 😂. More on Húsavík later.
It was a bit difficult for me to find things to stop at on the western side of Iceland. Most of the things I found were on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, which looked beautiful, but sadly was too far out of our way. There wasn’t a shortage of gorgeous sights though, Iceland never lacks something pretty to look at. We stopped at Glanni waterfall for a short walk and then kept going on our way up north.
We stayed about 25 minutes outside of Húsavík at Svartaborg and it was a dream! You get your own adorable little house complete with a “hot pot” (private hot tub) and sheep neighbors! Look at this beauty.
My favorite part of this stay was my nightly hot pot pizza.
Right, Húsavík. Aside from its fame from Eurovision, which they are totally leaning into, by the way, Húsavík also happens to be the whale watching capital of Iceland. Can you guess what we did on our first (and really only) full day in Húsavík? That’s right, lets go find some whales! Okay, we only found one whale, but North Sailing offers a whale and PUFFIN tour, which is obviously what we did. My dream of seeing puffins finally came true, we literally saw thousands. They all come in to lay their eggs on this island in the summer, so we spent some time floating around it watching them. I love puffins.
Pro tip: even if you are wearing layers on layers of your own clothing, if the people on the boat say you should wear the suit, wear the suit. You wont regret it. You’ll be warm and super fashionable.
In my browsings on the Húsavík hashtag on Instagram, I became aware there is a bar in Húsavík called Jaja Ding Dong (play Jaja Ding Dong!), so obviously I had to go. We were the only people there when we went, and my mother told me I couldn’t yell “PLAY JAJA DING DONG” to the guy working, so sadly I didnt get to hear it, but I did at least try some Icelandic beer.
Next on the agenda, another geothermal pool! Geosea just opened in Húsavík recently, and while its got great views over the bay and mountains, it wasn’t my favorite of the pools we went to. There was too many people there for the size of the pool, in my opinion. We went at around 7pm. Also a warning to anyone who is shy, all the lagoons require you to shower without a bathing suit before entering the water, and while the bigger ones we went to like Blue Lagoon and Sky Lagoon have individual shower stalls, Geosea does not.
The next day we dedicated to chasing waterfalls (sorry, TLC, we had to do it). There’s quite a few of the big ones you can get to in a reasonable amount of time from Húsavík. We drove probably an hour and a half or 2 hours from our little house. First stop: Godafoss.
Godafoss is very easy to get to, you can see it from the road and you park and walk right up basically, depending on how close you want to get.
After leaving Godafoss, our next destination was Dettifoss and Selfoss, but before we could get there we SMELLED and saw something else to stop at. I kid you not, this place was the worst smelling place I’ve ever been. There is straight up fart steam coming from the earth at Namafjall Hverir, but we obviously had to park and go see what was up.
It probably took the whole ride to Selfoss and Dettifoss (they are both reached from the same parking area) to get that smell out of my nose, but we recovered and made it to the waterfalls.
We came back from the waterfalls along the coast with the goal of hopefully finding more puffins, but sadly we did not. The area I had read about where you can see them was closed because puffins are nesting, go figure. But we did get some amazing views and FINALLY found a place to stop and soak them in. Finding places to pull over in Iceland can be challenging at times.
Before leaving Svartaborg I was determined to see the sunset/sunrise. This can be tricky because it sets at like 12:30am and rises at around 3:30am, and I use the terms “rise and set” lightly. I didnt stay up this whole time, but my iPad did and captured it all. I was also able to get a peep at sunrise. The photo was taken at 3:55am! Midnight sun is wild.
Well that wraps up our time in/around Húsavík, on to the next! Our next destination was Höfn, but once you cross into the Eastern Region of Iceland there’s SO MUCH to see (as if there wasn’t already everywhere else). On our way across, it was on the list to stop at Studlagil Canyon. This proved to be stressful/annoying but in the end worth it. So on google maps, if you put in Studlagil Canyon, it will take you to the parking lot with toilets and a staircase that goes down… not fully to the canyon. This also involves a long, scary (to me anyways) dirt road. While we did need the toilets, this was not where we wanted to be. Eventually, we figured out we needed to go all the way back out a way and cross a bridge to the other side of the canyon, where you will find a parking lot. You will then need to walk not .9 miles as the sign on the other side says, but about 1.5 miles each way to get down to the water. But once we finally got down there, it was worth it. It was actually pretty warm that day, so we just sat with our feet in the water for a while before we took the trek back to the car.
After the much longer than anticipated Studlagil Canyon excursion, we still had a long drive ahead, but we had been planning to go to Seydisfjordur on our way to Höfn. After discovering our hotel WOULD let us check in later than 8:30 (we would have been cutting it really close) we went on our way, and boy are we glad we did. Aside from the fact that I have been stalking photos of the church in Seydisfjordur forever, the drive there was GORGEOUS. It also featured that road Walter Mitty skateboarded down. If you haven’t seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, do yourself a favor and go watch it now. We also found another waterfall on the way. Scenes for days.
Seydisfjordur itself also did not disappoint.
The rest of the drive to Höfn was full of amazing mountain views, but also a LOT of fog. The weather on the eastern side of Iceland is crazy. For example: the views from my hotel one night vs. the next morning.
Luckily, the next day it was still cloudy but still clear enough to see the main event: Vestrahorn. I’m obsessed with this place. Dramatic mountains on a black sand beach? Doing the most over here. You do have to pay a fee to go onto the Stokksnes peninsula, but it is a small one and well worth it. Be ready for wind here though.
There is also a “viking village” that was built as a movie set and never used at the base of the mountains that you can explore, but we got distracted by the majestic Icelandic houses while we were over there.
There’s also toilets and a cafe where they make a mean ham and cheese toastie at the entrance to the peninsula. We also saw a reindeer on the way out (the only one we saw in Iceland!), so Vestrahorn truly has it all. This was only about a 10 minute drive from our hotel in Höfn (Hotel Edda Höfn), so if Vestrahorn is your Iceland Holy Grail, definitely stay around there!
After Vestarhorn, we headed south toward Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon and WOW WOW WOW, that place. We pretty much stared at the MASSIVE glacier the whole ride there (as much as we could since it was still cloudy), but when you get to the lagoon it is insane. Just as the volcano brought the heat, this lagoon and Diamon Beach across the road served me all the ice I needed in my life (get it, the land of fire and ice??). We got to the lagoon at around 2PM that day and it was a bit crowded (mostly on the diamond beach), but I assume still nothing like pre-covid (omg so sorry I said it out loud) crowds.
After staring at the giant chunks of ice in the lagoon for a while we went across to the diamond beach. This was tricky because there is 2 parking areas, one on each side of the bridge and the bridge takes forever to get across because it is one way and no one knows the traffic rules. We sat and waited for ALL the cars to cross (when only one is supposed to go at a time, taking turns from each direction) multiple times. Because we couldn’t figure out where the ice was actually washing up. We finally figured it out, and crossed the bridge… again.
With all the driving we had been doing, we had mostly been living off of snacks we brought with us, so we decided we needed a real dinner once we got back to Höfn so we hit up Z Bistro for some DELICIOUS fresh langoustine.
The next day, it was time to make our way back to Reykjavik (well, technically Keflavik), but of course, not without many stops along the way! We set off from Höfn pretty early since there was a lot on the agenda, and much to our luck, the clouds cleared up and we could actually see that huge glacier better. We found a spot to stop and stare at it for a while, the first of many.
We were coming up on the glacial lagoon again around 9:00am and there was no wind, way less people, and no clouds, so we HAD to stop again. There was new glaciers in the water, and it was just as gorgeous as the day before, maybe even more. We didn’t go to the beach again, but I’m guessing there was some large “diamonds” over there that day.
Then we drove a bit and had to stop again because that glacier is just so huge. I mean, it IS north of The Wall, after all.
Once we stopped staring at the glacier, we made our way to Vík. Honestly I was most excited about Vík because I had seen a cafe in a school bus where a 3 legged legend of a cat lived and I HAD TO GO. Well, everything about Skool Beans lived up to the hype in my mind. Delicious coffee, such a cute little cafe, SIR JEFFARIOUS (the cat) and his merch. Seriously, we bought so much merch they put us on their Instagram.
If only Skool Beans was in Vík, I still would have stopped, but Vík also happens to have that church with that view.
And just around the riverbend (or the ring road, either way) is that black sand beach, with those basalt columns, and also a lot of wind.
After fighting the wind back to the car from the beach, we were off again, and this time, to chase more waterfalls!
First stop, the waterfall of waterfalls: Skógafoss.
Wear waterproof clothing for this one, you’ll thank me later.
You might as well just stay in your wet clothes and head to Seljalandsfoss next.
Iceland seriously kills the game in waterfalls, and we hardly saw any compared to how many there are in the country. After Seljalandsfoss, we put our wet coats in the back of the car and made our way back to Keflavik. We stayed by the airport for our last two nights, because 1. Marriott points and 2. easy access to the airport for our flight home.
Our final day in Iceland we drove into Reykjavik to get our pre-flight Covid tests and MY GOD this country has their shit together. We booked in advance, so we received our barcodes. We arrived to the testing center and immediately filled with dread when we saw the line all the way around the building. In the US, thats hours of our day gone, but not in Iceland. The total time passed from we got in the line to the time we got back in the car after getting our brains tickled was 11 minutes. Yes, I said ELEVEN MINUTES. Gosh I love Iceland. After that we went back into town and obviously got more Braud & Co, did some souvenir shopping, and got another delicious hot dog.
I stayed at the hotel while my parents dealt with the nightmare of a car rental place to drop off the car, then we headed out to the final stop, and one that just can’t be missed in Iceland: Blue Lagoon. We did the premium package and had dinner at the restaurant before heading into the lagoon. If you go for lunch you can eat in your robes, so having to wear jeans to dinner was a bummer, but still a great time.
Lagoon life was my best life and I miss it dearly.
I felt like I couldn’t leave Iceland without trying “black death” so I picked up a bottle from the hotel market and WOOF. I definitely COULD have left Iceland without trying that. Try at your own risk.
And now, a sneak peak of what I really look like in Iceland, as seen by my travel buddies (also known as my parents). You do what you gotta to get that shot, ya know?
Special thanks to Papa Toth for doing pretty much all of the driving and to Mama Toth for taking all of my “influencer photos”. Mama and Papa Toth: always the real MVPS.
Iceland is a truly magical country and I can’t wait to go back again, and again, and again.
One last tip: If you’re going to Iceland, no matter what season, don’t skimp on the gear. I thought I might have gone overboard with what I bought/was bringing with me, but I used every single thing I took with and was so glad I had it. Those waterproof hiking boots were my hero.
For more ~content~ (as if you need it after this) check out Iceland in 60 Seconds!
Great, now I have Jaja Ding Dong stuck in my head again. Ugh, bye.
tothandcotravels.com 
What a great adventure to share as you come back! 😍
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