Iceland is a land of breathtaking contrast, fire and ice, rugged landscapes, and serene beauty. On this episode of Sunshine Travelers Podcast, we're recapping our recent trip to the land of fire and ice. From hiking to waterfalls and navigating Iceland's ever -changing weather, we'll share our favorite moments, unexpected detours, and how we modified our plans on the go to prioritize the experiences that mattered most. Whether you're planning your own Icelandic adventure or just want to live vicariously through our journey, join us as we relive the highlights, lessons learned, and unforgettable sights of this incredible destination.
We're Scott and Melissa, the Sunshine Travelers. We're all about exploring the world and sharing the journey with you.
all about exploring the world and sharing the journey with you. Whether you're a seasoned traveler, dreaming of your next adventure, or just here for the stories.
No matter where you are on your travel journey, we've got firsthand experiences, tips, and plenty of inspiration from some of the most amazing places on Earth. So buckle up and get ready to travel with us.
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Well, we've just returned from our trip to Iceland, and this is definitely a trip that you could easily copy our itinerary. for a magnificent adventure. Our trip was in early March, so the weather was still cold, and we had a mixture of snow on the first day, but the rest of the days were beautiful sunny days that we enjoyed for hikes and being outside. And as we go through this episode, there will be a few times that we're going to mention some of the Icelandic names, and Melissa and I chuckle about this all the time, but, you know, this is a very difficult language, and even the people that speak it will tell you that some of the names are super difficult. So we've attempted to find common names where possible. But we'll put the Icelandic name in the show notes in the event that you want to go back and reference something. All right,
All right, Scott. So let's start with a high level recap of the itinerary. But we want for you to know that one different and special thing that we did on this trip that we've never done before was we did some mini episodes each day. And so those will be right before this episode. We did a kind of a pre -Iceland. Here's how we plan this trip. And then three. There were like 10 minutes.
were like 10 minutes.
minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So really quick listens. And what was neat about that is that we recorded them throughout the day in most cases. And so we kind of had some snippets of different things that were going on. So go take a listen to those because they just have a different feel and they're super short as well. So we flew into Reykjavik late at night. Well, I should say we flew into Iceland late at night. The airport is actually in a town called... Keflavik, which is about 45 minutes from Reykjavik. And it was a little bit after midnight because we actually flew from London. And if you've listened to any of those other episodes or planning this trip, then you know that what we did was we actually did an Icelandair stopover for this. So basically with Icelandair, you can stop on the way, going somewhere on the way back and add some days to your itinerary. And it actually ended up being a little bit cheaper. I priced it just both ways, just because I was curious and it ended up being. a little bit cheaper. So that's what we did. We got there late at night. And so just in the interest of time, because we only had four days, we ended up staying that first night at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel that is near the airport, which I actually think is brand new. And so that was great because we just took a cab real quick and were able to get into bed quickly.
Yeah. And we'll talk more about the hotels in just a little while.
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But on day one, our first full day out, the first thing we did is we went out and picked up our rental car from Ice Rental 4x4. And we never needed a four -wheel drive on this trip, but I think I would highly recommend at minimum an all -wheel drive because there were a few places that we went where it was still snowing and there was snow on the road and ice. And so having that all -wheel drive helps you maintain better control. of the vehicle. The other thing that I would say is as you're driving on these roads, they have little reflectors on both sides of the road that indicate where the road is. And our recommendation would be that you don't veer off of that. So you see something that you're interested in and you want to. Maybe stop and take a picture because there's tons of waterfalls that are just everywhere in Iceland. Don't go outside those lines because we saw over by the airport and on the Golden Circle, a couple of different places where it looked like people had pulled over and they dropped off into a ditch. But all you could see was there was snow there. And so I imagine that's what happens. Our recommendation, just stay between those lines and find a formal pull -off place. You can tell where they are and only use those. I'll admit,
admit, I was a little bit nervous because these were both very early into our trip. And so I was like, oh my gosh, be really careful. And one even looked like the people had pulled off. to do something. And then as they were getting back on the road, they just kind of missed the actual road part. So just be aware of that. Now, Sky, explain real quickly why ICE rental 4x4 instead of the usual people that you use to rent cars.
Yeah, I mean, I looked at National and Enterprise, but the prices of those were a lot more and they didn't offer standard, the four -wheel drive or all -wheel drive. And so I just went, I found this ICE rental, It had really good reviews. And one thing that we did is that we chose their platinum insurance. And some of you may be thinking they bought onto the insurance. No, let me tell you, in Iceland, you need that insurance because there's lots of little stones on the road that fly up and hit the car. They have volcanic ash that can damage the car. They have high winds. And so if sand and ash blow up against the... car and damaged the paint it was covered under that platinum package that i had and so this was why i went with that higher level insurance there because these are things that our own insurance wouldn't have covered on that rental car
Yeah, because it's not something that we have at home. Also included was a Wi -Fi hotspot just as part of the package that they offered. So we actually didn't really use that much. We had both gotten an eSIM from GigSky and had pretty good coverage, but we had that just in case.
Yeah. And I'd say during the winter, cellular coverage is kind of spotty there because of all the clouds and the snow and stuff like that. So, you know, it was nice to have another source in case we needed it, but we didn't use that very much.
Yeah, because some of the times, I mean, you're really out, you know, and there's not a lot of people, you know, depending on where you go. So it was just kind of nice, both the insurance and that, just the peace of mind.
Well, so after we picked up our car, we went to the Blue Lagoon. We're going to talk about the lagoons in just a little while, but... This is the one that you see on Instagram with kind of the bluish colored waters. And so that was what we did first. And we had decided to do that because it's only about 20 minutes from the airport and a good half hour to 45 minutes away from Reykjavik. So we wouldn't have wanted to backtrack when doing this. And we knew we weren't going to have any time on the back end of the trip. So we made our reservations at a time and went to the Blue Lagoon. what, Melissa, an hour and a half, two hours there? Probably about two hours.
about two hours. Yeah,
it was great. And, you know, we'll compare it with Sky Lagoon in just a little bit, but we definitely recommend Blue Lagoon. And if you had,
if you had, you know, lots more time and just had a much more leisure pace, I mean, we could have stayed there. Probably at least another hour, hour and a half. And so, and you can do that. There's places you can eat and things like that. We just needed to get on to the golden circle since we had only the four days.
Yeah. So day one is not only the Blue Lagoon, but we're going to try to drive the golden circle. Now I've seen several articles and things like that that say, give yourself 10 hours for the golden circle. Well, depending on what time of year you're there, you're not going to have 10 hours of daylight for the golden circle. What we did is we just chose a few things on the Golden Circle that we really wanted to prioritize, and that's what we did. So we did the falls at Thingvellir National Park. We did the geyser, and then we did Gulfoss Waterfall. So the geyser, I want to just hone in on that one real quick. Think of Old Faithful at Yellowstone, but something that erupts much more frequently. And that's what the geyser is. And so those three things are probably the top three points that you want to see. There's some secret lagoons and things like that that you can stop if you have time as well. There's always lots of hiking in Iceland.
Yeah. And I feel like you could have spent a lot more time. The other thing at Thingvellir National Park, we did hike to a falls, but it's almost like you're so you're kind of between the tectonic plates. So there's a big rock. face I guess you would say so it's almost like you're you're walking through a canyon we walked part of it we stopped by and talked to the guy at the visitor center and he talked to us about if you want to go this way there's a little bit longer hike so you could spend like a lot of time at each of these same thing with the geyser we saw it erupt like what four times and we walked one way and then walked back a different way so that we could see the bubbling mud pools but you can hike on from there and see a lot more of those mud pools as well just depending on how much time you have at geyser they had a place that had like, what, three or four restaurants, a couple of really nice shops. So if you need gear, you need things to eat, like there's places to eat. We did get coffee at the thing, Valir National Park. So you could spend as little or as much time, you know, as you wanted at each of these.
And Gullfoss, that was, I think it's the largest waterfall in Iceland from volume. the amount of volume on there. It's probably not, it's not the tallest, but it is by volume, I think one of the largest waterfalls.
Yeah. It's like when you think of, it's like wide, you know, instead of being the thin ones that are very tall that have like, it's like a pretty wide one. And they had some different viewing platforms as well.
Yeah. It's, it kind of reminds you a little bit of the Niagara Falls a little bit. A mini version.
mini version. A mini version of it.
A mini version of it.
Yeah. So we left from there and we were actually headed to our hotel, which was kind of on, well, it's really on the South Road. Our next place to go was on the South part of the Ring Road. And so we wanted to stay there. So on our way back, we really cut off the Reykjavik and cut in that direction. But it was getting late and toward dinner time. And when we went through a town, we ended up deciding to stop because I told Scott, we hadn't planned to eat at the hotel. You had to let them know ahead of time. I didn't know if we were going to pass anything else. So we went through this town called, I guess it's going to be Ludir. We saw a place called The Hill. It was a hotel, had a little restaurant, which most of them do. And so we popped in there and just asked if we could have dinner. And she said we could. And so we're really glad that we did that. And I would say that Hotel The Hill would be a good place to stay as well.
And I would say that Hotel The Hill would be a good place to stay as well. Now it's a still, we had another hour and a half, two hours drive after dinner to get to where we were staying. But if you're looking for something on the Golden Circle, this would be a great place to stay. It was a really nice hotel, wonderful restaurant. In fact, we didn't have a bad meal the entire time while we were in Iceland. Yeah,
I thought it was excellent as well.
Well, we're going to stop on day one at a hotel called Selja. And it is near the Selja Lands Foss. So the Selja Lands waterfall. And so that is where we're going to end the day for day one. And like Melissa said, we were getting in late. And this was just one of those places. It looked really nice. And so we decided to stay there. But it wasn't, you know, I even joked and said, maybe it was something straight out of an Ikea catalog, right?
Yeah, it was just very modern. It was very clean. It was very small. I would say probably maybe 12 or 14 rooms that was literally like, think of a rectangle building. The rooms, you know, you go in and check in and then it had where you could have breakfast or dinner if you had that. And then the rooms were on each side, but they were very nice. Had a place, you know, chairs you could sit at and yeah, really everything that you needed to spend the night. And so that's really all that we were doing because we were going to get up the next day and start the golden circle.
Next day, we started off day two at the Seljalandsfoss, the waterfall. And this is one of the most popular waterfalls in Iceland. So all the tourist buses are going to go to this waterfall. But we have a recommendation. There's the first waterfall, and it's the main one, the Seljalandsfoss. And basically, you can do a walk behind it. There's a path that goes along behind the water, and you can see the... the backside of water right and we decided not to do that because the mist coming off the waterfall everybody who came out the other side was absolutely soaked and we were like oh we don't want to do that we don't want to spend our whole day wet and so
Because even from the walkway or the viewing platform that was far away, like you could feel that mist and it was getting on the cameras and stuff, too. The other thing, too, is in the morning, even though it was a very sunny day. So what we did mention is when we were on the Golden Circle, we got up there. It was very snowy. We had snow at the first place. And so we were like, OK, here's the snow. Not really much sun. We got up the next day and. Blue skies, no clouds, absolutely sunny. But where this waterfall is situated from where you are, the sun at that moment was behind it. So it wasn't really good for photographs. And I will say that I read for that particular one that going in the evening at sunset would be a better time. So if you stay at that Hotel Selja, if you could get there, you know, just depending on what your schedule was. So we didn't want to get soaked. And so we just opted to go, not go behind it.
And this might be a good time to talk about if you're going to go and do these waterfall hikes, you definitely need to have good waterproof clothing. So really good rain gear, you know, not something that will get wet and still kind of soak through, but something where the water will not permeate through it. That's the kind of rain gear you need when hiking around these waterfalls.
Or if you're going, yeah, so like even in the summer, you're going to want some kind of waterproof jacket or something like that. But if you're going like when we did in the winter or March, I actually wore my entire ski outfit, which is waterproof, obviously, because it's for skiing. But like my double layer jacket and my pants over a pair of leggings, it kept me warm. And then in cases like that, it kept me dry. We should also mention that. Regardless of when you go to Iceland, you're going to want some very good waterproof shoes.
Yeah, I had bought some waterproof hiking boots before the trip. I knew I needed something that would be warm and keep my feet dry and good for hiking. And so I had bought a pair of sorrel hiking boots before the trip and they worked out great.
And I had picked up a pair in London, knowing that'd be fun to kind of do a little bit of shopping and maybe it'd be toward the end of the season. But they were full on like. ski kind of, or, you know, for really cold weather had the fur, you know, were like calf height, but they were waterproof. And so that was the key because regardless of what season you're going to want to go in, you may have to cross some of these waterfall streams. When you go to the beaches, you might want to, you know, get in the water and you're not going to want to hike in wet shoes. The other thing we would say is they also need to have good, good soles on them. So when we were there, there were some icy conditions, sometimes very slippery, but I imagine in other times, like it might be like muddy conditions. conditions as well. So just be prepared for that, regardless of the season, waterproof shoes. But so let's say, don't just go to that Wonder waterfall. One of our favorite experiences there was the one that was probably, what, 900 meters? Yeah,
Yeah, so if you just stay on the path and go past that Selja Lands Foss waterfall, there was another waterfall there, and it's called the Canyon Dweller. So I think if you look up Canyon Dweller waterfall, near Seljuland's Foss, right? Then you'll be able to find this one or we'll put the real name of it in the show notes. But this is an absolute must see. And I actually changed my mind about getting wet. The waterfall was kind of in a cave. And so I wanted to go back into that cave and see this magnificent waterfall. And it did not disappoint. And I was okay with getting a little wet. You know, we had our suitcase in the car. I could have changed. you know, jeans out and whatever. But I was I ended up being OK for the rest of the day. That was totally worth it.
was totally worth it. Just it's a you know, not a long walk. And so I would say so we got there probably like 10 o 'clock and it was already very busy with tour buses and tour vans and stuff like that. And some people were walking down there, but not near the numbers of people.
Yeah, you got to think these tour buses, they have a jam packed schedule, a lot of them, because some of those buses actually leave from Reykjavik, go out, to about five hours out on the Southern Road, and then they come back in the same day. So they got to be really quick at these sites. And it's basically get off the bus, go take a picture, get back on the bus and head to the next thing.
Yeah, they have like twice as much stuff on their itinerary as we ended up stopping at just because time lies. But we've heard people tell us about this. OK, you need to be back on the bus in whatever it is, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You wouldn't have time to do some of these longer things that we really enjoyed.
Yeah, which is this is the reason why Melissa and I really enjoy kind of doing our own thing and not taking the tour buses. I mean, I'm sure that there's and we've done some in the past when we did cruises where that was the only option is you get on a bus and you drive somewhere and, you know, they're fine. But if you have the opportunity and you're willing, Iceland was a great place to rent a car and go and explore on your own. But we'll talk a little bit more about that. in just a little bit.
Yeah. And we should say that if that isn't an option, there are so many tours that you can take and lots of tour operators. You can base yourself in Reykjavik and do day tours, but you can even choose ones that do an overnight or multiple overnights. As a matter of fact, at that hotel at the Selja that we stayed at, there was a group. that were coming and actually spent the night. They got in like about the same time we did and actually left before we did a group that that's exactly what they were doing. So if you don't feel comfortable driving, you can still do this. Just know that obviously you are at the mercy of what their itinerary is and what their timeline is, but totally doable and totally doable to be able to see these things. Okay.
Well, so we're going to leave the Seljalandsfoss. That was our first stop. And now we're heading out towards the town of Vik. And that's on the southern road. And our next stop is going to be at another waterfall. Matter of fact, this is probably the most famous waterfall in all of Iceland called the Skogafoss waterfall. And there's two different ways to see this waterfall. There's from down bottom, like Melissa was saying. You can go out into the stream and get really good pictures. Melissa got a great picture with the rainbow in front of this waterfall. But then there's another way where you go up these stairs and see the waterfalls from the top down. And let me just tell you, it is well worth the climb. There was 26 flights of stairs. to go up there. And I think Melissa said... 576 or something like that.
576 or something like that. 500 and something steps to do so.
500 and something steps to do so. So make sure you're wearing your activity tracker because you're going to get some really good activity on this trip. But the greatest thing was once you got up top, even looking down from the top of the waterfall was great. But the path went on around up the mountain and along the river. And so you got, I mean, you could have gone, I think, around 10 kilometers, something like that, on this trail to another location.
Yeah, there was actually another smaller waterfall up there as well. So that was neat. It was also completely snow covered up there. So that's where we were like, you know, the path was a little bit slippery. But compared to where the snow at the bottom or, you know, especially on that south road was hit or miss, there was a lot of snow up at the top. So that was a neat hike. So we just went a little way and came back. But again, something that you might not have time to do if you have a tour. So we're going to get back in the car and we're going to head out towards Vic.
we're going to get back in the car and we're going to head out towards Vic. This is where we're going to stop and get gas and grab a bite of lunch. We also had the opportunity to try some black crust pizza at a pizzeria there in Vic.
Yeah, so that was neat. So right near there is where you will find the Black Sand Beach with the basalt columns. We actually opted not to stop so that we could go see some of the other things and have lunch. And we said, OK, if we have time, we may come back tomorrow. But that's kind of their thing. It's Black Crust Pizzeria is what it was called. Not only did they have the pizza, but they also had bacon wrapped dates. And I was like, yes, this is my place. So we enjoyed a nice stop and lunch there.
Yeah. And while we're sitting there at lunch, we saw this church with the red roof up on a hill. And so we said, hey, let's it was a beautiful sunny day. Let's go and get some pictures of this church. And so we drove up that little hill. And, you know, when we got up there, we were by ourselves and it was great. I was setting up the shot. And then all of a sudden, here comes everyone. Right. Everyone had this idea, including a little tour bus. of people. So we were just kind of patient and we waited out that tour bus to leave. You could tell they weren't going to stay there long. So they got back in the bus. We got the pictures without all of the people and all the cars in the background. But it was it was wonderful because you could get it with the snow covered mountain in the background. And it was absolutely picturesque. So we also saw right near there a little path and there was a car up there.
we also saw right near there a little path and there was a car up there. And then we saw like a little minivan go up there. And then after we got home, I saw a shot from where they were looking at the church toward the ocean. And off of that particular town, there's almost like a big rock formation arch as well. So you could venture up even farther to do that. But yeah, that was definitely worth the stop. That was made some really beautiful pictures as well.
From Vic, we headed out, and this is going to be the furthest we're going to go on the southern road, is to the Diamond Beach. So right at Diamond Beach, you have Diamond Beach on one side of the road, and then on the other side of the road in the same park, that's the Glacier Lagoon. And we didn't have time to do both because it was already getting dark, and we wanted to go to the hotel that we were staying at. And we'll tell you more about that in just a few minutes and why we were in a hurry to get there. But we did go to Diamond Beach right before sunset. There was lots of ice that had washed up onto the shore and there was this black sand. And so the ice looks like diamonds on the black sand.
Yeah, so it's pieces of the glacier that actually break off. And since the ocean is right there, they're washing out to the ocean. And at that particular time, there were a lot of them and a lot of big pieces and a lot of photographers there taking pictures. And that was one reason that we skipped a couple of the other things because we were like, okay, why about sunset? time. We want to be at Diamond Beach. Now, unfortunately, the sun itself has already gone behind the mountain, but we still had some daylight. But this is definitely, if you're going anywhere near that, this is a really great stop. Just a really unique thing to see. As a matter of fact,
a matter of fact, we're going to come back to Diamond Beach the next day. But we went on to the hotel. We stayed at the Glacier Lagoon Hotel. This was probably, well, it was hands down the absolute best hotel that we stayed in. in iceland but i would say that this thing may be one of my favorite hotels around the world we stayed at some really magnificent hotels but this rates up in the top five yeah i actually realized after we got back that it
i actually realized after we got back that it has only been open about six months. It's a fairly new hotel. It just looked really beautiful, really modern. And we were also looking for, that is about as far as we wanted to go. And then the next day we needed to turn around. So we needed to stay somewhere close to that. So it's not like there were that many choices, but this one really stood out. It was a little bit more than, well, it was more than any of the other ones, but we just felt like, okay, this is going to be definitely worth it. It had a couple of hot tubs outside. It had a sauna. It just, it did look absolutely beautiful. Beautiful. There was a place we could have dinner because, again, there's nothing else around. They had breakfast there. So, yeah. So really glad we picked that one.
Well, let's tell you why it was such a special hotel as well. Not only is it just gorgeous, we had the most magnificent view of the Northern Lights from there. So we're sitting at dinner and we're there. And I told Melissa, I was looking out through the window and I said, the sky just kind of looks like a hazy green color. I said, you know. Do you think the Northern Lights may be visible tonight? Because we hadn't seen them yet on this trip.
As a matter of fact, the activity had pretty much stopped. So I had been watching, ever since we planned this trip, I had been watching an app called Aurora and it would, and I'd set the location as Iceland and it would notify me if there was activity, you know, it would say if activity is detected near your location, which was the location I had set. And it might be, if the sky is clear, it might be visible within an hour. And that activity had literally just stopped. And so we were like, oh my goodness, we're not going to, we're not going to see them. I actually hadn't even gotten an alert. which was so interesting that you saw that. But as soon as you said that, I actually grabbed that app and it has some color coding. So it has green. So if that area is covered in green and then it has orange and then it has red. And I had only ever seen it in the green and it was absolutely in the red. And so I grabbed my phone and ran downstairs to see if we could see anything. And it was pretty faint at that point. I could see it with my phone and took a couple of pictures and then ran upstairs. to get Scott.
Yeah. And so we just hopped up and this is, I think, pretty normal. They expect it. They advertise themselves. It's one of the premier places to see the Northern Lights. And so I think they're used to people just jumping up and running out when the lights are displayed. Matter of fact, at one time we heard a noise. I think it was actually a fire alarm. Like somebody had set off, went out a door or something that they shouldn't have. But everybody in the whole restaurant jumped up and ran outside. I think they thought it was like a bell telling them that the Northern Lights were on display. But by the time I got out there, they weren't just kind of barely visible. They were putting on the most magnificent show. that you've ever seen. And it was great because on the backside of the hotel where we were standing, you had a couple of hot tubs. You had this glacier lagoon or glacier fed lagoon of cold water. And then they had this dry sauna out there. And in the distance was this snow covered mountain and the glacier was right beside it. And so that is your backdrop. We're looking straight towards the snow -covered mountain, and these lights are just dancing and swirling all over above it. And so those pictures with the water and the mountain and the northern lights and the reflection of all that on the water, oh my gosh. We couldn't have asked for anything better. Yeah,
because you get that reflection in that lagoon. And so they were not only visible to the naked eye, you were able to video them. They have to be strong enough to show up. And then we were actually able to FaceTime our kids and they could see them in the video on the FaceTime. So that was really cool.
Yeah. So that was the first time we went up, we had dinner. And then after dinner, we went back down and had a second show put on. We were just, I mean, absolutely overwhelmed with how beautiful they were. And we got, I think the second time, they were even more powerful. And you could see them kind of radiating. You could see the waves in it. And so two times that night, we were done. We were, you know, over the moon, excited. But I think then we were also exhausted.
We also got to see them in the pinkish color and in the greenish color. So the pink seemed to show up more the fainter that they were as well. I did get up a couple of times in the night and look out to see, but we heard about 3 .30 that they showed up again, but we didn't see them then. But here's the other thing is the first time we saw them and then they completely dissipated. So it was like, okay, they're gone. Now let's go have dinner. And then we of course heard people saying, so if they show up. You know, like you really do need to drop what you're doing and go see them because they could be gone as quick as they came and not come back again.
Yeah. But we were so fortunate because we had pretty much given up on the fact that we were going to be able to see the northern lights because we even said, well, I guess we're just going to have to keep this on our bucket list because the next day we saw the weather wasn't going to be. quite as clear and sunny when we're heading into our last day. And we were going to be in Reykjavik.
we were going to be in Reykjavik. Not that you couldn't see them because we actually saw pictures of from that night from Reykjavik and they were very, very strong there. But when you're, you know, have the light pollution and stuff like that, just depending on how strong they are. Well,
this was a really nice hotel. So the next morning we were in no hurry to get out of there. We got up, we had breakfast, then we went down and did the little circuit. So with the dry sauna and the hot tub. Neither one of us were daring enough to get into that lagoon. However, the night before, while we're out there being amazed by these lights, some dude in his Speedo comes out and just jumps in that little lagoon and starts swimming around. And so we did get a few pictures with... him and his speedo going through there but he was more worried about getting his cold plunge in i guess than the northern lights the other thing i wanted to say is that we had originally thought about you know going that far and staying there and then getting up the next morning and doing a
other thing i wanted to say is that we had originally thought about you know going that far and staying there and then getting up the next morning and doing a glacier hike where you would go with a guide and then go into the ice caves. But at the end, we just decided that we wouldn't have enough time to spend at the hotel, right, to relax and enjoy those amenities. And then also that we were probably going to be pretty tired as well. So we would have to get up and, you know, make it back to the, and it wasn't far, but go back to where the glacier was to meet that tour. And it was about a five hour tour. And then it would be a long drive. So we just decided to. enjoy the hotel and just kind of have a relaxing day.
Yeah. So just to give you a perspective, Glacier Lagoon Hotel is about five hours, five and a half hours from Reykjavik. So you need to give yourself enough time to get back. We wanted to enjoy a few things. Matter of fact, we wanted to go back to Diamond Beach because we wanted to see it in the daylight. with the sun hitting down on the ice, and we knew that that would be a totally different view. We didn't quite understand how different it was going to be. But then the second thing is we also wanted to go to Glacier Lagoon, so on the other side of the road, and see where the ice comes off those glaciers into this lagoon where it just kind of hangs around for a while. And then some of it eventually makes its way out to the ocean.
Yeah, absolutely beautiful because you really can get up close with a glacier without having to do a boat ride. We had seen glaciers before in Alaska when we had to take a boat. One we could hike to, but I didn't feel like the part you could see was as big as this, right? So you get the blue in some parts of it, the blue coloration. And so you really just get to see what that glacier looks like. So highly recommend this. You park it one or the other and you can walk under the bridge just to make it easier. You have to move your car to see both of those. And again, a lot of those excursions go out. Let's talk just a minute about parking,
Let's talk just a minute about parking, because this is an important thing. There are cameras set up to all of these parking lots that are capturing your license plate going in and out. So they don't charge you to go to these waterfalls, but they do charge you to park there. And so make sure when you're driving and you're going to these places. They have a couple of different apps. I think most of them are on the Parka app, but a few of them do use a different one. They also have pay stations usually at the parking lots where you can go and pay with your card right there if you wanted to. Make sure you're doing that because if you don't, they're going to charge you.
So as a matter of fact, I think one of them that we did, we actually like it. When you started putting in the license plate number, it actually popped the rest of it up, right? So it's like, oh, are you this far? And so making sure that you do that. And we had heard people talk about that. I think I had just kind of forgotten. So just be aware that you do every single place that you stop. And was it about $10 to $15? Probably about $10, I think, at each one. So just be aware of that because they are taking your picture.
Yep. Just make sure to factor that in as you're going to need about. $10 to $15 per little site that you stop at to pay for parking. So put that in your budget. Well, so we went back to Diamond Beach. And the one thing that we were going to say about that was, you know, we kind of appreciate living here at the beach, how much the beach can change with the tides and how different it can look. Well, when we went back to Diamond Beach this next day, the beach was totally different. So the tide was coming in. All of those icebergs that the night before were sitting on the beach, now they're out in the water. So there's a lot less of the ice on the beach itself. There's still plenty there. We got some awesome photographs. But we had to pay attention because... The little island that we were out on became an island. But the place that we went out and we're taking all these pictures, as the tide came in, it started to become an island and it started to get cut off from the main area. And so you got to pay attention to the tide and what the tide's doing. As a matter of fact, we were telling people, we were like, hey, don't wait around too long because just five minutes ago, there was a dry path to walk on and it's gone. to get off the island.
Yeah. And so just not realizing that, you know, and then that I'm glad that we saw that because as a matter of fact, the night before I mentioned to you, I wonder what it looks like, you know, when the tide is different and that kind of thing. So just, I guess, temper your expectations because we've also heard and read that it could be very different in the summer, right? When it's not so cold, those could melt a lot faster. And of course, like we said, depending on the time of day, but staying close to that gave us the opportunity, you know, and of course we were heading back. that direction and it was only five minutes from the hotel but staying close to that gave us the opportunity to see that our next stop is going to be a hike along the feather river canyon this uh this hike takes you up alongside the river um and there's a once again there's another waterfall you're going to see lots of waterfalls in iceland but you hike up alongside the river
next stop is going to be a hike along the feather river canyon this uh this hike takes you up alongside the river um and there's a once again there's another waterfall you're going to see lots of waterfalls in iceland but you hike up alongside the river And there's the canyon that the river's running through. And so as you're going up, you're getting different views of this canyon. It's getting deeper. And so lots of great places that they've set up where you can go out and take some really good photos, good selfies, things like that. But it's just a really nice hike. along this canyon.
Yeah, not super long, not super strenuous. It was uphill a bit. And one thing I would like to say about this is that at this point, we kind of had a decision to make. We knew, okay, this is how many hours of daylight. And we had toyed with the idea of at the end of this day, getting into Reykjavik, we may or may not go to Sky Lagoon. We had not bought our ticket for that yet because we had done the Blue Lagoon. So this was kind of like, we're going to make this decision. And you said, hey, we've done all this driving. I really would like to do that. Which meant by the time we left the Glacier, we could pick one of the things. So it was this canyon or a couple of other things, but it was really between this canyon and another waterfall. And so this was neat because then we got really both of it. And the other thing was I had read as well that this was a little bit more off the beaten path. The other waterfall is one of the big highlights, really famous. And we, at this point, kind of wanted something maybe a little more off the beaten path. It wasn't like nobody was there, but it was a lot fewer people. So we really enjoyed getting to see both and then also just kind of being off a little bit.
Yeah. And like I said earlier, there are a lot of tour groups and they come in on the buses. And so sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, especially multiple buses show up at one time. And you just have this flood of people. And quite honestly, they're worried about getting what they need to do done in a short amount of time because they got to get back on the bus and go to the next thing. So sometimes the tour crowds were a little bit overwhelming. We could only imagine what some of these tours must be like during the summertime.
Yeah, for sure. When it's like their absolute high season. The other thing I'd like to say about waterfalls is that, guys, there are literally waterfalls everywhere. So especially driving that south road, you would literally pass one. There would be like a little group of houses. All of that is like farmland. There'd be a little group of houses. And in their back, like out their back is like this massive waterfall. But all of that is private. So it's not like you can really stop. There was one place that had a little road that we were able to pull over and stop. But you will see from the road, you will actually get to see a lot. lot of waterfalls. Well,
like Melissa said, we had already made our decision by this time that we wanted to head back to Reykjavik and go to the Sky Lagoon. And so we're starting back now this five -hour drive to Reykjavik so that we can get there in time to have a couple of hours at the Sky Lagoon. So we went ahead and made our reservations, bought our tickets for it. But one of the things that I want to point out is In Iceland, we had heard all these stories about gas stations everywhere. They all had food where you could stop and get gas station food and how great it was and the hot dogs and stuff like that. Guys, that was not our experience on this trip. So we just barely made it back into Vic. I mean, like... All of the little lights on the gas gauge were gone. It was flashing refuel now on the screen. And I was worried that we weren't going to make it to the gas station.
Yeah, it was like watching the, okay, 10 kilometers, nine kilometers, eight kilometers. But the thing was, we'd only passed between that hotel and Vic, we'd only passed one other gas station. And I think at that point, you were three quarters full. And we're thinking like, we're going to be in Vic. So our tip would be to, if you see a gas station. fill up regardless of how much because this car I don't know it's a smaller car you think okay it's you're gonna have you know plenty of range so if you see a gas station fill up and and it could be and we did our I will say like the last gas station that we filled up at before we took the car back it did have you know an inside and it had the advertisements for the hot dogs and stuff but these other ones were literally just pumps you you said oh this is nice you could actually just use apple pay I think it probably had a place where you could like tap your card too but There was nothing. You know, there's the little grocery stores close by, but not like food or anything. Just interesting because it wasn't our experience.
So if you're down less than three quarters of a tank or so and you pass the gas station, pull in, top it off. It's different because we're driving a car that we're not familiar with. We don't know its range really and how far it can go on a tank of gas. And so just keep that in mind. And if you come across the gas station, just pull over, take a few minutes. Top it off. You can stretch your legs and then get back on your trip again.
The other thing that we would say is also have some snacks with you and water as well, just because it is a long distance. But I would say almost just in case, right? Just in case something happens to stop at. So in Vig, there was a grocery store that you could stop at and get some snacks, but might be just helpful just to have something.
Yeah. So we made it to the Sky Lagoon just after sunset. And so it was interesting because we went to the Blue Lagoon first thing in the morning and we went to the Sky Lagoon just before sunset or just after sunset. And we'll compare and contrast those in just a few minutes. We did our time at Sky Lagoon and then we went on into Reykjavik that night and we stayed at the Hilton Consulate in downtown. That was a very nice hotel. It was hard to find. It was in like this old building. But the hotel seemed to be newly renovated and remodeled. But they just didn't have a lot of signage on the hotel. And so we had to circle a couple of times to find it. But finally, we saw the sign, a little bitty sign on the hotel. And Melissa went in and, you know, we couldn't park there. We had to park at a public parking garage just a little bit away from the hotel. But that was so easy. We just pull in. It read your... your license plate number as you were going in. And so then on the way out, you just go to your machine, type in the license plate number, and you pay for it on the way out.
I would say is that if you're going to spend a couple of days in Reykjavik and not need a car, I would wait and rent a car until after, because actually the parking in that deck was pretty expensive. We parked less than 24 hours. It was like $60. Yeah,
was like $60. Yeah, it was like parking in a downtown. A lot of people listening to this, you know, like in New York or whatever, they would laugh because that would probably be cheap parking.
Yeah. But if you don't, if you're not going to need the car, I would say wait and get it. If you're going to spend a lot of time in Reykjavik, it just made sense. We were in Reykjavik, did a couple of things and then needed to drop it off and go back to the airport. Well,
so day four, this is going to be our last full day in Iceland. And we started it with a food tour from Wake Up Reykjavik. And we were able to go and taste some traditional Icelandic dishes, including the world famous hot dog stand, which come to find out was right below our window at that Hilton Hotel. Matter of fact, we'd even joked about the night before it was late and the little hot dog stand was open. We were like, oh, should we grab a hot dog? But we're glad we waited because we learned how you should order a hot dog. There's specific things that you need to know when ordering a hot dog in Reykjavik and from the stand. Melissa, I think you said the most popular way or the recommended way is with all the toppings.
Right.
So it had some kind of it was ketchup. And matter of fact, she even told us the ketchup was applesauce based. So it was ketchup. It was these crispy fried onions. It was mustard. Regular onions,
onions, too. And then I think some kind of, I think mayonnaise. I think it was like five different things. But she also went as far as to say, oh, but like you have to put whatever. And they put it underneath. They put it under the hot dog. So on the bun and then the hot dog on top, because when they handed me mine, I think maybe the ketchup only was on the top. I was like, oh, I wanted all this stuff. She was like, oh, it's underneath. So that's that's kind of the way to do it. But that is famous. I think it's famous from social media, too. But it's also famous because I think Bill Clinton was visiting one time, was walking by this hot dog stand and the person working called out to him and said, hey, you want a hot dog? And I think he got it with only mustard. So if you order the Clinton now, it's the hot dog with only mustard. So now they have certain names. Yeah,
it was really neat. They had all these little tables out around there with these little hot dog holders that were built into the table. So, you know, they give your hot dog on a piece of wax paper or something. And so you can just set it in these hot dog holders. Matter of fact, the guide on our tour, Alexandra said, when she was a kid she and her dad would come there and because this place has been there for like 40 something years and she said that uh that they would order three hot dogs a piece and then they would go get in the car and they would go for a drive and that's something that she remembers but i think that's pretty normal as people come order multiple hot dogs maybe they'll try them in different ways and they have those little holders So that while you're standing around or sitting at some of the tables, you got a place to sit your hot dog.
And I wouldn't say that this is like the best hot dog I've ever had or anything like that. And she agreed. She said, for us, it's really about the nostalgia, which reminded me of being from Atlanta, like getting a varsity, a hot dog at the varsity, if you're familiar with that. Right. And the memories and the different things that that brings back, because you would go to the varsity on special occasions when we would go downtown or just different things. And so I think it's kind of the kind of the. same thing. I mean, it was a fine hot dog. It just wasn't anything fantastic. And what's interesting, though, is then when we did go back to the airport, then they have some hot dog stands at the airport and different things like that. So,
yeah. We also were able to see the outside of the Reykjavik Church. I said this thing looks like it's from Star Wars or something like that. You know, it's got this cathedral with these ever increasing pieces of concrete that they get taller and taller and taller. But really beautiful church. We just didn't have the best of light. It was kind of gray and overcast that day. I'd love to photograph that church, though, with the bright blue sky in the background. And then leading up to that church is the Rainbow Street. So you've probably seen that if you've done any research on Reykjavik. And so you're going to want to go there and get some pictures and you can get it with the rainbow on the street and the church up at the top of the hill. And so a little bit more about the food tour,
so a little bit more about the food tour, too, is that we actually started with something that was a little more breakfasty. So it was pancakes, but really what we would call crepes, right? So the flat pancake. crepes rolled up and then they served it with strawberry jam and some whipped cream. And she said this particular place was interesting because it's actually the place that was there closed during COVID. This place opened up as a bakery and everybody thought, why are they opening up something during COVID? Because like what? They she said they were sold out of everything every single day by 11 o 'clock in the morning. It was so good. And so that was the place that we tried served with coffee. Then we got to go to a place that specialized in seafood. So we had some of the Arctic char. The next one she called a mushy fishy thingy. But she said this. So this is very common that they would eat this at home. Every grandmother had their recipe. Her particular grandmother put cheese on it. So that's what they put on it. And so that's what they called it. I just thought that was so interesting that probably.
that probably. It reminded me of like a crab cake. And it was, I think it was cod and then potatoes and onions is what was in there. And then they had cooked it and browned it in a skillet. And so it really kind of had the texture of like a crab cake, but it was made with cod. It was wonderful.
And I loved it because I love crab and crab cakes, but I am now allergic to that. So this was really, really, I really enjoyed that. She actually sent us an email after the tour. You don't have to remember these places she went. She said she sent us an email with all the places that she went, her grandmother's recipe for that particular dish, and then her other recommendations if you were going to have time in Reykjavik and other tours that you could book and stuff like that. So we would say if you... You know, if you could possibly, you know, start your tour here, that might be a great overview to like get information. We loved it because not only did you get a food tour, but then you also got to spend some time with a local. She talked a little bit more about just growing up. She'd always lived there and just her life. And then also those sites, like getting to see some of those sites and she could make some different recommendations and stuff like that. It didn't work out. We like to try to do those at the beginning. It didn't work out for us, but highly recommend this one. So from there, we did a lamb stew. So they're known for that fish, right? But they're also known for the lamb. We had lamb shank another night. So lamb stew. And then that was where we also got to try the fermented shark and just try a little piece of that. That's something very traditional. She said it's very common among the older people to still keep that in their fridge. And when you're starting to feel a little bit bad that you eat a little bit about that. So Scott, what did you think about the fermented shark? Well,
I had been told you've got to try this fermented shark. You know, it's just something you have to do. was a little bit scared of it i'll be honest with you they passed around this little jar and they had some toothpicks on the table and inside this little jar was these little cubes of the shark and she was like don't smell of it because it smells horrible she was like just take the toothpick get a piece put it in your mouth and chew it seven times she was like don't chew it eight times she was like it just starts going downhill from there she was like but chew it seven times and then swallow. And honestly, the taste of it was fine. I think I could imagine, you know, if you chewed on it for a while, it wouldn't be very good. Smelled horrible, tasted great. Tasty good. It wasn't bad. The other interesting thing,
The other interesting thing, we didn't have this on the tour, but I wanted to mention that the other thing that we kept seeing on the breakfast buffets is the cod liver oil, like a bottle of cod liver oil where you could pour it and do like a shot of that. It would be like near the juices and stuff like that. So I asked her and she said, oh yeah, that's something that we do, you know, from the time that we're little. And if we don't do it at home, like you start doing it when you're in preschool. So I just thought that was super interesting to see that. I take that, you know, in capsule form every day, but to see. that. And then we finished off with a dessert and more coffee. And that was a rye bread ice cream.
bread ice cream. So they take old rye bread and this isn't your standard rye bread. It's not savory. This is sweet. You know, it's a really sweet rye bread. It looked to me when we had some at the place with the fish and they served it sliced up and it looked like soda bread to me. That's what it reminded me of. Yeah.
And it was really good because like you said, it was sweet. Yeah.
But, you know, we had this bread and they took the old bread and they made ice cream out of it. And so you had a little bit of the cream, but then you had the rye bread in there. And it was just a really unique dessert.
Ice cream is very popular for them, as in as it is in many European destinations. So there was lots of ice cream shops and gelato shops and stuff that we had passed. I guess mainly ice cream shops. I don't know. But that was just something unique, I think, in this particular.
She even mentioned that at certain times of the year they have an ice cream festival. You know, she said there's just hundreds of different types of ice cream that you can try out there. And that's how she came across this one with the rye. the rye bread ice cream.
She had said the year before they actually had a fermented shark ice cream. And she said, did not recommend. That was not a recommended.
That was not a recommended.
Yeah. So highly recommend that you look up Reykjavik and look at their food, their walking food tour. We've really enjoyed that. And then, like I mentioned, they offer, you know, some other tours as well.
Well, that's going to end it for us on our trip to Reykjavik. So we returned the car back, went to the airport. Well, Melissa, one of the things that we did on this trip is we did a series, and I think you mentioned it earlier, we did a series of mini episodes. So if you want to go back and you want to listen to, we have three episodes that are about 10 minutes long. And so it's days one, two, and three. Day four, because we were leaving directly to the airport going back. We don't have a mini episode for day four, but we've kind of wrapped it up here on this show for you. But go back and listen to those 10 -minute episodes because we really captured the moment, or we tried to capture the moment in those. And I'd also say that this itinerary was perfect for anyone that is wanting to do a stopover in Iceland. If you're on a flight to or from Europe, you know, do the stopover. We spent four days. We could have easily stayed two weeks.
Yeah, I think with the stopovers, they limit it to seven. I think we can do as little as one up to seven days with the stopover. But like I said, it was a little bit cheaper, but not like a ton cheaper. So but I mean, two weeks is probably a good standalone trip for most people. Yeah,
Yeah, we said we want to go back during the summer where we can do some of these hikes in their summertime, maybe not so much snow, maybe a little bit warmer. And so that's something that we're going to put back on to our bucket list of things to do and maybe rent a camper van. and go around the big ring road and see a lot more of Iceland that we didn't get to see.
So Scott, let's talk a little bit about the hotels. A lot of times the hotel is or can be a major part of the trip, right? And so having input about these hotels and where they were located and stuff like that could be helpful.
Yeah. So let's start with the Courtyard by Marriott. which was the one near the airport. Like we said, this appears to be a new hotel that they've built. And it's just a few minutes from the airport. So if you have that late night flight coming in or you've got an early morning flight going out, this would be a great place for you to stay and get quickly from there to the airport. They do have a shuttle service that runs from the airport. It just wasn't running at the time of night. that we were there. And it may be that it's only from the hotel to the airport, not vice versa. But no big deal. You take a cab. Yes, cabs are expensive. Taxis are expensive in Iceland. But it is a short ride. You get there very quick, within five minutes or so. And now you're there. You can get quickly up to your room and get some rest. You know, 10 out of 10, I would say stay at this hotel if you're... going either have that early morning or late night flight.
Yeah, they had a great breakfast buffet, what you would be accustomed to in most like what we would say in most of Europe, right? So you had like all kinds of different, you know, hot food, kind of your cold food, all that kind of stuff that we really enjoyed. We wanted to go ahead and eat because we were heading straight to the Blue Lagoon. So have a little bit of food. But we would also say so we actually use points for this one and for the Hilton. So kind of booked in our stay with that. That's really in. Airport and then Reykjavik is really the only place you're going to find to be able to use points. Everything else, booking hotels are going to be small local places. So you're probably going to have to, you know, just have a budget for that.
The next one on the list is Hotel El Selja. So this was the one that we stayed at. We said, you know, it's just a rectangular building with rooms on both sides. We got there late at night and we really weren't going to spend much time at the hotel. We just wanted somewhere that we could sleep for the night. Got up, had breakfast the next morning and then headed straight back out. This is a great hotel for that. If there were northern lights, it was a great location as well. There was nothing around it. So you're not going to have light pollution and stuff like that. But you would have some mountains in the background,
you would have some mountains in the background, really close by us. well but the breakfast was included as well and we just we thought it was great yeah it was a good location for our next day when we wanted to start at that selja lands fos waterfall and so you know we would recommend this one it is the one that i said kind of reminded me of straight out of an ikea box or something like that but it was comfortable it met the mark and so
was a good location for our next day when we wanted to start at that selja lands fos waterfall and so you know we would recommend this one it is the one that i said kind of reminded me of straight out of an ikea box or something like that but it was comfortable it met the mark and so I would give this one a good rating as well.
The other thing I would say about this is because it was so small and just all on one floor, like you literally could walk in and, you know, you didn't have to worry about like, you know, everywhere else. I guess we had to, well, most of the other places worry about elevators and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But this is just like straight in, made it super easy to have to take your stuff very far. Let's talk about this next one.
talk about this next one. Glacier Lagoon Hotel, my favorite. I love this hotel.
Yeah, really, really nice. When I found this and I showed it to Scott, and like we said, this was probably the most expensive one that we stayed at. It was going to be at a great location, though, not too far away from where we wanted to go. And it just looked absolutely beautiful from, I don't know, it was very modern. Everything was kind of dark, but the rooms were nice and big, very comfortable. We actually could see the Northern Lights from our... window. We just chose to go back outside. We had a little bit of light pollution from a couple of other rooms. They had a great dinner. They do request that you email them if you want to have dinner. They have a breakfast buffet that you can just purchase and do that if it doesn't include them included in your room. I will go back real quick and just say with the Hotel Selja, if you want to eat dinner there, you do need to let them know because I don't think it's not like they're going to prepare for a lot of people since it was so small. Glacier Lagoon Hotel though, the hot tubs outside, the sauna, the The plunge pool in the lagoon. So definitely. Well,
there wasn't a plunge pool. Yeah,
Yeah, but in the, well, the plunge, the cold plunge you could do in the lagoon, I guess I should say. But if you're going to stay at this one, just give yourself some time to enjoy it and relax. We actually said, oh, I wish we could stay another night. I wish we could have the whole day because it would be plenty to do. Like you could do that glacier excursion nearby there. You could explore a little further and come back. Would have loved to have stayed here two nights.
And then finally on the list is the Hilton Consulate in Reykjavik. Once again, a great hotel. It was very nice on the inside. Like Melissa said, it was newly renovated. So all of the rooms were really nice. They had this leather Chesterfield at the end of the bed. Matter of fact, we recorded, I think, the rest of day three for that mini episode sitting there on that Chesterfield. It was just a very comfortable room. the bar downstairs and where you could have breakfast in the mornings. It was really nicely done. It was very nicely done.
was very nicely done. It's just very, it was very, had a really old world feel, but just very nice, but felt modern. It was also a place to where you could spend a couple of days and have plenty of places to sit, right? Have a drink from the bar, just enjoy the atmosphere or just relax during the day. Lots of, like I said, lots of places to sit, but the breakfast area was really, really nice as well. So, and I think it's in a historic building. I don't know how old the hotel is. I think the hotel part is actually new. But the building is very historic. It's in one of those like triangular shape, you know, buildings. So if you're going to be staying in Reykjavik,
if you're going to be staying in Reykjavik, we would highly recommend it. It's a perfect location. It's a short walk to all of the sites that you're going to want to see. In fact, we walked from the hotel to meet our Wake Up Reykjavik food tour. And then we walked from there to do the tour. So it's very centrally located. A lot of shopping around the area as well. And so if you're looking for a place to stay in downtown Reykjavik, we would definitely recommend this Hilton consulate.
Felt like a boutique hotel and also wasn't a massive hotel. And the other thing we didn't mention about Reykjavik, even though Reykjavik, it is the biggest city and in size, it feels big. There feels like there's a lot of industrial and business type areas. But the park in, I guess, what would you call it? The downtown Reykjavik, where we had this food tour and stuff, felt... Very small, right? It did have some government buildings that were small. It does have, that's where you have the marina and stuff like that. But it felt very quaint. And even on a Monday, it wasn't like it was super busy either. So it was just, it was a very neat, you want to spend some time, at least, you know, half a day to a day in Reykjavik if you have the time.
Well, finally, there's a lot of debate on social media about the lagoons. We went to both Blue Lagoon and Sky Lagoon. We enjoyed both of them, but if you had to pick only one, which one would you pick?
So I think if I had to pick one, I think I would pick the Blue Lagoon.
I would pick the Sky Lagoon. I think just because it has that iconic color.
think just because it has that iconic color. I think a lot of times when people think of Iceland, they think partially of this. So let's talk a little bit about the differences because they are... completely different, right? So just real quickly, the Blue Lagoon has that iconic blue water in, it is near the volcano. As a matter of fact, when we went in, she said, are you aware of the volcanic activity? And I was not, but I was like, yeah. And so she said, okay, well, just be aware if we sound the alarms, like you need to evacuate and go to the meeting point. And so I was almost a little freaked out about that, but it was fine. So they actually, there were signs and they actually pumped that water up. and then mix it with other water to cool it down. I'm not sure about the Sky Lagoon, but let's finish with the Blue Lagoon. So the Blue Lagoon, you can choose from a couple of different options. One of them, you get one mask and one drink included. Everybody gets the use of the locker rooms. The locker rooms are split up male and female. Or you can upgrade to another package to where you get three masks and two drinks. And then you get a robe. And then the armband that they give you to use, then it includes a locker for everybody so that you can lock up your stuff. But if you choose not to do the upgrade, you can always buy more masks and more stuff, you know, with your armband out there. And then you can just explore. And they have, we didn't have time to use that, but they have like a steam room and they have like a sauna type. thing and and and then just go off and explore and yeah spend as much time there as you want yeah so the water is kind of a chalky color uh bluish chalky color but it was really nice and matter of fact i said i liked both of them yeah um but you did the three masks and we were in a little bit of a hurry i think too because we knew we wanted to go and do the ring road but the blue lagoon just wasn't my favorite
so the water is kind of a chalky color uh bluish chalky color but it was really nice and matter of fact i said i liked both of them yeah um but you did the three masks and we were in a little bit of a hurry i think too because we knew we wanted to go and do the ring road but the blue lagoon just wasn't my favorite I like the Sky Lagoon. And I'll tell you why. The reason I liked it was the seven -step ritual. And so they have this little spa off to the side. You get out of the lagoon. And by the way, when we got there, the sun had just set. It was starting to get a little bit dark. But you could see the rocky faces. But the steam coming off the water was off the charts. It's like, hey, Melissa, I think that's you over there if you got separated. So lots of steam coming off that water. But you go into this little spa building, and inside there, the first thing you do is go into this dry sauna. And let me tell you, it's hot as Hades in that dry sauna, but you've got this magnificent view. It's a glass wall looking out over Reykjavik, over the port there. And so you just have this wonderful view while you're sitting there sweating. And then you leave from there. They've got this open -air room where there's a mist coming down. So you've got a cold mist to cool your body back down after you've heated it up inside the dry sauna. You're going to go into a couple of more different rooms that are different saunas. Some of them are little steam rooms and stuff like that. They have a body scrub station where you get this body scrub and it's a salt scrub that you just rub all over before going into the steam room. And then you kind of finish it off with this nice little drink before you leave. I was so thirsty, I probably could have drank about 10 of those. And then you go back out. Right outside of that spa, they did have a cold water plunge pool. And I got in it up into about my waist. And that was about as far as I could go. I could not force myself to go down any further. And they wanted you to stay,
they wanted you to stay, what, two minutes or three minutes? I remember there was a guy there that if you wanted to do it, he would time you. And the other thing I would say, if you brought a water bottle along, they had water refill stations because they had all these signs that say stay hydrated, stay hydrated. But you had to have your own water bottle inside that seven -step ritual. So that seven -step ritual is actually an upgrade. So you can buy a ticket to the Sky Lagoon. you can get that seven -step ritual. And with that, you also get access to their more private changing room. So here it's either, you know, just the regular changing room or that one, the more private changing room.
there was a
more private changing room. We actually could go together. So we could share a changing room that has like a private shower and then you use the lock. But they didn't have robes at the Sky Lagoon at all. So that's kind of the differences. We're really glad that we did the seven -step ritual for sure. I don't know. We probably... could have skipped the other two masks. I don't know, at the Blue Lagoon, the second drink. I don't know. I mean, it was nice since we were there to just go ahead and do all three of them. But they don't. And so that's kind of the face mask thing. And the water content is different. They tell you put conditioner hair and put your hair up and try not to get it wet. And the Sky Lagoon is just completely different. And it's dark and moody. So if you can do both, highly recommend that you do both. But it's also interesting that my favorite was the Blue Lagoon. And Scott, he would choose, or I guess would choose the... choose the Sky Lagoon. And so when would you say you should do this? The beginning of your trip, the end of your trip? That's hard to say because it kind of set a great tone doing it at the beginning of the trip in the Blue Lagoon.
hard to say because it kind of set a great tone doing it at the beginning of the trip in the Blue Lagoon. But like I said, I was kind of anxious about getting started onto the Ring Road or the Golden Circle. And so I was really more thinking we need to move on. So that's the only thing about doing it at the beginning. Now, if you're just going to Reykjavik and that's going to be your first thing, this is perfect. Come in, do this first, get relaxed, and then go start your vacation. Otherwise, I would say on the back end was nice because we had done all of these hikes. We climbed the 527 steps or whatever. So it was nice to have that. And we'd been in the car a lot. So it was nice to have. that lagoon on the back end to just relax before we got on the plane and headed back.
The other thing we should mention is that there are actually these hot, what do you call them, lagoon or hot spring experiences all over the place.
spring experiences
all over the place. So on the Golden Circle, there's one called the Secret Lagoon. In the north, there's a bunch of different ones. And then there are ones that are completely... not more commercialized like these are, right? There's no tickets, there's no whatever that you can find different places. So if you have more time, definitely research that. And that's something that we would have on our list for a longer trip is we talked to several people who had found some of these other ones and found some of these ones that like you don't pay to get in or anything.
Yeah, I would think that some of those are probably better suited for like the summer. Yeah. But, you know, definitely check that out. As we wrap up this recap of our incredible Iceland adventure, one thing is clear. This country is a destination that captivates surprises and leaves you wanting more. Whether you're planning a quick stopover or a longer exploration, Iceland offers breathtaking landscapes, unforgettable experiences, and plenty of opportunities to adapt your plans as you go. From chasing waterfalls to relaxing in lagoons and witnessing the northern lights, every moment felt like something out of a dream. If you haven't already, be sure to check out our Live from Iceland series for real -time reflections from the trip. And we'd love to hear from you. Have you been to Iceland or is it on your travel list? Which lagoon would you choose? Drop a message on social media or send me an email at scottatsunshinetravelers .com. And let's keep the conversation going. The world is full of sunshine and surprises. Make 2025 the year you explore beyond the familiar. That's a wrap on this episode. We hope it gave you some inspiration for your next adventure.
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