A family road trip to Iceland
Here is how our family of 3 adults, 2 toddlers, 1 big kid and an infant ended up in Iceland in July 2022:
At the end of 2021 I was casually googling places that are close to the US but not the US. One of the countries that popped up was Iceland. In another search Iceland also took a spot somewhere on the top for having cheap tickets when going abroad for the period I was searching for. I told my wife, didn’t really get an approval thus I let this info sit there on the back burner. Meanwhile I had setup a notification on my Hopper app to notify me when the tickets are the cheapest.
Few months later, about end of February/beginning of march a family member texted us and suggested we all go to Iceland this summer. This was the very time my app was telling me that the ticket is at its cheapest. I just saw it as a sign, somehow convinced my wife and bought cheap non refundable tickets for all of us.
Up to this point I had researched basically nothing; no rental car, no accommodations, no itinerary. I encountered big surprises when I finally ended up planning the trip. The biggest surprise was how much rental cars cost in Iceland. It was mind boggling. Turned out to be our biggest expense, will talk more about it later.
Even though I purchased my tickets to Iceland on a whim without any research, I would like to tell all my readers why everybody should go to Iceland once in their life time.
Why you should go to Iceland?
- First things first, if you live in the US and especially on the east coast, you only have to fly for 5 to 6 hours to transcend to a land that is straight out of a fairytale. So basically a few episodes of your favorite show.
- There are no language barriers, english is spoken almost everywhere.
- People are polite and respectful.
- Its a very kid friendly country, some of the restaurants we went to had a play area for the kids while parents finish their meal (no it wasn’t a McDonalds). Also have changing tables in almost all rest areas.
- The food is pretty decent. Kids will find pizza in a lot of places and its decent pizza (and I come from New York). I will mention the places we ate at somewhere down below.
- You can drive around the whole Island fairly quickly. Gas stations, bathrooms and food is very accessible.
- Most importantly it is a road-tripper’s dream. Almost all areas are highly accessible. You can see the beauty of the island without ever deviating from the ring road (more about it later).
How should you plan for the trip?
Planning is key when going to Iceland. Don’t be like me and just buy the tickets. Look at car rentals, tours, accommodations and what would you like to there before finalizing your tickets. Things to consider:
Car Rental
- This should be the first thing you should book if you are renting a car which I suggest you do (reasoning somewhere down below). Booking earlier might get you a better price.
- Iceland has the most expensive car rentals in the world. Look into the rates before hand for the dates you’re interested in. See if that lands into your budget, especially if you have a big family.
- Look into Blue Car Rental, the whole experience with them was amazing. We even got a flat tire in Northern Iceland, their customer service was quick to respond and got our issue resolved pretty quickly.
- Do not wait to get there before renting a car, especially if you need a bigger car. They run out of cars and you might not get anything. That will be a bummer!
- If you are renting a people carrier ( 9 seater ) like we did, that might be your biggest expense.
- If you can get a slightly bigger car than you think you need, it allows for all passengers to really enjoy the views and not be be claustrophobic (especially people in the back seats) with all the luggage and all.
- You really don’t need a 4x4 if its summer and you are just planning to stick to the ring road and the local roads not marked with an ‘F’ (F-roads are unpaved/gravel roads and may contain river crossings).
- Important! Get all the insurance your rental company offers, this is something you don’t want to cheap out on. We encountered plenty of gravel roads and anything can happen from a flat tire to a ding in your windshield (We actually got a flat tire, more on this later).
- You don’t really have to bring your car seats. The rental companies can rent you those, they are not too expensive. With Blue car rental the booster seats were free.
- The one thing that I think you must get (after insurance) is the mobile wifi. It was a life saver. Our own cellphone network really did not work as advertised so we were glad that we had the mobile wifi. It was crucial for google maps and also kept the kids entertained when they got bored of things to see outside their windows.
- One last note on the car. The rental car was our home from the time we started driving in the morning till we got to our Airbnb for the night (mostly at midnight everyday) so I made sure that it is comfortable for everybody otherwise the trip wouldn’t have been as great as it was. Thats why you see so many bullet points for the car rental.
Resources I used to book car rental
While researching I looked at all the usual companies that we also find in the US: Hertz, Sixt, Enterprise etc… but after reading a-lot of reviews this is the company that I felt was most loved and admired:
Their customer service and the ease of getting and dropping the car off was amazing. We actually got a flat tire while we were in Akureyri, we called the customer service and within about 20 minutes we had somebody from an auto shop to help us out. I highly recommend them.
Accommodations
You have a couple of options at your disposal:
- Hotels
- Hostels
- Airbnb (My preferred way for Iceland)
- Bed and Breakfast
There are two ways you can think about accommodation…
The first option is staying in one accommodation for the whole trip. You can do day trips to the attractions and come back to the same place every night ( I think this can get hectic). This option will also be needed if you don’t have a car and only doing tours. Alot of people pick this option If they are only visiting Southern Iceland (Reykjavik, Golden Circle, blue Lagoon, Glacier Lagoon, etc). With this option you can find plenty of hotels and bed and breakfasts if you don’t want an Airbnb.
The second option (this was my preferred way but more suitable for the summer) is to stay in a different Airbnb each night. Our itinerary was to do the whole ring road in a span of 6 days. This option allowed us to always move forward and we never had to drive back to spend the night. This way we were efficient with our time. The bad part about this was that we had to unpack and pack at each destination but after the first night we became efficient at that too and kept everything needed for the next day much more accessible. The good thing about this option was that we explored a lot of beautiful properties and villages where these Airbnbs were located. There is a slight risk involved in this option. If for some reason there are road closures ahead or your car breaks down you really don’t have a place to stay and you will have to find and book a place near where you are and most probably pay for two accommodations at the same time (unless Airbnb is nice enough to refund you).
Couple of Notes:
- As you move farther from Reykjavik or Akureyri the possibility of finding a hotel gets less. This is where Airbnbs shine because you can find one pretty much anywhere.
- All the Airbnbs we stayed were highly maintained, a-lot of them remodeled and very modern. Had pretty much what a family needs including cookware, utensils, baby cribs and some even had espresso machines. Mostly all of them had a hot tub.
- To get the good Airbnbs book way in advance, these things book up fast!
- If you start planning early the cost for at-least the Airbnbs is pretty decent and most of them are refundable till 48 hours of your stay ( This can change property to property and at anytime so make sure your looking at these details before you book).
Resources I used to book Accommodations
Airbnb, Hotels.com, Expedia and Booking.com. For some reason booking.com had the most amount of non-Airbnb properties listed. Also listing some places that we stayed in and really liked:
Clothing
You can find many packing lists on different blogs but here are the basics that you need: Water proof pants, fleece(warm layer), waterproof jacket and water proof boots. They are definitely needed if you go the waterfalls but also good to have if you are out and it starts pouring. Has saved us many a times. The rest is up to you and whatever you are comfortable with.
Things to consider when you get there
Gas
Buy gas cards. None of our credit cards had a pin and I don’t like to use my debit card any where so gas cards was the way to go for us.
I suggest getting N1 gas cards. N1 has the biggest gas station network in Iceland. We pretty much found an N1 gas station all along the ring road and in inner cities too.
We had a 9 seater Toyota Proace diesel. We basically got gas every time we used up a quarter tank. In total we needed about 4.5 10,000 IKR gas cards for the whole trip around the ring road and beyond.
Parking
It was always funny to me to see a crowd gathered around a pay station figuring out how to pay. I saw that pretty much every where. There is a flag sign on the screen that can change your language to english and after that its pretty self-explanatory.
You will probably have to find overnight parking in Reykjavik but other places like Akureyri I noticed that you only had to pay from 10 am to 4 pm.
Tire pressure
- Keep an eye on your tire pressure. Since the tires on vehicles are changed so frequently that the tire sensors sometimes don’t behave. Its good to just check for air on your gas stops.
Cash
- We never encountered a situation where we had to use cash.
Daylight
Be aware of the time. In summer the sun never really goes away. You might think that places are open but they are not. Since in reality it’s pretty late and people are already sleeping. For one of the airbnbs we got there around midnight and I was messaging the host not realizing that its pretty late for them.
I noticed that I didn’t get tired until I hit the bed at night. Something to do with daylight.
Weather
- Most of the weather apps show that its always raining everywhere in Iceland. Weather forecasts in Iceland are a bit off. A-lot of times while it was sunny, the app would show that its raining.
Road closure
- This is important! Check on road.is for road closures before planning your day.
Next I’d like to share our Itinerary and how we made the best of the trip.
Following is the map for our itinerary give or take a few places:
Blue denotes all the attractions and yellows denotes our Airbnbs. if you click on the blue pins you should see the attraction. All the destinations are filtered to be kid friendly and something we could do with kids of different ages including a 7 month old.
You can get a copy of this map here
So this is what our itinerary mostly looked like:
Day 1
Landed at 9 AM at Keflavik - waited two hours for the luggage - Grabbed some breakfast at the airport.Picked up car from Blue Car rental which was a 7 - 10 min walk. We could see the place from inside the airport. It’s behind the Aurora hotel.
First Stop: Seljalandsfoss
Second Stop: Skógafoss
Third Stop: Vik - Grabbed some fish sandwiches and pasta from Strondin Bistro . Drove around here a little to sightsee. Also grabbed gas from N1 station. Purchased gas cards and only used N1 stations throughout the trip.
Fourth Stop: The Glacier Lagoon.
Final Destination: Brunholl Country Guest House
Day 2
Grabbed breakfast at the guest house (If possible, get breakfast from somewhere else).
First Stop: Hofn - checked out the town. Got gas, We basically filled after a quarter tank was gone. 20 minutes out of Hofn our tire sensors started complaining so we drove back to Hofn filled air. That kinda derailed our plans so instead of going to Stuðlagil Canyon we started driving towards Egilsstadir - the eastern capitol of Iceland, since our Airbnb was in Seydisfjordur which is close to Egilsstadir.
Second Stop: Egilsstadir. Grabbed some pizza, Salmon, nachos and a Moroccan soup from Salt Cafe and Bistro - The food was pretty decent. Got ice cream from Skálinn Diner and drove around town.
Final Destination: Seydisfjordur. This is where are our Airbnb Langahlid Cottages was located. This was a very charming town but we didn’t get to explore it to much (next time definitely).
Day 2 might not look like very eventful but for me it was the best day of our entire trip. The drive in Eastern Iceland is breath taking. The best I have ever done. The majestic mountains and valleys. The waterfalls and streams just gushing out of random places. It all looked like we were in a fairy tale. When we go the next time, I am definitely spending more time in the East.
A quick note on driving in the east. Depending on where you are headed, you can be off the ring road and You might end up driving a gravel road up the mountains. There are gravel roads that go uphill and are not F-roads. It can get dangerous. The trailer in front of us couldn’t really control itself on a steep hill and starting moving back but in the end the tires got traction. It was quite an adrenaline rush for me, thankfully everybody else was taking a nap so nobody panicked. With that said the views are spectacular so its worth it.
Day 3
Grabbed breakfast at Skálinn Diner . The ice cream there is great but breakfast not so much.
First Stop: Krafla - It was a really small hike to the crater.
Second Stop: Hverir - These are the geysers which were pretty cool, great place to take some cool photos. The kids didn’t like the place since its smelled of sulphur.
Third Stop: Myvatan Nature baths - Spent some time in the lagoon, it was our first experience at a lagoon. The kids loved it there. Kids of all ages were allowed here. Had lunch at Daddi’s Pizza . The pizza was fresh and tasted pretty good. The kids gulped every single slice down.
Fourth Stop: Husavik - Drove around town mostly.
Fifth Stop: Tjornes - Drove here to look at puffins which are present near the lighthouse but there was a closed gate with a sign for breeding season. This is the northern most tip of Iceland touching the Atlantic.
Final Destination: Akureyri - This was where our Airbnb Acco - Amazing Penthouse was. This was an amazing city and the drive here was spectacular too.
Day 4
Grabbed breakfast at Cafe Berlin which was just downstairs. After checking out, when we were getting into the car we realized we had a flat tire. Remember day 2 when we had low air pressure, there was actually a hole in the tire, without realizing it we kept on just filling with air. The tire finally gave up and went flat after the car was standing in Akureyri overnight. Apparently in Iceland the rental companies change tires often and a-lot of times that cause the air sensors to go bad. So the sensors create drama for no reason. This is what one of the customer service reps told us. So keeping that in mind we just got air frequently (just in case) and kept on reseting the sensors. The good thing was that after calling Blue Car rental customer service, there was a person from the auto shop there in about 20 ish minutes, he filled the tire with air and we followed him to the auto shop. It took him about 20 more minutes to get the job done. This incidence didnt really de rail us because we didn’t have any grand plans other than exploring Akureyri.
First Stop: Whale Watching Akureyri - It was a four hour round trip on a cruise boat. We saw a bunch of whales. I was more amazed by the amazing views in the backdrop. After coming back to land we had some shawarmas at Kurdo Kebab (tell them to go easy on the sauce).
The original plan was to visit the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in the west but researching it a bit more and seeing what we saw in the East and North we didn’t think we necessarily had to go and decided to take it easy.
Final Destination: Our Airbnb Stylish cottage - The village this airbnb was located was breath taking. A-lot of horse farms here with the mountain backdrop was just gorgeous.
Day 5
Grabbed breakfast at a gas station and made our way to Reykjavik.
First Stop: Flyover Iceland - I didn’t get to go because I was watching our 7 month old in the car. Everybody who did go didn’t think it was anything too great because they saw and experienced a-lot more in person. Might be something good to do in the beginning of the trip rather than the end.
Second Stop: Our Airbnb Reykjavik This is where we parked the car in a paid parking lot and explored Reykjavik on foot.
Third stop: Did all the checklist things in Reykjavik. The church, Concert hall, shopping district and etc. Being a fan of Pakistani cuisine, had lunch at Shalimar . This place has been in business for the past 21 years. The food was pretty good along with the ambiance. Pretty busy spot.
Final Destination: Our Airbnb.
Day 6
Grabbed breakfast at the Laundromat Cafe . The breakfast was pretty decent and looked really good.
First Stop: Went back to the shopping district to do some souvenir shopping.
Second stop: Bridge between continents - This was just a checklist thing. Didn’t spend too much time here. Not a-lot to see.
Third Spot: Blue Lagoon . It wasn’t really part of our plan since we went to a lagoon in the North. This was also one of those checklist things so we decided to go. Couldn’t really find any reservations at the last minute but we kept on checking and finally got one. I was watching the baby so couldn’t go in the water but everybody else had a great time. Kids more than the age of two are allowed and they provide floats. Had dinner at Biryani a Turkish restaurant. Food was pretty decent. The restaurant was part of a nice little ocean town, so we drove around for a bit. Even though we didn’t want the trip to end we finally proceeded to our last airbnb.
Final Destination: Our Airbnb Comfort and Rest .
Day 7
Left for the airport at 730am for a 11:15am flight. Even though we got to the airport more than 3 hours before, we ended up at the gate after the boarding started. We basically had to show our passports at multiple checkpoints, combine that with a huge crowd it took a while to get to the gate.
Note about the airport:
Get there early! There has been an huge influx of people going to Iceland all of a sudden which has overwhelmed the airport facilities and the staff.
