Going to Iceland was taking the vacation I never thought I needed.
I remember as the departure date was nearing I started doubting myself – would this be an enjoyable vacation?
I had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into.

But – it ended up being one of the BEST experiences of my life.

How to get to Iceland

I booked my flight back in December. There (were) 2 airlines that flew internationally from the US to Iceland – WOW air and Icelandair.
I was so thankful I booked with Icelandair because about a month before the trip, WOW air went bankrupt 😳

WOW air was known as the “budget airline” – similar to frontier or spirit.
I honestly can’t stand budget airlines and would rather spend a little extra – especially for an overnight international flight. Also at the time I booked it – Icelandair was actually cheaper so it all worked out.

Most of the flights (at least from NYC – JFK) are overnight. You leave around 8pm Eastern time and arrive in Iceland at 5:55am the next day.

Finding out this information lead me to figuring out what the heck to do between landing and before checking into our first airbnb to knock out from jet lag and an overnight flight.

The Flight

Right when you walk on the plane they give you this fancy Iceland water bottle

My only gripe with Icelandair was that you had to pay extra for a meal/snacks. There was nothing provided except for the water. I am always prepared for these incidences – especially because I brought snacks for our roadtrip.

Arrival

After landing I felt invigorated – maybe the rush of being in a new country?
We decided to rent our car with lotus car rental. To go to the car rental areas there is a bus that stops at each of the rental agencies.

I highly recommend lotus – they were very professional, accommodating, and they had the best price. We originally rented a Volkswagon polo but all of them were in the shop so they ended up giving as a Renault. We ended up driving the Renault around but we didn’t like how it felt so after about 45 min of driving we came back to the car rental place. It was Easter weekend so they were almost solidly booked BUT they had one more car in our tier – a Toyota Yaris. They let us took it for a spin and we liked the drive more so we ended up with the Yaris!

1st Stop – Bridge Between Continents

Driving around Iceland is absolutely surreal – the terrain looks like you just landed on Mars. It’s just rocks instead of tress and volcanic ash instead of grass.

I chose to go here first because of it’s proximity to the airport. Plus – it’s something that is open that early in the morning.

Stop 2 – Brimketill Lava Rock Pool

All of the places with volcanic activity will smell like sulfur. But – you get used to it pretty quickly. And it’s definitely still worth visiting.

Grocery Shopping

After Brimketill Lava Rock Pool – it was about time for Costco in Reykjavik to be open (10am). So, we drove up there to get some extra stuff for the roadtrip. We bought some instant noodles for an easy meal at our airbnbs. Since they have some different menu items we had a BBQ chicken pizza slice and a hot dog for lunch.

I had big expectations for the BBQ chicken pizza but the chicken was quite dry on it. They have a couple unique sauces for the hot dog that we still couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

Your costco card works internationally so you can absolutely go here! We also filled up on gas (even though we didn’t use much) since we knew that is the cheapest place to get gas on the whole island

Airbnb: Eyjafjoll

After we left Costco we had the perfect amount of time to make it to our first airbnb right at check in. The exhaustion was starting to hit us so along the way we napped in our car in a bonus parking lot then continued. We were in awe seeing the random spurts of waterfalls seeping out from the mountains with little homes in front – who wouldn’t want their own waterfall in their backyard?

There were limited amounts of airbnbs in the SE area of the island so we stayed in a family house on a farm. I think there was another room dedicated to guests and the family mainly occupied the downstairs. Everyone was very nice and welcoming. I was so exhausted I knocked out for a few hours before waking up to try our instant noodles.

Originally I planned for us to see Vik and the Solheimasandur Plane Wreck but we decided to get a good nights rest before the adventure tomorrow!