ICELAND
Our Guide to a 5 Day Trip of the South Coast of Iceland
Air Travel
We flew with Play Airlines, they had direct flights to Reykjavik from the east coast and were very affordable. They are a no frills airline like Frontier or Spirit, but I would put the comfort and leg room on par with Delta. They fly a very comfortable seating configuration on the Airbus A320 and A321.
Most travelers will be entering via either Keflavík International Airport or Reykjavik airport.
Your Itinerary will reflect either KEF or RKV as the arrival airport but both will say “Reykjavik”. This will be one of the most important things to clarify before arriving!!
See, it tells us we are going to Reykjavik, but its actually KEF which is Keflavik.
Transportation
We decided on this quick trip to do a camper van. So in regards to rental cars we can tell you that they have all the major brands available, Avis, Hertz and Budget. but we didn’t use them as we went with Campervan Company Indie Campers. Their Link is Below!
This is certainly a “glamping” experience. If you have zero experience camping or glamping this likely won’t be your best bet and the Airbnb/Rental Car Option will suite you better!
That being said for those of you who want to give it a go, heres a couple things we’d wished we’d known looking back.
Bring Towels- Towels were not included so drying after the shower required some Macgyvering.
Know how to drive a Manual Transmission- If you or someone else can’t, camper vans are out of the question here as they don’t have automatic.
Bring Clorox Wipes and Cleaning Gear- The cleaning kit provided is lackluster at best, bringing a few cleaning essentials will be very helpful.
Choose Duffle Bags and Backpacks v.s Suitcases- Choosing Duffle Bags would have been the way to go, there’s lots of clothes storage, but having a suitcase lying around really cramped the space. Duffle Bags could have easily been folded up and hidden away, making an already cramped space less cramped.
Be Comfortable Driving in Rain, High Wind, and at night-Between November and March there’s 4-6 hours of daylight, and inclement weather in Iceland is a staple. High Winds are extremely common and so is rain. Add with it extremely narrow roads with steep shoulders and you just want to make sure you’re comfortable for your trip. That being said, a rental car will be no more safe on the roads.
Relax there is a Diesel heater in the van- You won’t have to run the van all night, a small diesel heater keeps the van as warm as you could want, as well as the water. With it running all night we still only used 1/10 a tank of gas.
We’d Recommend the CamperVan Option to anyone willing to give it a go and we fully plan on doing so on our next adventure in Iceland.
Lodging
While camping in a camper van you’ll “need to stay at a designated campground”. These run between $15 to $40 a night depending on the view and services provided. Now we aren’t telling you its okay to camp anywhere else, and campgrounds have a lot more amenities. But we did pull off a couple different nights at designated pull offs and stayed there as your camper van is a off the grid machine.
This was the Skógafoss Campground, for $20 we went to sleep to the sound of one of Icelands most famous waterfalls and woke up to this view, TRUST US, you’ll want to stop at a few campgrounds, save it for ones like this!
Where should we go?
ICELAND
Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon
Blue Lagoon
Diamond ice Beach
ICE CAVE TOUR
Skogafoss Waterfall
Seljalandsfoss Waterfall
Icelandic Horses
Kirkjufell
Solheimasandur Plane Wreck
Reynisfjara Beach
Vestrahorn
VIKING VILLAGE VESTRAHORN
Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon
Dyrhólaey Beach
The Map here shows our stops during our trip numbered so that we would maximize the most of our short time on the island. Feel free to add or remove whatever you’d like but this gave us a really great taste of what the south coast had to offer!
Now for the photos!
