Our most recent trip to Iceland was our third time visiting; third time’s the charm, right!? We planned this trip to Iceland to be a crazy little getaway for my sister Ally. This was her first time flying overseas, her first time in Europe, and well - her first big trip away!
We unfortunately lost our first two days of the trip. Day one was due to forgotten camera batteries.. We drove 2.5 hours away from the city only to arrive at our first waterfall to realize the batteries were forgotten, had to drive 1.5 hours back to the city to a camera store, and then drove the 4.5 hours to the hotel we had booked for the night. The only thing we got to see was Sejlandsfoss, which is one of the more touristy waterfalls because you can walk behind it, and as it goes in Iceland, we got a little soaked! Perfect for another 5 hours in the car haha.
We still tried to make the best out of the day cause well, we were in Iceland! We made a couple little stops while we still could because in the fall the sun sets around 6:30pm, and it gets pitch black and very scary to drive!
For our first night, we stayed at the Foss Hotel. It’s a beautiful hotel - v scandi, v trendy, v cool.
We lost the second day because in the morning, we were at a waterfall right rear the hotel we stayed in the night before and on our way out we hit a rock which then punctured a hole in the oil tank. All the oil poured out, so we couldn’t drive the car anymore because the engine would have gotten destroyed. We waited 3 hours for a tow-truck to bring us to a mechanic, drove to the mechanic for almost 1.5 hours, and had to wait at a gas station for 2 hours for a new rental car to be delivered to us. Oh, and after all of that, literally 15 minutes after driving with our new rental car, another car drove by us and flipped up a rock that whipped the windshield and flipping cracked it! (!!!!!) Swear. Words.
Even though the day was pretty much total write off, it was actually still kinda fun. While we were waiting those 3 hours for the tow-truck, we started a 500 piece puzzle hahaha. It was a bit stressful, but it really helped time fly (sorta).
We were blessed with an awesome tow-truck driver. He told us about some history of Iceland, and we would have never known any of the things he mentioned if he hadn’t told us. We drove by glaciers where parts of Interstellar and Game of Thrones were filmed. We drove through the town where the first settlers of Iceland settled in the 900’s, we saw the very first church built in Iceland, he pointed out one of the mountains and said it was once owned by vikings, he told us about the biggest volcanic crater in Europe and how the lava flow covered 6 farms and went all the way to the ocean; the lava flow could be seen in space! We drove by all these things on both our other trips to Iceland, and would have never known those facts without having been told! I made so many notes on my phone haha.
Sorry about that mini history lesson, I thought it was really cool to learn those things!
Anyway, so that night we drove off to our hotel/airbnb and it was very cool! It’s called the Bru Guesthouse. It’s like a little house (I didn’t actually take pictures of the inside) and had a little kitchenette and
pots + pans for cooking. It was really cosy, I’d definitely stay there again!
If you ever decide to visit Iceland, be very careful when driving! It srsly gets so dark at night and there are a lot of winding roads. Bridges are EXTREMELY slippery; our tow-truck driver told us there are always collisions on bridges cause they just get so slick. There was a head on collision on a bridge that he towed another car from just before getting us! Thank God that wasn’t us!
The wind conditions can also get really crazy! The driver told us about how a couple years ago there were people on the side of the road when it was one of the windiest days and they had ropes tied to their waists and were holding onto posts on the side of the road to not be swept away by the wind. The wind broke all the windows of the car, and the paint on the right side of the car was wiped clean off. The paint got stripped off because the mountains/hills are made up of sand and because it’s so windy, the wind just picks up the sand and can do things like that to a car! Iceland is amazing, but can be dangerous if you aren’t careful!
Even though the first two days of our trip were hella stressful, we definitely learned a lot. It was our first trip that we’ve had crazy things like this happen. Thankfully, we were all safe and healthy. We know not everything goes to plan, but we still tried our best to make the most of the situations we were in!
Do you have any crazy travel stories? I’d love to read all about it!
x Melissa