A Weekend Getaway to Iceland!

 A few months ago, I read a book all about finding cheap airline tickets. Basically, it said to keep your options open. The more flexible you are withe dates and places you want to travel, the more likely you are to find a good deal. So I started spending some time on Google Flights, searching for tickets within the next few months for a weekend trip. 

And I came across tickets from Seattle to Reykjavik, Iceland right around our anniversary (for cheaper than we can fly to California!) We flew out of Seattle on Thursday at noon, had a short layover in Toronto, and landed at 9:00am Friday morning. (Iceland is 7 hours ahead!)

In Toronto!

I thought we'd rented a car from the airport, but it turns out that the car rental place was a short drive from the airport, but they had a van that was supposed to pick us up from the airport. Our flight got in a little bit late, so there was no one there to pick us up. After a few phone calls and some waiting around, our van arrived and we were on our way. After taking more time than we would have liked, we had our rental car and our vacation officially started!

Our AirBnB was just over an hour away from the airport, so as we made our way towards it, we stopped and checked out a few places. One of the places we went to was a Thermal River. There are a lot of hot springs and thermal vents in this part of the island and we were able to hike up along this river. 

We grabbed lunch at a cute little restaurant in Hveragerði before making our way to our house, which was in the city of Selfoss. It was a cute one bedroom apartment on the fourth floor and looked like it came straight out of Ikea! It was clean and the apartment complex was very quiet.

We grabbed groceries from a nearby store and went to bed fairly early the first night! 

Saturday we headed north from Selfoss. Our initial plan was to check out a geyser that was known to be fairly active. However, when we drove by, we decided there were too many tourist buses and it wasn't actually worth the price of parking. We figured we would go check out a big waterfall first, and then we could stop and check out the geyser on our way back, if we wanted to. 

We pulled into the large parking lot at Gullfoss Falls and at first glance, had no idea where this waterfall was! It looked flat as far as we could see (and we didn't see a river, either!) Everything we read indicated that these falls rival Niagara Falls! They fall a total of 32 meters.

The path towards the falls...finally see a river out in the distance!

Panoramic view

From here, we headed to Thingvellir National Park, which is the location of various historical events in Iceland's history, and also some incredible geological formations. There is a rift valley that has formed in between the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian tectonic plate and we hiked on a trail in between them! And naturally, we saw another incredible waterfall!

On our way back to Selfoss, we stopped at a local spot at had a snack of Skyr, which is an Icelandic food that is very similar to yogurt. It's very creamy and was very tasty!

Sunday we headed further east along the South coast. There was another famous waterfall that I thought would be cool to see. Skogafoss Falls drops 60 meters and is 25 meters wide. There are 537 stairs up to the top! Once at the top, there is a trail that continues along the Skógá River. The trail actually continues on for 25 kilometers, making its way between two glacier fields. We thought that would have been amazing to see, but we didn't have the time or the snacks along to hike that far. Plus, it was raining and we had other things we wanted to see as well!

Skogafoss Falls

Another falls on the same river!

Kyle drinking fresh spring water!

Another falls!

And another one!

I think the sign said there were 26 falls within the first 8km of the hike! 

Iceland is known for its black sand beaches, made from volcanic rock and lava, so after getting back to the car, we headed to the beach! We visited Reynisfjara Beach, which is known for the black sand, sneaker waves, and Puffins. It did not disappoint!

As we drove around, we decided that Iceland looks like a green desert. Everything was very green, but there wasn't a ton of plants and trees in most places. And there is very little wildlife. We saw farm-raised sheep, horses, and a few cattle, but not a single rabbit, chipmunk, squirrel, or sign of animal life (besides birds.) It was pretty cloudy while we were there, but the few times that the clouds lifted, we were able to get a glimpse of some incredible glacier-covered mountains and more waterfalls. 

It's hard to see, but those are glaciers on the mountains!

On Monday it was time to pack up and head back to the airport. It was a quick trip, but it was enough time. Iceland isn't a cheap place to visit. Gas was expensive and restaurants were very pricey! By only being there for a short time, it made it easy to do. (Just because I'll probably want to remember this someday, we spent 10,000 Icelandic Krona on 32 liters of gas. When I checked my credit card statement, it was $88!)

The girls spent the weekend with Grandpa and Grandma, filling their last days of summer vacation with who knows what! I'm sure they told us, but I don't actually remember. We didn't get home until 10:00pm Monday night (which was 5:00am Tuesday morning in Iceland.) We were quite tired and ready for bed. And on Tuesday morning, everyone had to be up at 7:00 for the first day of school!