
Jon and I spent the first ten days of September on an epic road trip around Iceland with our friends, Harriet and Steve. To say that it was an amazing trip would be an understatement! I have never seen so many varied types of gorgeous scenery in such close proximity. Visiting Iceland is like visiting all of the national parks in the USA at once. We saw glaciers, volcanoes, lagoons, canyons, fjords, mountains, craters, waterfalls, and so many other intense geological formations. We're already talking about returning to do more camping, hiking and exploring.
The first thing that most people asked us after we told them that we were going to Iceland was, "Why Iceland?" We first learned about the gorgeous scenery in Iceland from the music videos of Sigur Rós, one of
our favorite bands, who hail from Iceland (along with Björk).
Here's a video with a good example of the scenery. We were influenced by Helen's
gorgeous photos and Tania's
amazing trip reports.
Earlier this year, I stumbled across a
self-drive tour company and asked my friend, Harriet, if she'd be interested in coming along with us. She agreed, and then we held off for a few months before finally committing to the trip.
Once we booked the trip, I started frantically knitting our authentic lopi souvenir sweaters. Now you know the reason for me torturing myself by knitting bulky wool sweaters all summer long...
So here (after the jump) is our trip in a (not so small) nutshell...The tour company we used set us up with a rental car, booked all of our hotels for the stay, gave us a cell phone to use for emergencies and outlined a suggested itinerary for sightseeing. From what I read online, going with a self drive tour company is a bit more expensive than booking everything yourself, but the extra hassle is definitely worth the surcharge. Other than a few museums being closed for the winter and not noted in our itinerary, the tour was perfect for us.