Whirlwind Iceland Weekend
How to Fit a Week’s Travel in 3 Days
by Guest Blogger, Gabrielle Guthrie
I’m going to go ahead and kick this off by saying that every single overly dramatic, clichéd post you’ve ever read about Iceland is completely and totally true. It’s magical – especially given the fact that I went in the winter, when the country receives 4 hours of light per day (basically, the sky is perpetually in the golden hour for as long as there’s light).
Iceland has been on my bucket list for years (as it has everyone else’s), but the trip was totally impromptu. I received an email from Wow Airlines about really low prices, and 2 weeks later my family and I found ourselves in Iceland! We planned the trip as a long weekend and had to cram a lot into 3 days, with limited daylight. So how did we do it?
Day 1 | 4:30am, Reykjavík Airport
Blue Lagoon
We landed in Reykjavík at 4:30am, which was as brutal as it sounds.
At 8am, we had scheduled tickets to get into the Blue Lagoon and enjoy the hot springs until the sun came up at 11am. If you’re in Iceland, you definitely need a rental car – destinations are pretty far away from one another, even while driving.
The Blue Lagoon waters are naturally heated as it’s a mineral spring. And it. felt. GREAT.
There are different stations throughout the spring with drinks and masks to put on (which come from minerals in the springs!), and oh my gosh – my skin. Your skin will turn to velvet, and that is all I have to say. (but don’t get your hair in the water or it will dry up – yikes)
PUT ON THE MASK.
PRO TIP: Spend hours in the dark driving to the places you want to spend time while it’s light!
Golden Circle
We left the Blue Lagoon around 10 to drive to our first destination at the Golden Circle and get there by sunrise. You cannot miss the Golden Circle. Essentially, it’s a route that takes you in a giant loop. You drive from location to location along the route seeing several of Iceland’s most beautiful destinations. Waterfalls, volcanoes, geysers, and mountains – Iceland has it all.
Thingvellir National Park was our first stop, and the views are breathtaking.
We didn’t run into major crowds along the way, which was amazing! It was snowing while we walked, and the landscapes feel like you’re not on a walking path at all. The park has a way of immersing you in your surroundings.
As beautiful as it is, the cold is no joke! Pack your facemasks and prepare for the snow to potentially soak through your hat.
The park does go in a massive loop, but we didn’t have enough hours in the day to make it through the entire thing and hit the three destinations we wanted to hit at the Golden Circle: Thingvellir, the Geysir Geothermal Field, and Gullfoss Waterfall.
We probably walked about 45 minutes and turned back, but could’ve gone forever. Plan to spend a full 1-2 days on the circle in the winter!
If you make it to the geyser field (and I highly recommend it!), let me know if you find a way to get a solid picture of an exploding geyser. We watched 4 eruptions, and got several great videos, but no pictures!
However, the field in itself is gorgeous. They have one large geyser (aptly named Geysir, sometimes called The Great Geysir), and several smaller ones that perpetually bubble. It’s an incredible sight.
While the park wasn’t necessarily crowded, the Geysir Geothermal Field was packed. The Great Geysir is protected by ropes surrounding it, and crowds of people stood around with drones, cameras, and filming equipment waiting for eruptions. Can’t say I blame them – it’s more than worth it to see it once!
Our final destination at the Golden Circle was the Gullfoss Waterfall, and what a waterfall! Honestly, someone could write a blog post purely on the waterfalls in Iceland. Gullfoss is the largest and most well known, but we also visited Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss.
While Gullfoss is the largest, I was more impressed by Skógafoss, which is also part of the Golden Circle although not one of the primary destinations!
Gullfoss is easier to come across while walking the park, but Skógafoss can be driven to, and if you’re up to it, you can make a 370 step climb (and I mean climb – my college football playing brother was winded) to the top of the waterfall. The view is worth it – so rewarding. The falls are massive, and there’s a beautiful view of mountains just to the right (see the first picture in this post!). We hit Skógafoss at sunset.
I can’t describe the way the light hit the mountains, falls, and river behind. All I can say is – go see it. It’s worth the danger to your heart rate and the leg soreness the day after (listen – it’s worse than it looks, promise).
Day 2 | Katla Ice Cave and Glacier Tour
Ice Caves
Our tour of the Katla Ice Cave and Glacier left from Vik. To get to the glacier, we took a Super Jeep. I cannot convey the chaos of this drive to you. First of all, a Super Jeep is just as insane as it sounds. The car is really the size of a bus, and to prepare us, our driver started playing Highway to Hell on full blast, and gassed it across glaciers and through extremely bumpy terrain. If there was ever an appropriate occasion to blast that song, this was it.
Ice Caving is no joke. We wore helmets with flashlights on them, and had to climb through caves that were hard to navigate. On more than one occasion, I was planking through the cave trying not to fall into the knee-deep water below, and did not succeed.
PRO TIP: Wear some high boots. Otherwise, take a dip in the water and you will be soaked to the bone, and I promise, you will feel the frigid cold from that!
The ice caves glowed bright blue, which was absolutely beautiful! Not to mention that when we finally made it to the opening of the caves, and to the other side, huge snow-capped mountains surrounded us on all sides.
You can’t see anything but mountains in any direction once exiting the caves. The experience is truly surreal! I’ve never felt so surrounded by the magnificence of nature in my life. The vastness is stunning.
Black Sand Beaches
Our guide took us to the black beaches of Iceland as well, which are truly beautiful. The sands color comes from the basalt lava that covered a lot of the area – did I mention that Katla is also a volcano?
The sand was incredibly soft as well. The texture is similar to play-dough, although not quite as dense.
Surprisingly, the waves at the beach were massive. Our guide mentioned that if anyone tried to surf them, death was certainly not out of the question.
Note to self: do not travel to Iceland for surfing! Just go to California for that. You’re better off avoiding frostbite that way, too.
By the time we returned from our hike and had driven back to Vik, the sun was setting. Anywhere you’re driving in Iceland, there are plenty of places to pull off – in my mind, that’s because the place was just so incredibly picturesque that you couldn’t avoid it, but more likely it’s for safety reasons.
I took some shots of one of my brothers that could easily function as an advertisement during that sunset.
Day 3 | Reykjavík
Our final day in Iceland was more of a half day, with only 1-2 hours of daylight before we had to head to the airport. We stopped at a nearby park and wandered through forests and across rivers until heading back. Simple, but beautiful scenery!
With everything covered in snow, nearly everything you come across carries a really magical quality to it.
It was the trip of a lifetime and I can’t encourage going enough! It’s so worth spending the money on flights even if you don’t get a deal. I can’t wait to go back in the summer and see more.
Gabrielle Guthrie is the CEO of Amity Coworking. Gabrielle’s journey with Amity Coworking began just 9 months ago. The company was founded on the desire to provide entrepreneurs with a hospitality-centered coworking space grounded in chic, inspiring design; a professional atmosphere with a variety of amenities; and a diverse and powerful community supported by hospitality.