Iceland Itinerary: 9 days

Firstly, I’m really sorry I have been absent from this corner of the internet.

I am going through some personal things at the moment which has taken a toll on my health. I haven’t had the strength to do anything other than gentle exercises and walks. Even writing this seems like a daunting task, but I’m going to try.

I know I promised some of you an Iceland Itinerary, so without further a do…

My husband and I travelled to Iceland for 9 days back in January. We mostly stayed in Reykjavik (the capitol), however, we did do a mini road trip to Vik twice.

The first 5-6 days of our trip was incredible. It was absolutely freezing but we wrapped up warm. And then the last few days of our holiday wasn’t so great as the weather had turned, which I will explain later on. The weather can be really unpredictable during the colder months, so bare this in mind if you are planning to go to Iceland in the Winter.

Day 1 – Day 3

We got a super early flight and arrived in Reykjavik around 7am. We hired a vehicle and made our way to the hotel.

We stayed at the Canopy by Hilton Reykjavik in the City Centre for 2 nights.
They had a parking lot opposite the road, so we left our car there for a few days.

We explored the city centre, saw the rainbow road and ate at Sandholt which is an incredible bakery. And had some doughnut balls from Lookoomas – sooo good.

We booked a last minute Northern Lights tour for that evening – as the app was telling us it was predicted to be really bright. We managed to see the incredible Northern Lights – it’s a lot greyer in real life and comes out green in photos. This was on my bucket-list to do and I can’t believe we saw them on the first night!

The next day we drove to the Blue Lagoon. We did book our slots in advance and it was one of the best days we had. We spent around 4-5 hours there! We were deep in relaxation mode. You get a free drink, which we got some green juice as Joe was driving and you’re not allowed to drink and drive in Iceland. You also get a free face mask! You can opt to buy other ones too while you’re there.

A tip – do put the Blue Lagoon conditioner in your hair before you go in the lagoon. Otherwise your hair gets really tangled. These are in the showers before you enter. Also drink plenty of water as you will get dehydrated.

We didn’t do much with our evening, other than wander around the city centre for food. We were a bit knackard from the first day so we just read books and had an early night.

Day three was exciting because it was the Buubble day! We checked out of our hotel, had a filling breakfast at Grai Kotturin and got picked up in a fancy car on our way for a South-East coast tour and to stay in the Buubble for one night!

Day 3-4

So, we were on our way to explore various parts of the Southern Iceland with two other couples, one from America and the other from Norway! Our tour guide, Thor (for short) was really friendly and made us feel extremely welcome.

Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss waterfall. A lot of the locations that I will mention on this tour were spots where the Games of Thrones was filmed. We then stopped off at Skogafoss waterfall for about 45 mins. Our last location stop of the day was Black Sand Beach in Vik – yes actual black sanded beaches! Afterwards we made our way back to Selfoss and had dinner together – we dined at this food hall place that I can’t remember the name of, sorry!

It was getting really late, so we made our way to the Buubbles! This was such an incredible and once-in-a-life-time experience! We stayed in a bubble surrounded by trees in a warm toasty bed relaxing and watching the Northern Lights appear at 2am. So lucky that we saw them twice during this trip!

Day 4 – Day 5

We got up super early and the tour guide drove us back to Reykjavik. We stopped off for some pastries and coffee and then made our way to another hotel in the city centre. We stayed at Eyja Guldsmeden Hotel for one night, it is a eco-friendly hotel but super trendy. We had a super chilled day, found a vegan restaurant nearby the hotel for a late lunch, bought our first alcoholic drinks at the bar in the hotel as it was happy hour and also ordered a light dinner. Joe and I spent most of the day sleeping lol!

Day 5 – 8

We planned to drive from Reykjavik to Vik for an ice tour experience the next day! We stopped off at a hidden waterfall location that a work friend recommended – it was near the Skogar museum on the way to Vik.
Once we arrived in Vik, we had ‘black crust’ vegan/veggie pizzas – delicious!

We stayed at Black Beach Suites which was lovely – very big and spacious apartment. When we arrived, they told us the ice tour was cancelled so we could re-book to another day. We had plans, but decided to go ahead and book the following day despite the bad weather conditions.

We made the most of the extra day in Vik, we drove to the Soup Company cafe and had broccoli and cheddar soup as well as whipped cream hot chocolates – BEST HOT CHOCOLATES EVER! They do a variety of incredible soups and drinks – meaty ones, veggies ones… a mixture of interesting flavours.

We also went to a super-market and bought some treats.

The following day, we did the ice cave tour. What was supposed to be a 3 hour tour, was actually over 10 hours due to bad weather and road conditions driving to the ice caves. We managed to walk to the ice caves but couldn’t go in as it was too dangerous. I ended up having a panic attack while walking to them, so didn’t see them in the end.

Our tour vehicle got stuck in deep water/slush/snow and we were waiting to be rescued for hours. Another 6 or so vehicles got stuck also including a snow plough. It was pretty scary, but we got rescued around 10:30pm and had pizzas waiting for us! We had to book an additional last minute hotel for the night – Hotel Vik i Myrdal. They upgraded us and we had a lovely sleep, but not the best of days as you can imagine.

The next morning Joe drove in horrific weather conditions. We were advised not to drive in this but we had to get back to Reykjavik as our flight was the next day! After a painful 4-5 hour drive in bad weather, we checked in to the Eyja Guldsmeden Hotel again.

We explored parts of Reykjavik we hadn’t been to, which included a food canteen place – Hlemmur. We had beyond burgers and chips at Krost! We also went to Reykjavik Roasters for cake and coffee.

In the evening, we went to Sky Lagoon and did the 7-step ritual. The weather again was shocking and it was not a relaxing experience at all. They should have kept it closed during extreme weather conditions including in the evening as we were faced with extreme winds and the water splashing your face/body the whole time we were there lol. We couldn’t go another day as our flight was the next day. But saddened by this experience.

Day 9
We arrived at the airport, returned our hired car and had a healthy bite to eat. Flight was only a few hours back to London.

Overall I would say, Iceland is unreal and like another planet. I’d love to re-visit in Summer one day but it’s super expensive if you’re planning to go more than a week.

We did have some hiccups towards the end of the trip and some unexpected bad health related DEIVF news while we were out there, but we still had an amazing time.

Highlights for me were:

• Blue Lagoon
• Buubble night stay + tour
• Experiencing the Northern Lights twice!
• The magical waterfalls
• The incredible veggie options for food (as it’s quite a meat heavy country)
• Black Beach
• Rainbow Road
• Listening to Icelandic artists on the Buubbles tour

If you have any questions about Iceland, do ask them in the comments below and I will get back to you!

Hope you’re having a lovely day and I will try post on here more regularly but just dealing with a lot at the moment.