Around Iceland in a Camper Van: Itinerary 1
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 24, 2018
- 3 min read
In June 2017 Patrick and I set out to drive the entirety of Iceland's ring road in a camper van for a week. We may have got very wet, spent a lot of time exploring waterfalls at 11pm, and wandered around Reykjavik all night to save on expensive hotel rooms, but I wouldn't change a single thing about our adventure!
This is a post about our trip! For practical information about travelling by camper van, read this post!
Day 1: Reykjavik to Thingvellir National Park and Geysir
We arrived at Keflavik Airport in the early afternoon and had to head into Reykjavik to collect our camper van and buy camping supplies. This left us heading to Thingvellir National Park in the late afternoon but, thanks to the midnight sun, we were able to explore the sprawling, rugged park for a few hours before flipping our van into camping mode for the night. We encountered our first herd of wild Icelandic horses blocking our path, and met a few trolls!
We decided to check out the geysir called, er, Geysir, that night, and it was much, much quieter than it would have been during the day!
Day 2: Kerid Crater, Gulfoss, Secret Lagoon, Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss (for camping)
A full itinerary, for sure, but all of these sights are quite close together!
We started at the Kerid Crater, one of the only natural sights in Iceland that you have to pay to see. Kerid is a volcanic crater lake with vivid blue water and red volcanic rock. You can walk around the entire rim of the crater.
From there, we checked out the two-tiered Gulfoss on our Great Icelandic Foss Tour! (There a lot of waterfalls, or fosses, in Iceland, that's for sure!)
Next stop was the beautiful Seljalandsfoss, one of the most recognisable Icelandic waterfalls. Here, you can walk through a cave behind the waterfall itself, watching the water flow over the lip of the cliff.
Speaking of caves, just a three minute's drive from Seljalandsfoss is a much less-visited waterfall inside a cave, accessed by hopping from rock to rock until you reach a huge cavern. Aside from one photographer, we were the only people there!
Before heading to our campsite, we decided to check out the not-so-secret Secret Lagoon. This thermal pool is surrounded on all sides by boiling hot springs. Run-off from the hot springs is fed into the cold water pool, creating a thermal bath that's cool enough to swim in but, if you get too close to the bubbling hot springs, becomes almost scorchingly hot!
Finally, we reached the famous, epic Skogafoss and our campsite for the night. We ate Skyr and listened to the water's mighty roar!
Day 3: Solheimajokull Glacier hike, Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach,
Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon, Svartifoss
We started the day early with a wet and rainy hike on the Solheimajokull Glacier. We were equipped with crampons and ice picks and headed out onto the glacier. We were told to bring water bottles so that we could collect the super-pure glacier drinking water!
Soaking wet, we then headed for Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach, another iconic Icelandic sight. With its black basalt columns, black sand and rock formations rising up out of the sea, it looks like a bizarre planetscape.
Just beyond the beach, I clocked a beautiful church surrounded by low-hanging fog, that I had to take a photo of!
The Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon was perhaps my favourite natural wonder of the trip. This fantastic chasm in the earth can be viewed from different viewpoints along its 2km length and makes you feel, really, really small. Even though we visited in the middle of the day, we were beyond the Golden Triangle at this point so there were only a handful of other visitors there.
Our final stop of the day was Svartifoss, a waterfall uniquely recognisable for its gravity-defying basalt columns. Again, we were the only ones there that evening!
The second part of our Iceland road trip is still to come...click here to keep reading!
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