Our trip to Iceland caused a wee bit more anxiety than I am comfortable with for a trip. I love planning a vacation, and this trip did not allow much planning. As a kid, I always wanted to travel and have an adventure. I was obsessed with stories that took people around the world. Before I was ten years old, my mom picked up Great Illustrated Classics’ abridged version of Around the World in 80 Days, and it set me on a path to see as much of our globe as possible.
At some point in the 1990s, I was at a bookstore in Defiance, OH, and I bought the 1995 edition of Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door. I had no trip planned to Europe, so most would think a teenager buying a travel guide was weird. Looking back on it, I admit it was, but I read that book front to back more times than I could count. This was a very early internet, so websites were a feat to create, and discussions were on IRC and Usenet, so a travel guide was worth its weight in gold.
I relay this anecdote only to highlight that I love planning and sorting trips almost as much as traveling. It makes a great trip even better when you reflect on the flight home and think, “That was fantastic, and I get some credit for it.”
Iceland in winter is a travel planner’s nightmare. The weather is so unpredictable you cannot predict how far you can get on any day. At first, I thought we could do the entire Icelandic ring road in about a week. I read that this is indeed possible in the summer. I loosely mimicked an itinerary I got from the Incredible Iceland Road Trip Itinerary and Planning Guide by Renee Hahnel.
After sketching an early itinerary, I posted it to the Visiting Iceland Reddit community. I got some very direct feedback that was inevitably helpful but, at the moment, reminded me that the internet is full of know-it-alls. The tone was not really “I’m here to help” but more like, “you idiot, how can you even consider what you’re thinking.” It was a blow to my plan, but I decided to reduce my ambitions and drastically reset them. I heavily relied on the Iceland With a View site and even purchased the ring road map they created. I thought it was very helpful, and I recommend it.
This is one of the first trips in memory where I did not have accommodations planned for every night. We got to Iceland with the first couple of hotels booked and the last one, but we had a few nights in the middle where we would see where we ended the day, and this plan worked out. I would do a few things differently, but the uncertainty added a new sense of adventure I had traded in for comfort and luxury on some of my recent trips.
Let’s start the trip: Iceland – Day 1