Last year I made a new year’s resolution to travel someplace every month, domestic or international. I’m happy to say I did it. But I failed you guys because I’ve yet to write about all of the fantastic places I visited. I mentioned before that I took a new airline, WOW Air, to Reykjavik, Iceland. I was really worried about taking the never before heard of budget airline, but everything went great.
I traveled to Iceland with one of my closest friends, Deniece. I had originally planned to go solo but my friend wanted to come along too. You know my motto, “Travel light, travel far!” I’ve learned that I can’t wait on folks to get their shit together in order to travel. I would end up missing out. So I usually just end up planning my trips and if folks want to come, that’s cool. I don’t ever have to worry about this with Deniece because she’s always down to travel. We have been everywhere together, from the Bahamas to Italy. She is my ride or die travel partner.
We arrived in Iceland really early in the morning and headed straight to our Airbnb. Deniece flew in from Boston and I flew in from Baltimore and met up at Keflavik International Airport. I was told that I needed to buy airport transportation before we got to Reykjavík, but since I fail at planning ahead it didn’t happen. The airport is a distance from Reykjavík. We had to take a bus from the airport to the city center. From there we walked to where we were staying which was a short 10 minute walk. It was very easy. We were able to get króna (Iceland money) from the ATM and buy a bus ticket right at the airport. We bought a round trip ticket with a stop to the Blue Lagoon on the way back to the airport.
We literally checked in, took a shower, got dressed and headed back out to meet up with folks. A group of us from the Nomadness Travel Tribe rented a car and explored the southern part of the island. We did our own abbreviated Golden Circle tour. Now this could have been a disaster because we didn’t know the other girls. I’m in the travel tribe and there were a bunch of people that were traveling to Iceland during the same time. One of the members reached out to me before the trip and asked if we wanted to rent a car and explore Iceland. After consulting with Deniece, I said, “Sure!” We were initially worried because what if we didn’t vibe with these girls. We would have to spend a whole day with them. Yikes! It ended up working out great. They were cool as hell. One of the girls ended up mapping out our drive and had already picked places to sight see. They asked if we had any objections first and we didn’t because we never plan when we travel. We tend to go with the flow, but this took care of everything. The homework was done and all we had to do was drive. I slept the entire first leg of our drive because I was exhausted. But I made it up by driving the whole way back. It was my first time driving in a foreign country aside from Canada.
Renting a car in Iceland was very inexpensive. Especially when you divided it by four. Also, whenever I rent an Airbnb I opt for a whole apartment for myself but the hosts lied and someone was staying in the apartment during our visit. We contacted the host and sent her son packing after we threatened a bad review because that’s not how the apartment was listed. Aside from that hiccup, the place was nice and central to all of the city sights. We were able to walk everywhere.
We visited Iceland in July which is considered their summer and it was about 50–55 °F. Cold! It was funny because I actually saw people in shorts. I’m a creature of the motherland so I need to dress accordingly. Also, The days are long during the summertime in Iceland. It never gets dark at night. Technically speaking, the sun sets after midnight in Reykjavík for a few weeks in the summer. These are the only days of the year when the sun sets after midnight. So the sun is only gone a few hours before sunrise. Although the sun isn’t up, it is still bright. The bright nights last for around 3 months.
Below are a few shots of our first day in Iceland.
I risked my life trying to do it for the ‘gram. It was wet, rainy and slippery. We climbed over barricades to take this picture. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! Don’t try this at home friends.
