Campervan through Iceland

Five ladies for five days packed into a campervan while we explored Iceland. Let’s go!

I had two shocks when I first landed in Reykjavik. First, the immigration official told me that my passport wasn’t valid because she didn’t have room to add a stamp. While I was freaking out on the inside, she eventually decided to let me through. Yikes, that was close. Then the next shock was the frigid air when we left the airport. I knew a country named “Iceland” would be chilly, even in the summer, but I wasn’t sure I had brought enough layers for this. But not willing to let any passport trouble or frigid weather get in my way, I headed to our camper. It wasn’t long before the five of us loaded our gear and ourselves into our new home for the next five days, our campervan.

The campervan was both our lodging and our transportation during our days road tripping around the island. I was assigned the role of driver since I was the only one in our group that had ever regularly driven a stick shift. It took me a while to get us out of the parking lot initially since I don’t drive much anymore and the campervan is massive. Eventually I got the hang of it, even on the curvy roads, windy open stretches, one-and-one bridges and on foggy mornings. During the trip, we each had our roles; Amanda was the planner and navigator while Danielle, Nicole and Eli covered the cooking and cleaning in the back area.

We ate well in the van and mostly shopped at grocery stores and prepared our own meals rather than dining out since restaurants in Iceland are incredibly expensive and we had cooking facilities right in the van. The girls cooked up delicious spaghetti and meatballs, grilled egg and cheese sandwiches and chicken tacos; they even managed to include some fruits and veggies into our diets.

We were packed in like sardines at night. The back seat folded into a bed for three and a top piece pulled out above for a bed for two more. We appreciated the heater but also had enough body heat in the van to keep us warm until morning. Overnight we also covered the windows with the curtains, our towels and extra blankets to keep out the sun. During the summer days we were camping, it never really got dark. At most, the sky approached dusk. Our biological clocks were a bit confused and we never really knew, or cared much, what time it was.

In our days touring around Iceland, we observed the beautiful and diverse landscapes for which the country is known. We played around the rock formations of the black sand beach at Reynisfjara. The spires and layers created through centuries of geologic shifting became nature’s jungle gym with different textures and tones of gray. Driving along Iceland’s one highway, the terrain changed through the day. One moment we cruised down the highway with emerald green hills and ridges to the left and flat, sheep-grazing areas to the right towards the ocean. We explored around the Fjadrargljufur canyon where since the Ice Age the glacial runoff has caved a two kilometer gorge. Moments after that pit stop, the landscape drastically changed to a wide open lowland with a yellowish moss covering mounds of rocks.

By late afternoon we approached the Vatnajokuls National Park and saw the mountains in the distance with the massive glacier pouring out between the mountain crests. We positioned our camper van with a view of the glacier in the campground.

The next morning, we hiked out on to the glacier with our expert guide, Lisa Oskarsdottir. We suited up with harnesses, crampons, helmets and we each were handed an ice axe. I really didn’t need an ice axe, but it sure felt neat to think I did. We listened to a safety briefing so as not to fall to our deaths in a crevasse. As annual survivors of the Minnesota winter we were experts in walking in the slushy, mushy ice as we hiked up and onto the glacier. In the folded layers of the glacial ice we saw both the blackish-gray ice with the volcanic ash and the vibrant blue of the light reflecting through the clear ice. It was quite chilly even with all the layers of winter gear I had on but I still hovered down to the ice and did a push up to sip the crisp cool water. The massive glacier was truly impressive and beautiful but it’s in danger of disappearing with raising temperatures. The hiking company regularly has to alter their routes due to increasing runoff. They estimate this glacier outlet will disappear in fifty years and the entire glacier will be gone in 150 years.

Walking back from the glacier, we learned more from our glacier guide, Lisa. To start with, her last name, “Oskarsdottir” literally means “Oskar’s daughter” in the family naming tradition of Iceland. Then, she shared her feelings about the significant increase in tourism in Iceland over the past decade. I fact-checked her numbers and she was accurate; in 2008, around 400,000 tourists visited and in 2016, over 2.2 million tourists visited the island. For a country with a total population less than 350,000, that’s significant.

Lisa explained all this tourism has been a considerable part of Iceland’s recovery from an economic collapse a decade ago. She appreciates the increased tourism in her work as a outdoor guide, that more people are seeing beautiful Iceland and admiring the glaciers and noted with certainty that the economy has improved.

She also recognized the drawbacks. She said that the government hadn’t planned for improving the infrastructure and with so many more vehicles traveling around, the roads and bridges are in disrepair. Reykjavik, the major city, lacks affordable housing while many homeowners are renting on AirBnB and new overpriced constructions make it hard for young people to live in the city.

Lisa is also concerned about language loss on the island. The language is difficult for outsiders to learn and most Icelanders also speak English. As visitors, we struggled to pronounce most places we visited. Icelandic is tough. She doesn’t even know how many letters the language has, much less the number of sounds. (Turns out, there are 32 letters, thanks Wikipedia). With increased tourism and low unemployment, Iceland welcomes temporary foreign workers; and these newcomers usually don’t learn the language in the few months they stay. In fact, Lisa has noticed when she dines out that she needs to use English in many restaurants. As a proud Icelander, she worries about how long the language will be around.

As a traveler, I think it’s important to notice the impact of tourism on a community. While tourism can have many positive effects in the economy, there’s also endless underlying, secondary effects of increased travelers that we should be mindful of.

On our last day we did the classic tourist loop of called the Golden Circle, a day trip of Icelandic highlights, just right for travelers on a one or two day layover. Most also visit the Blue Lagoon, but we decided to skip it in exchange for a backcountry hot spring.

We visited Ӧxaráfoss in the Þingvellier National Park. Along with the endless rows of tour bus parking, we walked the rocky path through the gorge and viewed the falls. Over a thousand years ago, this area held the annual parliament of the early settlers of Iceland and now is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Next we stopped at the Haukadalur geothermal area. We passed several small, smoldering sulfur pits towards the large one encircled by tourists holding up their cell phones, myself included; but with the excitement of the geysir actually erupting, I skipped the pictures and just enjoyed the moment. (Photo credit, Danielle). We continued on to Gullfoss, an impressive pair of waterfalls, where we walked down the misty path to see the falls up close.

Our last stop, not officially on the Golden Circle, was the hike to some hot springs before returning to Reykjavik. This was my favorite stop and a perfect closing to our time in Iceland. We parked our van in the late afternoon in a makeshift parking lot with less than a dozen vehicles, a stark comparison to the multitudes of tour buses at the other stops. We grabbed our swimsuits, hiking boots and our cold weather outerwear and started to hike. We followed the obvious path for a several kilometers around the hills and through the valley. Eventually we started to see bubbling pools of geothermal activity and smelled the sulfur. Some boiling pools were clearly marked with signs warning of 100℃ temperatures. Further ahead we arrived at the hot springs stream with a wooden boardwalk and a pair of wooden partitions to use as a changing area. The stream was bathwater warm and rocks had been positioned to create individual pool areas. We striped off the winter layers, waded in and relaxed until our hands were pruney. Our last day in Iceland, we reminisced about the highlights of our adventure. It was five amazing days with these adventurous women, meaningful moments, chilly weather and stunning landscapes.

July 2018