Touring Iceland in 48 hours
Iceland in 48 hours? Yup!! That’s what can happen when you meet friends through Instagram ;] Our relationship with Trevor + Kari is the perfect example that it can Instagram inspired friendships can be real life things!! 2 years ago, one of our sweet friends Katelyn mentioned that we would be great friends with another husband and wife photo + video team, Trevor + Kari. We didn’t connect with them immediately, but last October I went to a women’s conference and finally met Kar in person there! We had connected through Instagram (occasionally liking and commenting on each other’s photos) but really became fast friends at the conference. Fast forward 4 months and we were planning a trip across the world together with our husbands!!! How crazy is that?!
I remember casually mentioning to Kar that we should take a trip to Iceland. I don’t really know where that idea came from, but she immediately said YES. And that Trevor had been dying to visit there!! So that’s where we began. Somehow over the next few months, Italy got added to our trip as well (crazy, I know)!! We knew we had to plan this trip around our wedding schedule which meant that our time would be limited in each place, but we were up for the adventure!!
So, if you’re planning a trip to Iceland and will have limited time to sight see, this blog is just for you!!! We didn’t get to do a ton while we were in Iceland, but what we did get to do within our 48 hour tour was amazing!!! Ty shot a ton of footage while we were there and put together this little teaser film!
When we arrived, we picked up our rental car from Green Motion Car Rental. We had been told that it would be helpful to have a 4×4 in case we ran into some tricky road situations so we rented a Jeep Renegade. This ended up working out perfectly for us because we each had one suitcase and they fit perfectly in the trunk. They originally tried to give us the SUV version of a Fiat…LOL!!! That definitely didn’t work!! We couldn’t even fit on suitcase in the trunk!! Another thing that we were told to do was purchase the car insurance through the rental company. While it seemed like such a huge amount of money to fork over upfront not knowing if anything would happen we’re SO glad that we did!!! Because a rock DID fly up in hit our windshield at some point in our 48 hour journey but we didn’t have to pay for it!!! So I highly recommend that!! Especially if you’ll be off roading a lot!! There’s a ton of loose gravel everywhere!!
After we got all of this sorted out we were all starving. Needless to say it was about 11PM and pretty much everything was closed!! So we drove into Reykjavik to a hot dog stand that I found on Trip Advisor that was rated to have the best hot dogs in the whole country – Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. It was definitely interesting!! My hot dog had spicy mayo, cabbage, and bacon on it…CRAZY!!! It was actually better than I thought it was going to be though!!
From there we headed to our hotel in Selfoss which was a 1.5 away. We stayed at the Fosshotel Hekla and we LOVED it. It was very clean and super cozy!! They had a full spread for breakfast – from fruit to a make-your-own-waffle station and a whole charcuterie spread!!! SO good!! And it made the start to our first day in Iceland so smooth because we didn’t have to scramble around looking for food!! I highly recommend this place!!!
After we got all of this sorted out we were all starving. Needless to say it was about 11PM and pretty much everything was closed!! So we drove into Reykjavik to a hot dog stand that I found on Trip Advisor that was rated to have the best hot dogs in the whole country – Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. It was definitely interesting!! My hot dog had spicy mayo, cabbage, and bacon on it…CRAZY!!! It was actually better than I thought it was going to be though!!
From there we headed to our hotel in Selfoss which was a 1.5 away. We stayed at the Fosshotel Hekla and we LOVED it. It was very clean and super cozy!! They had a full spread for breakfast – from fruit to a make-your-own-waffle station and a whole charcuterie spread!!! SO good!! And it made the start to our first day in Iceland so smooth because we didn’t have to scramble around looking for food!! I highly recommend this place!!!
Our first stop on the trip was Seljavallalaug!! It is one of the oldest geothermal pools in Iceland and is heated by a natural spring! There is a little hiking involved to get here!! There’s a parking lot at the bottom of the hike (which is where this abandoned truck is!!) that’s free and it takes about 10-15 minutes to hike up to the pool. In my honest opinion, this is one of those “I’m so glad I did this, but I’m not sure if I would do it again” type moments!! There are changing stalls once you get up there but they aren’t exactly the cleanest and the water is great until you look down and realize what you’re swimming in – yikes!! The water is definitely warm and the pool stays fairly busy!! Definitely make sure you bring a towel and water shoes if you don’t want to feel the slime on the bottom of the pool ;]
From here we journeyed down into Vik. We stopped at Halldorskaffi and got hamburgers…are we American or are we American?! But, it was SO good. I had the BBQ burger and I HIGHLY recommend. This is tucked in a corner on a back street so it’s easy to miss!! The shutters ended up being how we recognized this place!!
Next we headed up on a little hill to see the Church of Vik and so we could see over the whole city of Vik!!!
Ty and I saw our first black sand beach in New Zealand this past January so when we heard there was one in Iceland we knew we had to go!!! And we captured some of my favorite portraits here!!
Our last site of the day was the Skogafass waterfall. It was EPIC and pretty misty if you got too close!!! We really wanted to see the Seljalandsfoss waterfall because we heard you could walk all the way around it (and there’s some caves there too!!) but we simply ran out of daylight!! Next time!!!
We had dinner at Tryggvaskáli in Selfoss! It was AMAZING!! I had the salmon dish dairy free (can you believe that’s a thing here?!) and I still dream about it!! SO good! This restaurant is a little expensive (like $25-45 a plate) but it’s amazing!! Supposedly the chocolate mousse with pistachio ice cream was also amazing!!
The second night we stayed at this charming little house with so many of our sweet friends!!! It was so much fun seeing everyone and being able to spend some intentional time together!! We all slept in on the second day, had breakfast together and then got up to hike 4 miles up several mountains on the Hveragerdi Hot Spring River Trail. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as cold as I was on this hike!! It was rainy and super windy and it’s definitely another one of those things I can brag about to our grandkids about one day!!
And that it was it for our 48 hour adventure in Iceland!! We learned that it’s super important to plan out your trip if you’ll only be in country for a short period of time! We all really wanted to see glaciers but it was two far south to make it in our short 48 hours. If we could do it again we might have started there and worked our way back to Vik and then on to Selfoss and back to Reykjavik!! Be prepared for crazy weather!! It rained on and off every day we were there!! The weather can also vary depending on where you are!! It was definitely colder along the coast and I could have probably used some mittens on the river trail hike because it got colder the higher up we went!! Make sure you drink lots of water because of the changes in elevation!! Also, you can drink the water straight out of the faucet and it’s SO good!!!
