@WillKhitie Wow that really is great, thank you.
Both the Wife and I are investing in loads of outdoor gear (my Visvim wardrobe is way too fashion and not practical enough to go out hiking on glaciers with). Surprisingly the wife is already ahead of me in these stakes so far.
Thanks for the sim card tip. Fortunately though we've got a couple of sim cards that can be used in Iceland at no extra cost. We've also got a 4G unlimited data mobile WiFi router which was thrown in with rental.
We should be good for money too. All UK credit and debit cards are chip and pin. Nevertheless, did you bother taking any small amounts of cash at all, like to pay for the hot dogs?
We've gone with Blue Car Rental as well and have opted for a 4x4 GLC. We thought we'd stick with a 4x4 as we plan to go up to West Fjords and didn't want to be restricted when driving about. I trust you had no issues with Blue Car Rental, especially when returning the car?
Thanks for the Booking.com advice. We've had a look on Airbnb for accommodation and it looks quite sparse outside of Reykjavik. Either way, I feel that we need to start booking some places as the Wife has found that some places are already booked out for dates in October, despite being an off-peak season.
For getting around I'm taking a good old fashion foldout road map of Iceland. In addition to that I'll be prepping Google Maps (I like the star idea, so imma steal that) and I have Nokia HERE (offline country map packs). Would Waze be the preferable one to use? Did you bother with coordinates or did Waze handle Icelandic place names okay? Also what's the 3G/4G reception like out there when you're on the road, is it patchy?
Coincidentally I stumbled upon Alex's blog after posting on here and a blog entry from A Continuous Lean (http://www.acontinuouslean.com/2016/11/11/escape-iceland/). I decided to mush the two together, and sprinkle our own ideas into the mix. Between the Wife and I, we managed to plot around 70-80 spots (a lot were waterfalls haha) that we wanted to visit but felt this wasn't humanly possible to squeeze all of that in 13 days, so we reduced that number down to around 50.
What we discovered when plotting the sights on the map is that driving from the North, to the North West and the West Fjords area involves a lot of driving along routes where sights are few and far between. Looking at your map you might have experienced the same thing?
For food we're definitely doing Baejarins. We also have Pakkhus on our list as well as Cafe Sumarlína, Noa Seafood Restaurant and Fish Company. My Wife is pretty keen for us to take packets instant noodles and pasta, as she has heard from her friends who've been to Iceland that there isn't much else when you're out on the road - would you agree?
I would like your thoughts on a couple of sights. Firstly, Sólheimasandur plane, since the locals closed the road off to it is it worth the 8km round trip hike? Secondly, Blue Lagoon, which I've read is a tourist trap (note we will be going to Myvatn Baths). Despite the tourist trap comments we have this penned in on our last day as we will be dropping our rental off in the morning and will have around 4 hours to kill before we catch our flight, so we thought about taking a shuttle bus from the airport to the Blue Lagoon to kill some time there. If you recommend against it, do you have any suggestions on what to do instead that's easily accessible and not too far from Keflavik airport?
Out of interest were there any sights you went to that you felt wasn't really worth the drive/effort?
Lastly, what time of the year did you end up going? sounds like you went around winter time? Did you manage to catch the Northern Lights at all?
P.S. Congratulations on tying the knot and posting one of the best and most useful Superfuture posts in recent times
