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Iceland
- Country: Iceland
- Airport: Keflavik
- Where from: Manchester
- Flight cost: £59
- Airline: EasyJet
- Length of trip: 5 nights
- Date of trip: March 2023
- Trip Type: Road trip with JP
Itinerary
Many people believe that Iceland is a bucket list destination that you'll only do once in your life and although the country can be quite expensive it is still more than doable on a budget.
We started this trip with a visit to the Airport Lounge which is something we don't usually do however these flights were a Christmas gift to JP so I thought I would make this trip a little special.
The flight was 2 hours and 40 minutes from Manchester and we landed around 8pm in the evening, our hire car company were due to pick us up after we landed but it took them over an hour to collect us which wasn't ideal but after waiting around we braced ourself for the -9 temperatures and heavy wind outside.
We then travelled to our first hotel which was Hotel Laxnes, this hotel is super quirky and a perfect to start your trip if you're doing the Golden Circle first as it's only 20 minutes from Þingvellir National Park. The hotel was super clean and I feel the need to point out that the sheets smelled amazing.
Day 1 - Golden Circle to Hotel Ranga
We got up bright and early and headed off to do the Golden Circle. If you’ve never been to Iceland before there are loads of tours available that take you all around the Golden Circle that range anyway between £55 to £75 but I personally feel it is much cheaper and better to hire a car and do it yourself.
If you’re worried about driving in another country then you have absolutely nothing to worry about in Iceland. The roads are super empty and there’s literally zero traffic.
We started at Thingvellir National Park worked our way across to Gulfoss, down to the Geysir then lastly to the Kerid Crater.
The temperature today has been bitterly cold, -9 at times and the wind was…. windy.
The last place we went we accidentally stumbled across, it was called Ægissíðufoss and it was unbelievable. It was super quiet, literally no tourists there at all and we were there on our own for over 40 mins which was amazing, we set up the drone and got some fab shots of the waterfall.
The end of our first day was upon us and we headed to Hotel Ranga (collaboration) which was our home for the next 2 nights.
I can’t recommend this hotel enough, the staff are incredible the food was out of this world, we enjoyed a 3 course à la carte meal each evening with cocktails.
After tea (dinner if you’re southern) we headed to the hotels very own observatory to take a look at some planets and stars.
Some of the light we were seeing was from over a million years ago, we were quite literally looking into the past.
Then to top it all off, about 15 minutes after we got into bed our Aurora alarm went off and we opened the curtains to find some northern lights! Faint but very much there... check out Instagram highlights to see the videos.
Day 2 - Exploring Nearby
We started the day with a beautiful breakfast and then spent the morning doing some filming for the hotel and found out loads of interesting information about the surrounding area.
We had a little tour of the observatory in daylight and JP got some fab shots of the observatory from the sky.
After lunch we decided to go hunt down the famous Seljalandsfoss that you can walk behind and get right up close to but sadly because it was winter and extremely cold all the stairs were all frozen
Day 2 - Exploring Nearby
We started the day with a beautiful breakfast and then spent the morning doing some filming for the hotel and found out loads of interesting information about the surrounding area.
We had a little tour of the observatory in daylight and JP got some fab shots of the observatory from the sky.
After lunch we decided to go hunt down the famous Seljalandsfoss that you can walk behind and get right up close to but sadly because it was winter and extremely cold all the stairs were all frozen