road trip !

Day 1 of our road trip ! We picked up our camping supplies, got some groceries at Bonus! (Seemed like aldi) And hit the road. The first stops were the golden circle, typical, the hotel receptionist said. We hit the huge waterfall, the geysers, and the big national park where the tectonic plates meet. All very beautiful and very touristed. We made it to our first campsite on an adorable little farm in stokkseyri where horses greeted us. We set up our tent and made friends with our neighbors from Belgium who we swapped tips and stories with. They were so so cute and had all their plans printed out in a little folder. Celine had purple hair and an adorable accent and jasper was really sweet too. We wandered over to the coast and swans were swimming in the bay as we marveled at the little houses set along the seashore. We made some ramen, drank some whiskey, played some cards, and went to sleep! A great start to the trip.

Day 2

We made our way along the coast and down to the black sand beaches, marveling at the mountains and farms and waterfalls. We went off the main road looking for a waterfall and may have ended up on private property as we explored the valley and found an awesome waterfall where I ran around barefoot with sheep ! We were the only humans around, it was awesome.

We stopped at a few more waterfalls before a hike on the coast and a beer on the beach at Vik. I was forever looking for puffins but we found some great caves and really cool rock formations. Our campsite that night was right next to a waterfall and had great views of the mountains. Our campsite attendant was an adorable Icelandic lady who didn’t collect the tax, so we realized these campsites were on private properties that locals run.

Day 3

We drove through moss covered lava fields  – the product of devastation from hundreds of years ago. We saw a beautiful canyon covered in the stuff! We met a super sweet American pair, Enid and Dillon, that took our picture for us and we envied over their camper van (that they learned to drive stick in an hour for their 4 day road trip). We ran into them twice more that day too! We hadn’t seen that many Americans, a ton of French people though.

We hiked up through skaftafell national park, a beautiful green area between the glaciers. We saw some more great waterfalls and had sandwhiches in the trees. After that we found the glacier lagoon of floating icebergs! Then we found a hot pot with a view of the glacier, too. Then we drove a couple hours into the fjords – driving inland and out again until we got to our little campsite. Saw a beautiful sunset in the mountains!