Having been “influenced” by seeing so many pictures of Iceland that friends shared, a hiking friend and I ventured to the land of fire and ice for 9 days of camping, hiking, and photography. Other than being triggered by the images of others in past years, I did virtually no research to plan our travels or know what to expect. I knew there would be waterfalls and long hours of daylight along with dramatic coastlines. We probably missed out on the drama as our first 8 days were sunny and record warmth. Only our last day, our day in Reykjavik, did it cloud over and rain. The waterfalls were plentiful, if not excessive 🙂 Sort of like going out west and seeing wild animals at a national park. At first you stop for every waterfall, and by the end of the trip you are passing up ones that would have rated in your top 10 ever prior to the trip!

Day 0-1 (May 13-14): Our trip began with an overnight flight from Detroit to Reykjavik, arriving around 6AM. As usual, I did not get any sleep on the plane, so one day would turn into two without sleep. Hard to complain about that when you are in a beautiful new to you country though. Upon picking up our rental (and opting for the zero excess policy), we turned the opposite way of most traffic and began with an exploration of the peninsula that the Keflavik airport is on. The first sight that caused us to pull over was the church at Hvalsneskirkja, built of stone in 1887. This would be the first of many beautiful small churches we would see in our travels, though one of the few we would photograph.

Following along the west coast of the peninsula, we spotted a parking lot with a few cars. Not being able to read Icelandic, we had no idea where we were, and it turned out to be the Bridge Between Continents, which allows you to straddle the Europe and North America.

After a nice drive along the south coast of the peninsula, we next found ourselves enjoying a great hike along the Reykjadalur Hot Spring Thermal River. We traversed 2.92 miles (all mileage in my posts are round-trip) and gained 592 feet along the way, enjoying the steamy vents along the trek as we made our way up to Djúpagilsfoss (foss means waterfall so I will not call them waterfall waterfalls, I’ll just stick to the local name).

We took a quick look at the Kerid Crater as we made our way to Faxafoss along the Tungufljót River, where we took liberal time with our cameras.

Our highlight of the day was Gullfoss, a wide and powerful falls along the Hvitá River. Truly awe inspiring!

Having stayed at Gullfoss until 9PM, it was time to go to our first campsite in Iceland, Skjól Camping. This was a nice campsite in a field. No real campsites like we have in America, but rather just a large field with driving lanes and grass to camp on.

Google Route: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZHhd8rViggFWisTcA