Crowdsourcing holiday advice

[dolorosa_12]

Friends who've spent time in Iceland (either living there or on holiday), I need your help. My mother and I are going there for a holiday for a week in late May, and I'm looking for advice about what to do, where to go, and where to stay.

Things to know about us: we both like very active holidays with a lot of walking and outdoorsy stuff. Although my mother is in her late sixties, she is fitter and healthier than I am — to give you some indication, she swims for about a kilometre almost every day, walks everywhere, and the two of us went on a hiking trip in a very hilly part of Devon and Somerset last year that saw us walk more than 100km in seven days.

We are unlikely to have our own mode of transportation. I don't know how to drive, and she has only ever driven in countries which drive on the left-hand side of the road (and I don't think Icelandic terrain is exactly the best place to start driving on the wrong side of the road).

At present we are weighing up whether to spend the entire trip in Reykjavik and go out on day trips using public transport, spend most of the trip on some kind of extended hiking tour (the kind where you go with guides and as part of a group, not the kind where you go off on your own and carry your own tents), or some combination of the two. Advice about which of these is likely to make the most sense (especially given that it will still be fairly early in the year, and potentially cold/difficult weather) would be greatly appreciated.

All suggestions welcome. If you don't want to post in the comments here, feel free to send me a message.

Comments

[pax_athena]

I'd strongly encourage you to go further then Reykjavik - there is a lot to do around the city, but I had the general feeling that most interesting places take a bit too long to get to (don't underestimate the distances there; the roads are bad and very curvy) to really enjoy it if you stay in the city. At least it would annoy me to have to drive somewhere for three to four hours and then spend the same time to get back the same day.
We did Iceland with a car, but there is a bus route all around the island - we've been told that there is a reasonably priced ticket that only takes you in one direction, but at your own pace. It's also comparatively easy to catch ride if you miss the bus since there is pretty much just the ring road and nothing else outside of Reykjavik so everybody is going along the same road either in one or the other direction.

I think May will be too cold for spending all the time outdoors - we've been there in late June and I would not have wanted to spend the nights outside. I do admit that I am not disinclined to the comforts of youth hostels and small guest houses myself in general, but we spent the last two big trips camping - but not Iceland. If you think hostels, book NOW. We booked around this time of the year for June last year and some places were booked out already - but maybe June is also the busier time.

We've got this book recommended - it was the best decision ever to buy it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iceland-finest-coastal-mountain-Walking/dp/3763348026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483804226&sr=8-1&keywords=iceland+rother
Not all hikes are accessible via public transport (if they are, they give the info) or even via normal car (a lot of the roads on the inner side of the ring road require a 4x4), but we've did more than a dozen hikes from the book and none did disappoint. They also rightly point out that more small hikes may make more sense in Iceland if you are there for the first time than one big long hike; the terrain and the landscape is very diverse and it's worth seeing the different sides of it.

If you want recommendations for individual places, I will be glad to give some (I did ask for recs before my own trip and was glad I did!).

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

This is super useful advice, and chimes with what I've been getting on Facebook and Dreamwidth (where I also posed this question). At the moment, we're leaning towards one night/day in Reykjavik at either end of the week, and spending a day at a time in other places, with a bit of hiking/outdoors stuff and retreating indoors in the evening. So far, Vik and Jokulsarlon are definitely on the list, and possibly some waterfalls. Are there any places you would definitely recommend?

After some discussion with my mother, we've concluded that she doesn't want to drive, so we're likely to use that bus around the ring road - the ticket you mention is called a 'Circle Passport', and lets you travel in one direction at your own pace. If you want to go back in the other direction, you have to buy a new ticket, but it's at a slight discount.

We're starting to book accommodation this week or next week. Because Iceland is so expensive, we're not going to be fussy about where we stay (although I think we're both too old for group rooms in youth hostels!), as long as it's in the locations we want to go to. We've both been to Norway before, so we're braced for extreme Nordic prices, and extreme Nordic weather...

Any recommendations of specific places you'd recommend would be most welcome. I'm meeting up with some friends on Friday - they were in Iceland last August, and they're going to lend me their maps and guidebooks and advice about places to visit. It'd be good to have as many recommendations as possible from different people, so that we can narrow down where we want to go based on popularity and what people say about various locations...

[pax_athena]

I'm so excited for you going - I hope you will love it as much as we did!

Vik and Jokulsarlon sound great, would have been my recommendation, too. I was also thinking about one geothermal area but both we've been to on this side of the Island (there is another one on the Northern side) are not really accessible with bus. I think this one may be: http://besthiking.net/hveragerdi-hot-spring-river-trail-hiking-iceland/ if you add a bit for getting from the town/village to the beginning of the trail. It's pretty amazing and absolute recommendation (take your bathsuits with you, it's worth it!)

If you are thinking about going to the North, Arnarstapi would be a great stop - the basalt coast is absolutely amazing. The hike is super easy (more of a walk) but the views are just stunning.

I would also recommend to make some (guided) hike to one of the glaciers. We haven't planned properly ahead here and ended up driving a mud road and then hiking at some random location - I think it would be even greater if better organized (and I've heard good things about actual glacier walks, but as said, we haven't planned this part properly and then it was too late ...).

(P.S. Some of my impression are here http://pax-athena.livejournal.com/264157.html - but please don't feel forced to look/comment. I would not be pointing it out if I did not think that it could be useful.)

Definitely stop at Seljalandsfoss - and go the 200m inlands to take a look at the second waterfall there; this one was perhaps the most impressive of all I've seen.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this advice - I've added Seljalandsfoss to the list, and a glacier hike (you're probably the third person who recommended this, so I'm definitely taking notice). Not sure if we'll have time to make it to the north, given we'll be relying on buses and only there for the week, but that coast sounds beautiful! Skogafoss was also recommended to me, and I see that you went there too.

I think it would be good to spend the last day or so back in Reykjavik, where we could visit the Golden Circle as well.

Your post of impressions is super helpful - it's confirmed to me most of the places I want to go, so now it's just a matter of planning our route from place to place (in order to allow minimal time on a bus, and maximum time out and about).