Is 29 Day in Iceland Enough?
29 days was just good right for us. We were the type of tourists that loved to do things at a relaxing pace. 29 days gave us the time to stay longer at beautiful attractions, to relax for coffee and cakes, to sleep later into the morning, to shop and cook the food we like. Most important of all to visit all the lovely places that we had identified to visit in Iceland.
We only had one regret that was we did not include Landmannalaugar into our itinerary. We left it out because it was on a “F” road and only 4-wheel-drive vehicles were allowed on “F” road. All the other places that we we visited were not on “F” road. It did not make sense to us to pay for an expensive “4-wheel drive” for the entire 29 days just to cater for the two days to drive to Landmannalaugar.
Somehow it did not cross our mind until we were midway in our road trip that we could still visit Landmannalaugar with a local tour provider! We tried to adjust our itinerary to accommodate a guided trip to Landmannalaugar but there was just no possibility
Visiting Iceland in Summer or Winter
We had seen many beautiful pictures of Iceland attractions with beautiful lush greenery background. So it was definitely Summer for us. We targeted our trip to be from mid July to mid August. The timing was just right. The weather was cold but not unbearably cold. The ground was beautifully green and the sky brilliantly blue. The waterfalls, gorges and valleys looked absolutely stunning in these backdrops.
Car Rental
We started looking at the car rental cost about 10 months before our trip but did not place any booking until we noticed that the car rental cost was rising. Finally 6 months before our trip we placed a refundable car reservation with Lotus. There were cheaper options but we needed one that provided us sufficient insurance coverage with road side assistance, ash and sand damages etc. There extra assurance added a great deal more into the total car rental cost but we still opted for them as we wanted to ensure that our “happy holiday” trip stayed happy.
Though out the 6 months we monitored the rental costs of the car in Iceland closely and were ready to “jump ship” if a better option was available at a competitor. Similarly whenever Lotus offered discounts on its website, we would email to them to request for the discount which they gave to us quite easily.
Two weeks before the trip we opted to pay fully the cost of the car rental price upfront which again rewarded us with some discount. All in all from the time we booked the rental car to the time we paid for the car the price difference was 20% lesser.
Booking Accommodation
We booked our accommodation well ahead (10 months) before our trip. All the booking were using booking.com and we only selected the refundable ones. Since we planned to do our own cooking for the trip we selected those that had kitchen whether in our unit or in a shared kitchen. None of our accommodation were in dormitory. We loved our own privacy so we would chose room with ensuite toilet unless unavoidable.
Most of the accommodation was “so-so”, a couple was better than expected and several were below our expectation.
Food
We read that we could bring can food into Iceland and each person could carry 10kg of food. We bought 20 cans of “can food”, ranging from “stew pork” to “tuna” in our luggage with us and had no problem crossing Iceland custom. In Iceland we visited “Bonus” a supermarket chain to stock up on fresh vegetables, fruits, eggs, milks, butter, fresh meat etc. Not every town/village had a “Bonus” and the prices of the grocery at local supermarkets were more expensive. So we made a point to stock up whenever we were near a “Bonus”.
Surprisingly we were able to cook all our meals for the entire trip (we only ate breakfast and dinner). Not once did we have to eat breakfast or dinner in a cafe/resaurant and paid the hefty price. We saw at an eating outlet along the route and its simple plain hotdog in a bun cost about 1000ISK to 1500ISK. The hot dog sandwich did not even looked delicious.
Though the years to travelling we had learned to cook “lovely” meals without spending a lot of effort. So for countries that costed a great deal to eat out we would do our own cooking!
Coffee/tea breaks were always part of our travel so we did went into several cafes along the way for cafe latte/cappucinno and cakes! The coffee aroma and the sweetness of the cakes certainly enhanced our enjoyment of the scenic sight!!! Luckily the coffee/tea break pricings were similar to that at home and we gladly enjoyed our coffee/tea breaks.
Expenditure
The total expenditure our our 29/30 days DIY trip in Iceland was SGD$19,000 . The breakdown were as below.
|
Airfare to Iceland |
14% |
|
rental car |
23% |
|
Accommodation |
34% |
|
all others (food, petrol, etc) |
29% |