Val and I started tossing out some vacation spots in early 2023 that we could try to go to. Canary Islands, England, Germany? But we found out the Iceland was crazy beautiful and affordable.

Day 1: We departed from Hamilton, Ontario where we had to walk out onto the tarmac (first time) and board the plane for 6 hours and arrived in Keflavik at 4:30am local time. The girls slept for about 30 minutes each and Val and I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane.

Day 2: I was a lot more optimistic about my ability to be conscious for the entire second day. We rented our car and were off before 6am. The big highlights before lunch were when we hiked to touch lava, the entire drive along the southern coast, and some Viking ruins.  We had lunch at a grocery store in Selfoss which was the only store open at 10am. Shortly after leaving, that’s when fatigue started to settle in. Our first waterfall (Seljalandsfoss) was an hour drive away and it was beautiful, another hour after that and we were on top of a huge hill overlooking cliffs and a black sand beach (Dryholaey). Then it was a short trip to Vik where we went to Black Crust Pizzeria which was the newest place in town by a good 40 years or so. Very tasty pizza and a huge pickup line, but we were able to sit right away. From there, it was about two and a half hours back the way we came to our AirBnB in the capital city Reykjavik… where we immediately passed out for 2 hours.  When we woke up around 7:30pm, we ventured out and got fish and chips for dinner (girls did not care for the fish; but loved the chips).

We touched the lava - A beverage - cliffs of Dryholaey

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At the waterfalls on our first full day in Iceland

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Some of the sights - Had some delicious Black Crust Pizza in Vik

Day 3: We woke up and went out for breakfast at around 10am, found a bagel shop called Deig Workshop.  This place was so good. They had a deal on a bagel, a donut, and a drink for about $8 and they were so tasty and huge; we definitely didn’t need four of these deals. We wandered around and saw many of the shops and buildings that are iconic in Iceland including Hallgrimskirkja, the big chuch. We did stop at a place called Seabaron and tried the Lobster soup and a food challenge for all tourists. Many places in Iceland have on the menu, a cube of fermented Greenland shark with a shot of Brennivin (Icelandic liqueur). It was not bad and if it didn’t cost around $14, I would’ve gotten this several more times.

Seeing some of the sights in Iceland - Hallgrimskirkja, footbath hot spring in Reykjavik

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Views from the top of Hallgrímskirkja

Day 4: We walked around town a bit more. We stopped into Harpa, the music hall, that is a piece of art in and of itself. The girls loved stacking rocks outside the music hall on the “beach”. Iceland has these big ‘bouncing pillows’ which are big flat bounce houses that are placed in the ground. This was a beautiful outcropping right on the water where you could see the airport off in the distance. We also went out to the tip of the Reykjavik peninsula where there is a tiny geothermic hot spring (maybe 90 degrees), but where the air temperature was frigid (40 degrees and 40+ mph winds).

Day 5: This was our last day of the trip.  We kind of retraced our steps to some of the familiar spots that we enjoyed on our trip.  We saw Harpa and the bagel place again before heading to the airport around noon. After the 6.5 hours flight back to Hamilton, we drove the 3.5 hours back home that night (again, optimistic).

I loved Iceland with its unique landscapes, unique architecture, and friendly people. The girls already want to go back, and we told them that we should wait a few years and maybe try some other places first. Their favorite parts of the trip were the Rainbow road that leads to the big church in town and rock stacking near Harpa.