iceland itinerary: the blue lagoon and reykjavic

Last summer, AJ and I spent ten days driving around Iceland. I’m sharing our Iceland itinerary over the course of a few posts so I can recap our trip, share the details with you, and give you some ideas if you’re planning a vacation to Iceland.

Day one of our Iceland itinerary includes flying to Iceland, relaxing at the Blue Lagoon, and an evening in Reykjavic. 

The alternative title to this post could also be “combatting jet lag.”

Every year around Christmas, AJ and I talk about our vacations for the year.

Trips are the only thing AJ plans in advance (work requires him to submit big chunks of vacation time at the beginning of the year) and we are finally in a place that we don’t have to use every single vacation day to celebrate our friends’ weddings (Hello 2016-2017.)

Don’t get us wrong, we love friends and weddings. We love going to friends’ weddings. One year we used basically all of our vacation days to celebrate friends’ weddings.

But…it’s nice to now use our vacation days to go on a trip.

We like having the luxury to take a big chunk of time and explore somewhere new.

So December 2017, we were doing our annual big vacation planning discussion (there’s got to be a catchier name for this conversation) and after some back and forth we eventually settled on Iceland.

Why we picked Iceland for our 10 day vacation

Why Iceland? Well first, flight prices.

The starting point for planning our Iceland itinerary was that I suggested we go abroad. AJ is very thorough when it comes to vacation planning, so he started sorting flight prices from the East Coast to Europe. 

Turns out: it’s out to be very affordable to get to Iceland from the US.

(Well…not from Charlotte, but we had a work around!)

WOW Airlines, an Icelandic low-cost carrier operating between North America and Europe, had super low (in the $200-$400 range) flights to Iceland from the East Coast (again not Charlotte)…but NYC, Boston, and Baltimore!

Yay Baltimore!

Baltimore worked for us because my parents live outside DC, so it was worth it for us to save $500+ and drive to Virginia. We left our car with my mom and dad, got a ride to BWI, and caught an overnight flight to Iceland.

The second reason we picked Iceland is because we had a few friends travel there over the few years before we went and they loved it, so we took their tips and recommendations and packed them into our Iceland itinerary. 

(I had one friend who emailed me a very detailed map full of restaurants and sights and it was super clutch when planning our meals!)

AJ spent about six months planning our ten day Iceland itinerary (I was pretty much hands off except for weighing in on Airbnbsand where I wanted to eat). We went in late June and spent time exploring the entire country of Iceland by car, staying one or two nights in a city or town before moving on.

What he put together together was a very magical and memorable trip to the Land of Fire and Ice.

Getting to Iceland

We booked our plane tickets to Iceland on WOW Airlines after reading some reviews and hearing some personal experiences from friends.**

**Quick edit! Since I wrote this post, WOW Airlines has shut down, stranding travelers in both Europe and North America so you probably should not/CANNOT fly on WOW anymore. Sorry for all the flight tips that now don’t work.

Since WOW is a low-cost carrier, there are really no frills, but the plane both to and from Iceland was clean and comfortable.

They do charge for extras (including luggage and beverages…so we just brought a refillable water bottle to the airport with us for our overnight flight, and some snacks with us for our flight home) but after doing the math, we still saved close to five hundred dollars per person by flying to Iceland from Baltimore via WOW compared to if we had flown out of Charlotte on a major carrier.

For us, that price was worth it (including the 6 hour drive to my parents’ house in Virginia), especially considering that with two of us we saved about $1000 just on flights, and we knew that things would add up (like groceries, gas, eating out, etc) once we were in Iceland.

We left Baltimore on an unseasonably cool and cloudy Friday evening, which was perfect for the pants, boots and sweaters we were wearing (which are usually not summer appropriate in the DC area at all).

We were on the red eye that left BWI at 12:45 AM. We left Charlotte that morning around 7AM and got to my parents house between 1 and 2 pm, hung out, ate dinner with them, and then my dad dropped us off at the airport.

We booked the red eye because while flying overnight and trying to sleep on crowded flights is generally horrendous, it put us in Reykjavik at 10 am, so we didn’t waste a day of traveling. (AJ hates wasting days traveling. See, for example, our Florida road trip, where he drove through the night from Charlotte to Florida so we could start our morning in the Keys.)

I sleep terribly on planes, or really in any mode of transportation, but the lack of sleep and mild exhaustion I experienced during our first day in Iceland was worth the overnight flight and I would totally do it again.

Some mediocre sleep, a sore left butt cheek and crick in my neck later, we landed in Reykjavik excited to start our Icelandic adventure!

One more airport tip: we bought two bottles of wine and a bottle of liquor at the duty free store at BWI to bring with us to Iceland, in order to save money on drinking once we were there.

Iceland Itinerary Day 1: The Blue Lagoon

Knowing that we both sleep poorly on planes, that we’d likely be zombies upon our arrival to Reykjavik, plus the fact that we wouldn’t be able to check into our accommodations until 4pm and we didn’t want to lug our belongings across Iceland’s capital city all afternoon, we had the incredible foresight (after getting advice to book ahead) to book an afternoon at the Blue Lagoon for our first stop in Iceland.

The best Blue Lagoon tip I can tell you is to reserve your spot ahead of time. 

I am still really proud of us and our ability to think ahead (maybe our greatest accomplishment in planning this trip to Iceland and no, I am not being hyperbolic) when I think about the looks of sadness and discouragement I saw on other tourist’s faces as they were turned away at the Blue Lagoon while we were waiting in line for our towels.

We landed in Reykjavik, breezed our way through customs, avoided a very long line for coffee (that I so desperately needed), picked up the rental car, and went to go float in a geothermal poll all afternoon.

Not a bad Saturday. 

The Blue Lagoon is just a short 20 minute drive from the Reykjavik-Keflavik airport, so it made sense for us to stop there before heading into Reykjavik for our first night and then hitting the road on our Iceland road trip adventure the next day.

Because of it’s proximity to the airport, a lot of people visit the Blue Lagoon first when they get to Iceland or leave it for the last day of their trip before heading to the airport to fly home.

Before buying our tickets to the Blue Lagoon, we read a ton of reviews and talked to a lot of friends who had already visited, and we read and heard a lot of mixed reviews of the experience (including more negative reviews like it’s expensive and a tourist trap), leaving us to question if  a visit was worth it or not. 

But after visiting, both AJ and I agree a visit to the Blue Lagoon is worth it. 

Especially after sleeping but not really in a crowded tin can at 50,000 feet for six hours.

Yes, the Blue Lagoon is a little pricey (they market themselves as a luxury brand with a spa experience and price for admission starts around $50) and maybe a little gimmicky, but we really enjoyed ourselves.

It was something new and different than anything we had ever done before, and honestly not as crowded as I expected (they limit the amount of people that can be in the Blue Lagoon at any given time which I think helps with the crowds but again here’s a friendly reminder that you need to book ahead.)

After silica masks, a glass of prosecco, some Go Pro selfies, and lots of geothermal floating, we showered, finally got that cup of coffee (so needed it!) and drove the 20 minutes to our guesthouse in Reykjavik.

(The Blue Lagoon also has an onsite restaurant and hotel, so you can make it a whole day and overnight experience if you want.)

Since visiting Iceland, we get questions all the time (still!) about if the Blue Lagoon was worth it. 

When thinking about if the Blue Lagoon and if it will be a stop on your Iceland itinerary, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions.

Do you like spas? Do you like soaking in warm water outside? Do you like visiting places you won’t find anywhere else? Do the pictures interest you and make you think you’d like it there? Do you like to treat yourself when you’re on vacation.

Then yes, you should definitely visit the Blue Lagoon.

Iceland Itinerary Night 1: Reykjavik

Our guesthouse in Reykjavik was in a quiet neighborhood pretty close to all of the action. It was quiet and clean, within walking distance of restaurants, bars and sights, and had comfy beds and black out shades: everything we needed!

After a short nap, we headed out to explore Iceland’s capital city. And by explore, I mean, find some hot dogs for dinner.

Yes, seriously hot dogs.

During his trip planning, AJ learned a lot about Icelandic food, from traditional dishes like Hakarl (fermented shark) to the dishes that are popular in many restaurants, fish and lamb. The one surprising thing that turned up from his research, and our freinds’ recommendations, was something that we’d never imagine would be a popular food in Iceland: a hot dog!

Turns out, Icelanders love hot dogs. We saw them everywhere on our trip, from gas stations to sit down restaurants,  and heard from everyone we talked to, friends who had traveled to Iceland to locals, that we had to have them.

What sets an Icelandic hot dog apart from your typical, run of the mill weiner, is the ingredients in the hot dog. Icelandic hot dogs are made out of a combination of Icelandic lamb, along with some pork and beef, and wrapped in a natural casing.

Definitely order it with all the fixings,  which would give you a dog atop a steamed bun with raw white onions and crispy fried onions, ketchup, sweet brown mustard called pylsusinnep, and remoulade, a sauce made with mayo, capers, mustard, and herbs.

So yum. And so affordable!

We ate hot dogs almost every day we were in Iceland.

Anyways, AJ read we had to get the hot dogs from the place that started it all, Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur hot dog stand in the middle of Reykjavic. The stand, which translates to “best hot dogs in town,” always has a line and has been open since 1937. So that’s what we did. 

We put down a few dogs and a soda at a picnic table in front of Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur and then it was time for some wandering along the streets of Reykjavik.

Bonus of traveling to Iceland in the summer: the 24 hour daylight situation.

One of Iceland’s nicknames is the “land of the midnight sun” because in the summer, the sun never sets in some areas of the country. While the sun is up for 24 hours in Northern Iceland, it does technically set in Reykjavic and the southern part of the country, but only for a few hours, and even though the sun may sink behind the horizon, the sky doesn’t go dark.

Our visit to Iceland was just after the summer solstice so the sky never went dark, making eye masks and black out curtains essential but also giving us endless light for post nap and hot dog exploring.

We took a post hot dog stroll past the Harpa Concert Hall, along the water to the Sun Voyager, a steel sculpture that resembles a viking ship (the sculpture is actually not a viking ship, which is a common misconception by tourists…the artist’s vision was actually a dream boat and an ode to the sun.)

We then explored the streets of Reykjavic: with a stop at a World Cup watching party on a jumbo screen in a town square, some window shopping at a few store fronts, and a peek of Hallgrímskirkja, the famous Lutheran church which offers panoramic city views from it’s observation deck.

(Our first night in Reykjavic we opted for a few pints in lieu of Hallgrímskirkja’s observation deck, but we did make sure to get up there to see the sweeping views…totally worth it!)

We eventually settled in for a few pints at Skuli Craft Bar, a cozy beer bar we liked so much we visited again when we got back to Reykjavic on our last night in Iceland.

We got back to our guesthouse just after midnight, but it felt more like 7 or 8 because it was still light outside.

The next morning, we packed up, hit up the grocery store for road trip essentials and coffee (of course) and started our travels around the land of fire and ice.