Iceland (Day 2)–European Vacation Summer 2022

Y’all, Iceland is da bomb. Seriously. If you’re an outdoorsy, National-Park-kind-of-traveler like me, Iceland is your playground. It’s like one big National Park–everything is gorgeous.

Let’s call this “Day 2” of the Summer 2022 European Vacation even though it really all felt like one reeealllly long day (with a nap on our “red-eye” flight from Boston). After clearing the airport and getting our van we drove to Reykjavik to walk around a bit. It was still really early in the morning so not much was open other than coffee shops (thank God!). Reykjavik was clean, pretty, and just the right size.

Iceland is a very expensive country so on the way out of town, we stopped for groceries to feed the fam for the day. We were all starting to drag.

BTW what you CAN’T see in that photo is the accompanying audio that goes with it. Whining, complaining, and questioning from your children sounds the same in Iceland as it does in the States. Que the “I’m hungry!” “How far do we have to drive?” “What’s for dinner?” “Where are we going?” “When will we be at the hotel?” “I don’t want to sit there!” and “What are we doing tomorrow?” It’s the proverbial “Are we there yet?”…but I get it! If you drag your kids through a foreign country and they’re literally along for the ride, you’ve got to expect some of that. I consider my kids pretty seasoned travelers, and all in all, they are amazing, absolutely amazing, at what I put them through. To be honest, a lot of our back and forth is less complaining and more just their wanting to know what the plan is. I try to keep them in the loop, but it’s a lot to keep up with. So, there are a lot of questions. A LOT. And that’s times 4 (or 5 if you count Christian too) and just one of me! BTW, if you’re curious what the most frequent question I get asked on our trips, stay tuned and I will reveal it at the end of this post.

Back to Iceland–one of our first Icelandic expereinces was one of the best–a hike through Reykjadalur thermal river valley with a soak in a hot springs at the end! I had been hyping this for awhile so the promise of what was coming kept us pushing through the fatigue. I was anticipating an easy 3-km, one-hour hike “a little steep at the beginning”, but what we got was a strenuous hike…or maybe it was just the jetlag and fatigue….. doesn’t matter though–it was totally worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat! We hiked through a thermal zone in Iceland with sheep grazing in the grass and thermal vents smoking all along the way. Look at some of these images of the hike itself (we were all there, but the big kids kind of zoomed ahead so I don’t have as many pics of them on the hike):

Guess what? Iceland is blessedly free of mosquitos. These awe-inspiring images of our first hike in Iceland are the picture perfect version of life. As a side note, it has always been top on my list of questions to ask God someday–why mosquitos?! No more. Now the question is why midges? The reality behind this hike: we were plagued by midges almost the entire way, even with 99% DEET! Picture tiny little fly incsects; think bugs up the nose and in the eyes! I wish I had taken a better pic, but notice in this one the way Patrick has his shirt pulled up over his head? And Genevieve hiked back with a towel wrapped around her head. My kids are certainly troopers!

Finally, the payoff! There is a boiling hot springs river (on the left) that meets up with a glacier melt river (on the right)

Depending on where you get in, you get different temps. We found our sweet spot and just relaxed–the perfect solution to jetlag and fatigue! We couldn’t have asked for better weather. Oh, and for some reason the midges left us alone for this part of the “hike.” Heavenly!

What a unique and special experience! We stayed awhile and hiked back down, enjoyed a picnic lunch at the trailhead with minimal midge interference and then climbed back in the van to drive to our hostel. Iceland isn’t that big of a country, but we drove a significant part of it and everything is pretty spread out. The kids all zonked out in the van.

We had a 6 person bunk room at the hostel so everyone got their own bed compartment complete with curtains and charging station! Genevieve adored this setup!

We were all beyond tired at this point but it was too early to stop! Local time was around 3-4:00 so we needed to power through until bedtime. Off to Seljalandsfoss. (I’m kind of embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize all the waterfalls in Iceland end with “foss.”) This was another big hit with the kids because you can walk behind the falls.

Luckily the waterfall was a short walk from the parking lot. After Seljalandsfoss, Christian and I dropped the kids off at the hostel so they could spend some time in the hot tub while we went to the store for food for dinner, breakfast tomorrow and picnic lunch again. We used the hostel shared kitchen to cook Icelandic hotdogs for dinner. Christian and I took our turn in the hot tub before bed too. Check out this scenery:

We managed to make it until around 9pm local time to go to sleep, although Christian (typically) stayed up later. It’s a 4-hour time difference to the U.S. Eastern time zone so it was only 5pm at home but since I had been up 36 hours give or take with a short nap on the plane, I had NO trouble sleeping! Oh, and it was still bright as day outside! I never actually saw it get dark in Iceland.

There you have it–it was a long day to live, seemed pretty long to write it all out too so if you stayed with me through it all, here’s your reward: What’s the question I get asked most frequently on our trips? Hint: it is NOT “Are we there yet?” Take your guess and scroll below the next pic for the answer!

The question I get asked the most when traveling with my 4 kids: “What’s for breakfast/lunch/dinner?” On my next post, I will tell you the close runner-up…