Iceland was by far the most geologically beautiful travel destination we have ever seen. With that said, New Zealand is still on the travel bucket list. Guess we’ll have to wait and see which country wins? 🧕🏼🤷🏽‍♂️ But despite Iceland’s wonders, we had a few hiccups during our trip that you could definitely prevent if you decide to visit. And even if you don’t plan to visit, this post will still be helpful to you, as there are general travel tips anyone can learn from.

Airfare

We booked our trip to Iceland before signing up for Scott’s Cheap Flights. The tickets we found on our own using Google Flights were not as cheap, but we thought, keyword thought, we had bags included. Our awareness before booking was that WowAir, which is no longer in service, was the bargain airline that required you to pay extra for bags. What we learned early on during our trip was that IcelandAir is also a bargain airline, which means there are flight options where you ALSO have to pay for your checked baggage. So before you book a trip to Iceland, make sure you do your research and thoroughly. Whether you are booking through a third party site like Priceline or through the airline itself, make sure you pay attention to the type of package you are getting. Because it’s not always clear. If you see economy light, know that you are expected to pay for checked bags. This was something that had we known we had to pay for bags, we would have packed much lighter.

Using booking sites for hotels

This trip came with many learning experiences and this was one of them. Just because you book a hotel through a site like booking.com doesn’t mean you are actually paying for your stay. You are essentially just reserving your spot. We overlooked this piece of it, probably because we made our travel arrangements in advance that we forgot we actually had to pay once we got to this hotel. But this is something important to know because if you’re budgeting for your trip, you don’t want this part of the trip to come as a last-minute surprise to you, like it did to us 🙃

Driving

When we were researching Iceland, a lot of travel blogs we came across said the same thing, rent a car to sight-see the whole island. We thought, oh cool, it’s going to be one big road trip. That was until we looked at the price of gas there. One gallon of gas can easily cost you $8-$10. If you live in America, that’s quite the jump. Driving the entire island at that point was just not an option for us. We had originally planned to drive the golden circle ourselves and explore some other popular sites on our own, but after seeing the price of gas, we reconsidered our whole itinerary and it saved us. Instead of traveling far with a rental car, we decided to limit the rental car use to Reykjavík and neighboring sites, as well as our trip from and to the airport. We ended up paying $80-$100 on one tank of gas for the entire week. We replaced our golden circle on our own plan with an all day tour. After actually seeing the sites, we were glad we went with that option because you never know what to expect on Icelandic roads. (We will be sharing more about the tours we went on in our next post).

We lucked out with the weather the week we went, but if you are traveling during the winter then you really need to be aware. Our tour guide actually said tourists should NOT rent cars if they come in the winter because it can get really dangerous.

If you decide to go with the rental option, even if it’s just driving in Reykjavik, make sure you get insurance, either through the rental car company itself or a third party, just make sure you are covered. You want this trip to be as stress-free as possible.

And bookmark road.is in your phone if you do plan on driving at all in Iceland. The site is updated with the latest road conditions and any safety updates. Even though you are going to want to stop multiple times on a drive for photos, don’t. There’s barely any room to stop on the side and when there is, it’s used only for emergencies. Be respectful of the country’s laws and rules.

Prices

If you go off of what we said about the price of gas then you’re probably thinking that wow, Iceland is expensive, which is true and not so true at the same time. We’ll explain.

We came to Iceland with the expectation that everything there would cost us a lot, and turns out that’s not the case. We spent around the same amount on food and souvenirs as we do in the U.S. It’s not that different. You just have to remember where you are when you are purchasing food. If you are at the airport, then yeah you will probably pay more than $5 for a meal. We found this to be true when we went on our day tours as well. The restaurants near the sites charge more, the same as when visiting a museum cafe in America. If you would rather budget your money elsewhere on this trip, then we recommend making an early trip to the grocery store. We went to Kronan and bought some snacks and drinks from there that came in real handy. You could also go to Bonus or Hagkaup.

Weather

There’s a saying in Iceland that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just people who are not prepared. When you pack, plan your outfits with layers. We found that our underarmour base layers helped a lot. We basically wore those everyday and then layered shirts, sweaters and jackets on top. When it was warmer on a couple of the days we just shed our top layers. It’s better to be prepared for the cold and rain (and snow if you’re going in the winter) than to freeze. And if you’re going on day trips, take an extra outfit in case you get soaked. (It happened to us when we got close to waterfalls, not fun).

Taxes

Tourists who are not living in Iceland are able to receive a tax refund when they leave the country after their stay. According to tripsavvy, there’s a standard rate of 24 percent that’s applied to tourism good and services like hotel stays, rental cars, souvenirs, etc. You can see the full list here. The goods have to amount to $33, which is ISK 4,000 on a receipt. So when you know you are going to buy something for at least $33, make sure you ask the store for a tax free form and have them sign it and attach the receipt to it. When you get to the airport you can submit your documents at the kiosk to receive your refund. And if you forget or are running late, you can do so online.

CHECK OUT OUR HIGHLIGHT REEL OF OUR TRIP TO ICELAND IN THE VIDEO BELOW

Iceland is a beautiful country and the more you know about these things before you go, the better and more enjoyable your trip will be 😊If you have any other tips, feel free to share them in the comments below.