In November, I took a trip to Iceland.
We stuck to the southern part of the island, so we were at 64° North, which is just below the arctic circle at 66°. That 24° difference in latitude from my normal life (NYC is at 40°) did show itself in daylight hours and how the sun rises and sets. While we were there, sunrise was around 9:30am and sunset was around 4:30pm. In early November, the temperature was generally in the low to mid 30s Fahrenheit (-1° to 4° Celsius), and it was windy. I stayed quite warm by wearing thermal underwear, a mid-layer, and a parka. The only part of me that was cold were my fingers, especially at night shooting the aurora for more than two hours at a time. Using hand warmers and interval shooting did help, but it was not uncommon for my fingers to get numb while shooting.
Day 1: Arrival and Reykjavik
Before we took off the plane had about 45 minutes of traffic. I had the aisle seat, with a couple in the middle and window seat. While the plane inched around the airport, it became clear to me that the couple next to me were acquainted with the passengers directly across the aisle from me because they were talking back and forth in Spanish. The guy next to me was trying to do something with his phone and kept showing his phone to the other guy across the aisle. A few times they passed the phones back and forth, and I even had to help when one of them wasn’t paying attention. I’m not absolutely sure, but it looked like one of them was trying to activate an eSIM and the other guy was trying to assist.
Eventually we took off and had an uneventful flight to Keflavík International Airport in Iceland. I took a FlyBus coach style bus from the airport to the Reykjavik bus terminal, and had to transfer to a smaller bus, because the larger bus can’t navigate the streets of Reykjavik, to get to the hotel. Once there I took a 3 hours nap (I don’t sleep well on planes), showered, and then headed out to walk around Reykjavik a bit.
I made it a point to try the famous hot dog stand, then walked by the Harpa Center and down the shoreline to the Sun Voyager sculpture. As I was taking a pic of it, I recognized one of the other tourists there as the guy next to me from the flight! I said hello, found out their whole group was from Mexico and was doing a 10-day “ring road” trip around the entire island. He did get his phone working, and asked me to take a pic of their group. I wished them a safe and enjoyable trip, and then I sort of wandered around Reykjavik until I had to meet my group for dinner.
Day 2: Vik & Seljalandsfoss
Our group, which was a photography related tour, took a coach from Reykjavik to Vik. Reynisfjara Beach was closed due to sneaker waves, but we went to Dyrhólaey instead. It was very windy, and waves were crashing violently around us, but it was great to see the intense nature that Iceland has. We wandered around Vik for a bit, including the Vík i Myrdal Church and the black sand beach.
After lunch we headed to Seljalandsfoss, one of many waterfalls around the island, and then we headed to Hotel Ranga for dinner, and our first real chance to see the aurora borealis (northern lights). The phone in the hotel room has the usual buttons for reception, room service, and wake up call, but it also has a button to wake you up if the aurora is visible. At 1:41am, it rang, and I got dressed as quickly as I could and headed out to see if I could see the aurora.
Once outside and after my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I could barely make out the aurora. It can best be described as white, wispy, and cloud-like; it reminded me of the white smoke that skywriters leave behind, however, you could see it move around a little bit and not in the same direction that the clouds were moving. I took a pic of it with my iPhone, and you could see it was green, but to the naked eye it didn’t look much different than the other clouds in the sky.
Day 3: Skógafoss & Sólheimajökull
We headed to Skógafoss, another of Iceland’s famous waterfalls, but stopped by a farm to see Icelandic horses on the way.
At Skógafoss, I got pretty close to the actual falls and because I got quite wet from the mist and spray, I was very cold. To try and warm up, I walked to the top for the falls, which made me so hot I had to unzip both my outer coat and my midlayer.
After the falls, we headed to Sólheimajökull, a glacier about 30 minutes from Vik. I did walk on the very tip of the glacier, which was mostly covered in black sand, but there were several groups who had donned crampons and had ventured quite a distant on it.
We headed back to Hotel Ranga and had another night of aurora, however, they could only be seen far off on the horizon and while they did snake and move, and even have more colors, they weren’t nearly as interesting as the previous night. On top of that, my fingers were so cold that they were basically numb and useless, which is kind of annoying when trying to fiddle with camera settings.
Day 4: Diamond Beach and Jökulsárlón Glacier
Headed to Diamond Beach, which is about a 4-5 hour drive from the hotel, including a stop for lunch, and there was a good two miles or so where there was 10 feet of visibility so the coach had to slow to a crawl. We were able to shoot at Diamond Beach during sunset. Interestingly, sunset at 64° North is not quick at all. Instead of the sun moving sort of relatively straight down, it was much clearer that it was traveling sort of horizontally and down, and because of that, golden hour, sunset, and blue hour lasted much longer than I was used to.
After shooting on the beach for a while we crossed the street (literally) and visited Jökulsárlón Glacier.
We then headed to Foss Hotel to check in and have dinner. After dinner the group decided to head back to Diamond Beach to shoot the aurora. It was incredible.
Day 5: Diamond Beach & Blue Lagoon
We went back to Diamond Beach for sunrise, which was interesting because I knew where the sun set the night before, so I was expecting the sun to rise about 180 degrees from it, and boy was I wrong. The night before the sun set at the far end of the beach (which is pretty straight), but that morning the sun was rising straight out from the beach, with my right shoulder facing where the sunset was, that’s pretty much a 90 degree angle. I looked up exactly the sunrise and sunset points for that that location on that day, and it was exactly a 95° angle from sunrise to sunset. To put it another way, the entire day, the sun barely moves beyond one quarter of the horizon, and also never goes higher than about 45 degrees in the sky.
After sunrise, we headed back to the bus for the longest ride of the trip, all the way to the Blue Lagoon. We stopped at Vik for lunch, and also visited Grindavik, which is a town that has been all but abandoned because of volcanic eruptions since 2023.
The Blue Lagoon was nice. It’s like a large hot tub without the jets. We got the package that included three masks and two drinks. It was quite a relaxing break especially when it was in the mid-30s temperature wise, but 120° in the water.
Day 6: The Golden Circle
Headed to the Golden Circle, which is loop that includes Þingvellir, a park that is the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, Gullfoss, a large waterfall that many compare to Niagra Falls, and Haukadalur, a geothermal area that contains some geysers including Geysir.
We then headed back to Reykjavik and several of us walked around a bit until we found a place for dinner. I got a xmas beer, which was a bit weird considering that it was early November, and for me, xmas time doesn’t really start until after Thanksgiving, but since the rest of the world doesn’t have that demarkation, they were already in the early stages of the xmas season.
Day 7: Reykjavik, Hallgrímskirkja, and souvenir shopping
I left the hotel at 6:30am to go to a bakery for breakfast. It was a little odd walking around at that hour and seeing kids waiting for school buses and seeing the city start to wake up, but it was still as dark as the middle of the night.
The main stop of the day was Hallgrímskirkja, the large church in Reykjavik. We went to the top and got some shots of the city itself and stuck around for the bell ringing (which were quite loud). Walked around the city for a bit and did a little souvenir shopping.
We had a group “goodbye” dinner, and a few of us went out afterwards for drinks, but as far as the group tour was concerned, it was done, and people were on their own after that.
Day 8: head home
Heading home. Basically the reverse of arriving…took a small bus to the bus terminal, then boarded a large coach to head to the airport, then the flight home. Because of when our flight took off, we were just ahead of sunset the entire way, until we slowed down for landing.
Conclusion
It was a great trip, and seeing a country that’s still so natural and not built up was very interesting. When you drive out of Reykjavik, it just sort of stops. One minute you’re surrounded by sidewalks and buildings, and the next minute there’s nothing but nature. As you’re driving down the main highway there will be nothing except for a house every now and then, then, boom, a large hill with a waterfall, then nothing, then a small town that takes two minutes to drive through. The weather does change, unpredictably, but it lasts for half an hour before changing again. The touristy spots could be a bit crowded, but they are completely open, so you can just come back at a different time if you want.
Will definitely want to go back at a different time of year and hit some of the northern areas, as well as see the puffins.
