It’s always been a dream of mine to visit Iceland. Northern lights, the abundance of waterfalls and a week-long road trip were a recipe for a great adventure. So when I finally convinced Dominik that it was a good idea to rent a camper van and travel in it across the whole island, I was ecstatic!
Our adventure began the moment we landed in Reykjavík. A lady working for the camper van company picked us up and informed us that there was a hurricane heading towards Iceland. Great. I had spent hours making an itinerary for this trip, so when the lad who gave us the keys to the van confirmed that we should probably stay in the city for the next two days, we had to improvise.
We stayed in Reykjavík for the rest of the day. The city’s vibe was a surprise to us, even though we were coming from Ireland where you can barely see the sun during the fall. Reykjavík’s reminded me of one of the industrial cities I’ve been to in my home country – Czechia. It wasn’t dirty or felt unsafe, but it had the eastern European feel to it – old buildings, lots of warehouses and sun nowhere in sight. Still, it was a dream come true.
The weather warning was yellow which meant that the winds were strong enough to cause ugly damage to cars on the road or trees alongside them. We decided it would be the best idea to lay low, so we stopped at Bonus, an Icelandic grocery shop to buy food and snacks, and then walked around the city. We stopped at Hallgrímskirkja, the famous Icelandic church, visited a few shops in Skólavörðustígur that sold Icelandic lopapeysas and then found a camp to stay overnight.
I was worried that the hurricane would destroy our plans for the road trip, but we worked around it and after the rain and strong wind that shook our camper van from side to side during the night, we managed to start our adventure the next day!
