Magical Iceland

❤ Iceland ❤ 

⭐ Before reading this I will let you know this is how we did Iceland on the cheap, so if you are willing to pay €250 a night on accommodation then this will be no use to you!! ⭐

My friend who I went with had a Mavic DJI and Lumix GH5 enabling us to shoot and put together an amazing video of the trip, have a look in the video above!! 

 

How I ended up road tripping in Iceland turned out to be so last minute and random!! 😛

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We booked for five days in Maldives, but on the evening of the departure we checked the weather and it was to be thunderstorms for the entire week, so we looked on the map and on a whim jumped on a flight from Dubai to Frankfurt. We had a five hour stopover in Frankfurt and then flew with Icelandair to Reykjavík. It was so last minute, we were googling what to do when we were on the flight over!!

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It is the most beautiful, magical place ever. Everything you visit is more beautiful than what you have just seen. It is so untouched, 330,000 people live in Iceland, and 1/3rd of the people live in the main city Reykjavik, so you can imagine how rural and untouched the rest of the island is.

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They have one main road going around the island which you stay on most of the time, but before you go, download offline maps and pin each place to go to. We did 5 days in total and we got to see everything, but if you really want to take your time at each place it would probably be advisable to allow yourself 7-8 days.

Chair waterfall

What we did wrong! 

Firstly if your doing a road trip in Iceland, HIRE a camper van!!! They have all the facilities around the island for them, and you will not be able to justify the price of eating in restaurants twice a day so having a little kitchen area will go a long way! Also trying to plan each day what part of the island you have reached is really limiting yourself as to how much exploring you can do, and you will have to stick to a very well thought out plan. This means that at times you are only spending a few minutes at some of the natural wonders and you are not appreciating, or taking in what you are seeing because you’ll be stressing about how much more driving you’ve to do before you reach the next hotel etc.

The prices are madness!! 

Another reason to hire a camper van is the prices of hotels and even hostels!!! Honestly you would think you are staying in Monaco or similar!! Each morning we booked a hostel that would be about four hours away, because we guestamated thats how much driving we needed to do each day including sightseeing to get around the island. So each morning we would go on air bnb or booking.com and book somewhere around 4 hours from us. A hostel with a private room, shared bathroom cost between €100-€150 a night and this is literally for the most basic bedroom you will see!! o_O  Its fine though because you don’t arrive there till like 11pm and your up and out at 7am so its just to sleep!

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Like I said if this is a trip you are planning for a long time you will not mind paying, but we were trying to do it on a budget!!

 

 

 

 

How to do it on the cheap!! 

We only realised how expensive it was there when we went to KFC on the first day and spend like €45 on 2 meals!! So we ended up every morning going to the supermarket and spending around €30 on a loaf of bread, tomatos, cheese, juice, biscuits, deli for himself and maybe one or two other random little bits!

Another suggestion is buy a big water bottle at the start and you can just refil it with tapwater anywhere, as the water is the most fresh water you will have!! Buy a jar of coffee in the supermarket and a small carton of milk, and go into the petrol station and ask for hot water in a cup. They usually wont charge you and this really helps because you will need coffee for all the driving and each coffee in a shop costs between €5-7 so it all adds up!! We sound like knackers I know but it ended up being all part of the experience and you wouldn’t even want to sit inside in a restaurant, because instead you can park up and have a picnic with literally a desktop screensaver as your view!!! 😎

Whale watching

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There is a few different parts of the island you can do whale watching in and it costs around €100 each for 3 hours, it is well worth the money, however they are wild animals so it is the luck of the day how close they will come to you etc. We went North of the island in Húsavík. 

 

Geysers 

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The volcanic activities underneath the surface means Iceland has a lot of geysers, underground springs and thermal pools are scattered all around the country. To see a powerful hot stream shooting from the ground is exciting to see. Beware of the smell from them, it is a very very strong smell of eggs and smelly socks mixed!! :mrgreen:

 

 

United States Plane wreck 

Plane 1In 1973 a United States Navy Douglas Super DC-3 airplane was forced to land on Sólheimasandur’s black sand beach in the south of Iceland after experiencing some severe icing. 😦

Luckily all crew members survived the crash, but the airplane’s fuselage was abandoned. You need to walk approx 3km to reach the site from the car park, and it is well worth seeing. It looks like a scene out of some post-apocalyptic zombie movie!

 

 

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So sad to see the Glaciers melting, it was 16degrees here the sun was beaming down!!

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It is such a beautiful place to visit and you will not find better scenery, it really is a once in a lifetime trip!!

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Dive in Maldives on a budget!!

One of the most rewarding trips I have done and I get asked most questions about my five day scuba diving trip to the Maldives.

I did three dives a day which included equipment, breakfast, lunch, dinner, accommodation all for under US$500!!!

Maafushi Island

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Maafushi Island is a relatively small island made up of mostly guest houses, where tourists can stay at very affordable prices in comparison to the luxury resorts around Maldives. It is absolutely perfect to stay here if you are looking to come to Maldives for scuba diving, snorkelling, etc.. The island is 1/2 a km wide and 2km long and you can find accommodation from US$30-$50 a night including food. Obviously prices will go up around summer so this is the prices I have found on http://www.booking.com in August 2017.

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It is monsoon season between November-April. I went in mid October and it was perfect weather. Don’t let monsoon season defer you from going as it will literally shower for 30 minutes of the day and then back to sunshine!

padiI have my PADI advanced open water licence and for those of you who do not dive you can learn in the dive shop here. I have dived in a lot of places and I can say with confidence that Maldives is by far the best dive spot I have been to, if you want to snorkel it is a perfect location.

 

The dive shop I was dealing with is https://www.facebook.com/pg/MaafushiScuba 

 It is run by locals on the island who are the nicest and funniest guys you will meet!! On my last night they went night fishing and made a big bbq with all the catches and played Bob Marley on the beach it was bliss!!

How to get there cheaply!! 

Firstly if you are going for five days there is no need to bring a suitcase just bring carry on as you’ll be in a bikini for the week!!

Get a speedboat outside the airport to Male city US$2 which takes three minutes as the airport is on a separate island, then their will be taxis lined off as you get off the speedboat and US$2 for 15min journey to the pier at the other end of Male. When you get to the pier you have 1hr wait for the local boat to bring you to Maafushi island and it costs US$5. The boat takes 1.30min and mostly locals take the boat with the food etc they are bringing to the island. If you don’t want the hassle of all of this you can try to organise a private speedboat but they are quite a bit pricey, if I can remember correctly it was like US$50-$100 one way.

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You will be picked up by the guesthouse you are staying in and they will bring you and your luggage to the reception.

Being honest if you are not planning on going for diving, they have one beach which is beautiful you can see in my pictures, but being a small island you could get bored. It is absolutely perfect for diving as you go out on the boat at 9am for two dives, then return for lunch and then back out for an afternoon dive. By the time you get home in the evening you have your dinner, look over the photos and are exhausted!! Being a island of muslim religion, they do not have alcohol on the island but they have a boat the will bring you out to a bar boat which is literally 50meters off the shore that has alcohol so its not a problem!!!

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I went on my own and I really have never met more welcoming and kind people. I stayed in Summer Villa guest house  and I had three meals a day which I could literally not finish they were such big portions. They vary the food each day, the rooms are lovely and the family who run the guesthouse are very nice people 🙂

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Luckily the people on the island I made friends with organised a 12 person local speedboat to bring me back directly to the airport for US$25, which takes 30min, but its usually for locals so I guess they will see if they have space on the day if you ask who you are staying with!

 

The Scubadiving

The marine life and reefs we visit are absolutely breathtaking!! Common sea life you will see are Sharks (not dangerous ones) Manta Rays, Eagle rays, Turtles, Dolphins and all kinds of fish you can think of!! The instructors in the dive shop are very experienced and have all the latest equipment and a perfect dive boat!!

 

I literally sound like I am trying to sell this place to you but I gave it a 10/10 trip, it has been one of my best memories so far and I would really recommend it!!!