One of my good travel friends ended an email to me with this quote: “Iceland will knock your socks off, but you will enjoy it with 100 of your closest friends!!”
And it really can’t be said better. With 42% of its GDP tourism, they focus on bringing people in bleeding them dry, and spitting them out. That being said our visit this past July was still amazing. I think there are two keys to success in Iceland travel:
- Rent a car and stop often.
- Be mentally prepared – everything is expensive and all the big sites will be crowded.
There are so many big bus tours and when they stop they drop off between 30-70 people at a time! But this also means that in all the places they don’t stop, you can, assuming you are in a car. Between the big sites, we had waterfalls and walking trails all to ourselves. Although we found that even the smallest hot pool had at least one person in it, tourists and locals alike were friendly and excited to exchange stories.
I love the below picture. It gives you a very accurate view of the number of people surrounded by amazing views.
