If you were to ask me a year ago where I thought I would spend my honeymoon, I can almost guarantee Iceland would have not been in my top five places to go. And somehow fate would have it that Iceland was in fact one of my honeymoon destinations, and was a beautiful and worthwhile place to celebrate our nuptials.
Our trek to Iceland started in Columbus, Ohio with a pit stop in New York then landing us in Reykjavik. An overnight flight didn't allot for much sleep, but when we arrived in Iceland we had a full day ahead of us planned. The scenery upon our arrival was surprising, as most of the surrounding landscape looked like an uninhabited planet covered with moss-covered rocks (instead of the grassy terrain I had imagined). But we would soon uncover a beautiful spot for hiking, snorkling, and bar hopping.
Here are photos and our top discoveries from our five days in Iceland, enjoy!
Our top discoveries:
Iceland is as expensive as any other major city (think New York City food and gift pricing), however if you plan to drink alcohol that's where most of your money will go. A beer will run you about $10-12 USD, we found out that about $8 of that cost goes to taxes on alcohol.
The food was nothing to write home about. Regular menu items were almost always tapas, compared to larger, traditional American dinner plates, and featured a lot of lamb and fish. We had to try the local favorites including dried fish jerky, fermented shark, the infamous Icelandic hot dogs, and puffin. - Finding a salad was tough!
The Blue Lagoon is man-made. While beautiful, we wish we would have taken advantage of the "secret lagoon" someone told us about while we were there. - Type into Google "Iceland Secret Lagoon."
A cab ride is going to cost you. A cab from the Reykjavík–Keflavík Airport to our hotel in downtown Reykjavik, a 45 minute drive, cost us about $160 USD.
While traditionally the end of September is a great time to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights, the weather ended up being a bit too warm for us to spot them. While we would have loved to see them, sitting in a field at midnight for two+ hours wasn't ideal.
A few of our favorite food spots included Icelandic Street Food - famous for their delicious lamb soup in a bread bowl - and the Saeta Svinid Gastropub - where we tried horse carpaccio, whale, and puffin.
Is Iceland on your bucket list?
