At last, the vacations! After 11 months without a break, and a move abroad, here comes a well-deserved week’s vacation, which we’ve chosen to spend in February in Iceland!

As some of you know, I’m not a fan of cold destinations, but my wife was desperate to visit this country, and I’m offering her this trip as a wedding anniversary present.

But what to do? This isn’t a vacation lying on a deckchair, so it’s all about organizing things to visit as many attractions as possible in one week. Here’s how we organized our week-long stay in this beautiful country.

Flights

For flights, we’ve kept things simple. I booked these flights on British Airways in Business class, for just under £300 per person from London. Given that it’s an almost 3.5-hour direct flight, the price is quite reasonable.

To get to Iceland, you can use Iceland’s national airline Icelandair, or you can fly via Frankfurt or Amsterdam at very reasonable prices if you plan well in advance. For example, with Lufthansa in Business Class from Paris, it will cost you between €350 and €400 per person, which is very reasonable given the length of the flights.

Car rental

Given the health situation, car rental companies have cut back on their fleets, driving up prices.

Nevertheless, whatever the final price you pay, we absolutely recommend taking a 4×4 to explore the Highlands.

Hotels

As far as hotels are concerned, it’s obviously much more complicated than when you’re going to a big city or a seaside or tourist area. Before booking hotels, you need to plan the whole trip, in this case the tour, before making the various reservations.

As for hotels in the vicinity of the capital Reykjavik, we’ll be choosing chain hotels, namely Hilton for the night before our tour, and Marriott for the two nights following the end of our tour.

For the rest, it would be a mix between booking.com and Expedia for booking hotels and hostels on the tour.

Iceland is an extremely expensive country, and for a very basic hotel, don’t be surprised to pay between €200 and €250 per night, excluding breakfast. This is the Scandinavian standard, particularly in Iceland.

Routes and attractions

Building the route is obviously the most time-consuming part of planning a trip. It has to be said that this also took up a lot of our time, as we wanted to plan as many activities as possible, even if it meant skipping some if we didn’t have time to finish the day’s program. Here is the program we followed:

• Day 1 – Reykjavik: We spent the first day of our visit to Iceland visiting the capital Reykjavik, after settling into our hotel. Everything is within walking distance, and we covered the whole city in about half a day from the hotel, including visits to the capital’s iconic church, the rather interesting waterfront, and the newly built opera house ;

• Day 2 – The Golden Circle: The second day of our tour starts with a number of popular attractions, including Þingvellir National Park, Gullfoss waterfall and Kerið crater. All its attractions are located in the south of the island and we will spend the night in Vik ;

• Day 3 – Glaciers and Icebergs: The third day is devoted to visiting the south of the island, with the immense Vatnajökull National Park and the very impressive icebergs of the Jökulsárlón glacier, before spending the night in the Höfn area;

• Day 4 – Heading east: Our fourth day is devoted to visiting the eastern part of the island, with a fair amount of mileage to cover, but on arrival, the stunning Lake Mývatn, where we’ll spend the night, and the superb multicoloured volcanic formations of the Námaskarð pass, with its extraordinary geysers and hot springs;

• Day 5 – Heading north: On this fifth day, departure from Lake Mývatn via Dimmuborgir, Detifoss and Selfoss waterfalls, and finally Goðafoss. We continue on to the small town of Húsavík, which is nice but not much to see, and then on to the Glaumbær Museum, which is quite originally decorated. We spent the night in a very nice Bed & Breakfast around Skagafjörður ;

• Day 6 – Return to Reykjavik: On this sixth day back to Reykjavik, we start the day with the Grábrók volcanic crater, then visit the Icelandic Reykholt facility and finally Europe’s largest hot spring at Deildartunguhver. Don’t miss the Barnafoss waterfalls;

• Day 7 – Relaxation at the Blue Lagoon Blue Lagoon: for this last day before setting off again, we’ve chosen to relax in one of the world’s largest hot springs, the Blue Lagoon, but first we’ll have to do the antigen test we’ll need on our return;

• Day 8 – Return to London in the morning.

So see you soon to discover the beautiful country of Iceland!

Final itinerary

The final route is as follows: