Iceland Trip 2019

ICELAND 2019  |  The South Coast  |  Phillip + Tiffany

“Why Iceland?!” so many people asked us! The truth is, I’d been following so many elopement photographers on Instagram over the past 2 years and saw incredible landscapes making me want to go, but never thought I’d be able to! But my sweet Phillip surprised me for Christmas with a new North Face coat, a temporary “adventure” tattoo, and said, “WE’RE GOING TO ICELAND!”

Ya’ll… Iceland blew away ALL my expectations. Our photos don’t do Iceland justice. It’s almost frustrating to look back at the photos knowing how much MORE BEAUTIFUL Iceland is in person!!! Every mile we drove was unique and breathtaking. We could’ve just held the camera out the window the entire drive and photographed every single second!!!

We booked a 7-day South Coast itinerary that allowed us to get a rental car, had our hotels booked each night in a different village, and had our general itinerary planned. I researched and added in extra things that I wanted to see! Phillip drove all 1,300 miles – it sounds like a lot, but it was the most beautiful, relaxing drive we’ve ever done! 🙂

A few random facts and things we noticed:

– EVERYTHING IS EXPENSIVE. Gas is $9 a gallon, and a burger/fries can easily  cost $35. We ate a lot of granola bars, chips, and their amazing $4 Icelandic Hot dogs from gas stations! (Try them LOADED for sure!!!! OMG SO GOOD!)

– Everything is easily accessible! I fully expected to do some major hiking to reach waterfalls and other famous locations. However, most of the sites you can even see from the road, and can easily just walk a few dozen yards to get there!

– A lot of the Icelandic “sights” are PRIVATELY OWNED – isn’t that crazy people actually OWN these waterfalls?! So, we paid parking for lots of these locations.

– Grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants in villages CLOSE EARLY…. Like 5:00pm or 6:00pm. So most of the time, we were out of luck if we didn’t plan ahead!

– The only wildlife we saw were: Icelandic horses, sheep, seagulls, goats, and seals!

– There are LOTS of tourists. I’m sure as Iceland’s popularity grows, it will be even more crowded, but there were so many tour buses at each location!

– The capital city of Reykjavik was easily seen in a day. It was kind of cold, dreary, gray weather each time we were there, so that was a bummer – but the food options there were so amazing! We loved the bakeries, ice cream places, Liege waffles, and “chips” locations. (Email me if you want the exact names of restaurants!)

– We almost DIDN’T do the Blue Lagoon, but last minute bit the bullet and paid the price to go. It was WORTH it and a great way to kick off our trip! So relaxing, and truly wondrous. A few tips – go on your FIRST or LAST day of your trip, since it’s close to the airport. Also, try booking the FIRST time slot of the day! When we got there at 8:00am, we were the first ones in, and enjoyed it “all to ourselves” – it was crazy to experience The Blue Lagoon empty like that!

I can’t even describe how amazing this Iceland trip was. It truly didn’t even feel REAL with the amazing waterfalls, the geysers, the hot springs, the balsalt rock formations, the landscapes, the black sand beaches, the glaciers, the icebergs, the wild seals frolicking, the rainbows, the folklore of trolls, the tiny villages – it felt like we were in a storybook. We already miss it, and are ready to go back to do the Northern part of Iceland this time.

Let me know if you have any questions! I’ll share our personal cellphone photos in another blog post 🙂