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Reyk-ing In The Sights

A couple of weeks back, we got the following article request in our inbox:

“When's the best time to head to Iceland and what is there for a teenage girl to do there when accompanying travel ninja mum (me)?”

No worries whatsoever, anonymous travel ninja mum - we’re here to help. Here are our thoughts:

Seljalandsfoss - one of the world’s most stunning sights, and a waterfall that you can actually walk all the way around.

When to visit

This is a bit of a piece-of-string question, to be honest! The perfect time really depends on what you and your daughter are going to see, and Iceland is legendary for its unpredictable weather patterns that keep locals and visitors alike on their toes.

Price-wise, you’ll find that flights tend to get most expensive during the summer-holiday peaks of June-July and the Christmas period, before dipping again in February. Our cheap flight alerts are generally £40-60 for a return from London airports, and they do come up relatively regularly, so keep your eyes peeled!

The country is warmest in June-August (we’re talking highs of 20C), although you’ll also be looking at 13-20 hours of sunlight during these months. Hotels should have blackout blinds, but you might want to invest in a sleep mask just in case.

This isn’t just worth considering for the sake of your comfort. During the winter snows, you’ll have fewer options for hiking, and driving conditions might be a bit more stressful if the two of you want to go on a road trip across the Golden Route. (Rough Guides have some great tips more generally for flying, driving or cycling across the country.)

But visit in the winter, and some very different options will open up: you’ll be able to enjoy skiing and snowboarding, and check out Iceland’s awesome glacial ice caves.

Northern Lights tours also generally won’t start running until September-October, when the ample darkness opens up more opportunities for seeing those elusive colours in the sky. While it’s never wise to plan your trip entirely around seeing the Lights (even with the best planning around weather conditions, you’re never guaranteed to see them), it’s definitely something to consider.

We lava bit of volcanic photography - this was taken during the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption.

If you aim for September, you’ll just about catch the start of the Northern Lights season, and the end of the whale-watching season, with temperatures hitting highs of 15C and maybe 11 hours of daylight.

This might end up feeling like a bad compromise, though, especially with the rains that start to drive through Iceland through the autumn - honestly, we’d suggest that the two of you draw up a wish-list for your top sights and experiences and then pick a date from there.

If it helps you to cast the deciding vote, Iceland boasts a wide variety of live multi-genre music festivals across the calendar year - from summer solstice raves to deep-of-winter parties. Check the 2022 dates and see if there’s something on that both generations can enjoy!

The Westfjords region is home to magnificent black lava landscapes, but also running events, blues festivals, and much, much more.

Love the weird and wonderful?

Iceland has an incredible nationwide love of weird folklore and the supernatural - a 2017 survey found that 54% of Icelanders believe in elves - so lovers of fantastical and fearful sights can have a ton of fun here.

From the Sea Monster Museum of Bildudalur to Hólmavík’s museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery (which features a grisly exhibit of human skin trousers, entertainingly called the ‘necropants’), there’s a lot of strange cultural sights to check out.

But you can also just grab a guide-book and set out into the wilderness - from geothermal mud pools haunted by witches to lava formations that might just be gateways to hell, there’s rarely a natural landmark in Iceland that doesn’t have its own creepy or magical stories underlying it.

Iceland also boasts a lot of bizarre and often deeply silly architecture scattered across its landscape, which is perfect for anyone looking for TikTok or Instagram fodder.

Want to check out a giant red chair perched on a cliff, overlooking a mountain that’s named after Batman? They’ve got you covered. Want to see an abandoned Dr Who-style phone box, or a mysterious (and functioning) toilet in the middle of an empty valley? Iceland has it all.

And finally, if your teen is a Game of Thrones fan, you can book a tour to see some of the bloodiest, wildest, most White Walker-filled locations from the show (or just get in the car and see them for yourselves for free).

We remember absolutely nothing that happened after GoT Season 6, but it is very pretty.

Love athletics and adventure?

Oh, boy, where to start? Close to Reykjavik itself, you can drive out to the Reykjanes peninsula for some world-class surfing (there are surf schools available, and plenty of shops where you can buy a good thick wet suit to minimise the inevitable shivers), or take a trip out to the small Bláfjöll ski and snowboarding resort during the winter.

You can also book tours to check out Iceland’s glaciers - walking, snowmobiling, and sledding are all options - and lava fields, as well as subterranean adventures in the magnificent blue-crystal ice caves or into the underground heart of a dormant volcano, or even diving between two tectonic plates in the Silfra Fissure.

Once you’ve earned a bit of RnR, the two of you can put in some time in one of Iceland’s many glorious geothermal spas, drinking in the landscape as you relax and revive.

Love the city sights?

If you do opt for a winter trip, Reykjavik has a lot of great Christmas markets, as well as a chance for ice skating in the city centre.

Reykjavik is one of the safest cities in the world, with free wi-fi pretty much on tap, so if the two of you want to spend a bit of alone time exploring independently, you won’t need to worry too much!

You and your daughter can get a Reykjavik City Card for free admission to galleries, museums and swimming pools across the city (here’s a guide to the best pools), as well as free bus travel and extra discounts on restaurants, tours and more.

If your teenage companion just wants to sit back and play on her phone for a bit, it’s worth checking out Reykjavik’s many trendy coffee joints - which offer board games, roasting workshops, DJ booths and more.

Guide To Iceland also has the scoop on the city’s regular weekly events (scroll right down), many of which are free to enter - from stand-up comedy (sometimes in English) to live music. The City Library has a regular schedule of art, photography and social media workshops, too.

We’d single out the quirky indie Bio Paradis cinema, which reopens on July 1st, and shows a mix of edgy cult classics and fan-favourite films with English subtitles.

But for the best tips, it’s worth seeking out ideas from young Icelanders - this article in Indie Mag is a couple of years old but has some great advice around checking out the city’s creative scene.

Anything else to know?

• While you can expect a lot of English-fluent Icelanders, it’s always useful to have some key phrases prepared. (Famously, Icelanders don’t often use ‘please’ except in formal situations - you can generally substitute ‘takk’, or ‘thanks’ when ordering food or drink.)
• Guide To Iceland has some great advice on saving money. A lot of websites warn against visiting 10-11, one of the country’s most widespread but expensive supermarkets - with a nasty habit of apparently jacking up their prices at night.
• Here’s a beards-and-bellies-filled demonstration of glima, Iceland’s belt-tugging Viking martial art.
• If you book a car, Two Wandering Soles has some good advice around affordable rentals.
• We’ll leave you two to choose your Icelandic music for the road trip: Björk, Of Monsters And Men, or Viking death metal?
• And finally, here are a few delightful Icelandic phrases from Mental Floss. During the course of your trip, you and your teen may need to tell each other, “on with the butter” or “I WILL FIND YOU ON THE BEACH”, so it’s good to be prepared.

Any other Icelandic tips for our intrepid mum-and-daughter duo? Let us know and we’ll share them next week!

Our Pick of the Clicks

• Pity the cyclist who safely visited some of the world’s “most dangerous” countries - and then immediately got his bike nicked outside of a Wetherspoons in Reading when he returned to the UK.
• The BBC is shining a light on the Kystriksveien - the 670-km Norwegian coastal drive that might just be the world’s most beautiful road trip.
• The Independent has been reporting on the ‘best European transport deal in history’ - if you’re heading to Germany in June, July or August this year, you can now pick up a month’s rail-card from Deutsche Bahn, for travel across the country, for just €9.
• How do pilots actually know where they’re going? The Points Guy explains.
• ‘Revenge travel’ isn't about catching a flight to beat up your school bully 30 years later - it’s the phenomenon of splurging on a big trip abroad after two years of COVID-19. CNN has written an explainer about what that means and how you, too, can fly hard with a vengeance.

Nebraska’s epic Highlander-esque pool-noodle battle between people named Josh has taken place for its second year running.

(Over $21,000 was raised for charity by the event, and 5-year-old Josh Vinson Jr once more reclaimed the title. Hooray!)

Thanks for reading!