When I told my friends that I wanted to go to Iceland but I did not want to spend an arm and a leg on my trip, they told me I was insane! As I did more research, the more I started to almost believe that they were right. I kept finding stories on how it is expensive to eat and drink as well as finding lodging.
*There was a couple on one of our tours that spend around $10,000USD for almost the same trip I did for $2,500USD...THIS IS INSANE!
Well, although all of those things are true, it is also true that if you plan ahead and do your research, you can absolutely do this trip on a budget! This is how we did our trip to Iceland on a budget and created memories to last us a lifetime!
First, we looked for the time of the year that we wanted to go to see the things that were of our interest. For us, the end of March was perfect because the weather wouldn't be too cold and the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) were still in full effect.
- We use an app called "My Aurora Forecast" to keep us posted throughout the year when these were in effect in different areas around the world. And as seen below, she did not disappoint with her predictions!
Then we looked for airline ticket prices... which is how we found WOW Air and booked our tickets for $99 going and $149 coming back, of course they have to be on certain dates and form certain airports, but they had dates that happened to match ours if we chose the Boston Airport. So off we went to book our flights from Orlando to Boston and back, which funny enough cost us more than what we spent on our flights to Keflavik, Iceland.
The next thing we did was book our tours and must do's on our list.
We booked the Blue Lagoon which was a must for me. Strongly recommend it although some people discourage it, I disagree because the experience was one of a kind!
www.bluelagoon.com - do it directly with them to avoid scams and to ensure you get the package that meets your needs!!!!
The best thing we did was follow a friend's advice and booked our other tours with Extreme Iceland. The tour guides were friendly, knowledgeable and definitely knew how to keep the tour interesting.
One of them even stopped to let us play with the Icelandic Horses!!!
Link: https://www.extremeiceland.is/en/
The wisest thing we did was leave 2 days for us to roam around the city and experience the food and people by ourselves. This allowed us to make friends that we still talk to and are planning on reuniting with soon as well as indulge in the things we were also interested in other than the tours: Food and Beer!
The plates below was from this lovely coffee shop called Borðið: www.bordid.is/
I have a rule for every trip I take, and that is to splurge on one great meal without looking at the price. On this trip I went for the Icelandic Langoustines and they were worth every penny...or should I say Icelandic Kroner!
Primo Ristorante is the place to thank for this wonderful meal! : primo.is/en/
*this meal was around $90USD
Skyr is an Iceland must have!!!! Probably one of the best yogurts I have ever had!
And of course....I had to indulge in my love for beer! Gull was by far my favorite and definitely will be going back to reunite with this lovely beer again! Einstok... we were able to find at Total Wine here in the U.S. so all hopes are not lost to see Gull someday on this side of the Earth!
*The beer prices on average were about $12-17 USD
When it came to booking a place to stay, we used Airbnb which we later learned that the locals do not like very much for different reasons that I will not mention on here. But our experience was amazing so I have to share the lovely place we rented!!!
*It is not far form the center of the city and the place was so spacey and well equipped we could not believe our luck!
Link: https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/69151551
Last but not least, we needed to buy cold weather gear because being from Puerto Rico and living in Florida, we don't see snow and we had no clothes fit for this trip other than our bathing suits!!! This presented a challenge for us because we could not find snow weather clothes in Florida and we wanted to keep well under our budget, so we resorted to our best friend: Amazon. We ordered everything ahead of time so we could make sure everything fit, but prior to ordering we read the reviews and looked at multiple options before placing the orders so luckily, we had no issues there. We got really nice clothes fit for the weather at a very decent price, my favorite were my boots! They were great for hiking and keeping me warm at the same time!
*That was seriously my opinion on these boots and I still stand firm on such opinion! lol
As you can see, full gear mostly purchased from Amazon:
This bag is also another one of my favorites, although once I got to Iceland, I realized, I could have gotten a medium sized backpack rather than a large!
This trip was honestly one of the best ones I have ever taken so far and cannot wait to return to the land of Fire and Ice to experience all the things that I ran out of time for this time around!
I will also recommend for anyone that is planning a trip to Iceland to try out Pablo DiscoBar, Chuck Norris Grill and of course the Icelandic hotdog stands to get the full experience!
I hope my fellow Steemians can benefit from my knowledge and experience and find this a good source and read for those considering a trip to Iceland! Feel free to comment, share or ask questions below!
Much Love!
Edma