Iceland: Planning an Epic Adventure

00:00:00.000 | one of my ideas for an alternate long weekend is instead of picking up that car a couple of

00:00:08.240 | week airport driving into the south and doing this ring with Reykjavik. If you've done that,

00:00:13.280 | or if you just want to be in a place that is less expensive, what I would actually do

00:00:18.080 | is take a domestic flight to Akureyri. So you land, then you're going to get on a very short

00:00:26.400 | domestic flight to Akureyri in the north, and you're going to do your own circle up there.

00:00:30.800 | So it's going to be Akureyri, Mivat, and Husavik, and you're going to have really cool stuff up

00:00:35.760 | there. The internal flight, the round trip to get up there and back to the international airport is

00:00:41.520 | going to be about $140. And that cost is immediately defrayed by virtue of all the

00:00:48.960 | accommodation being so much cheaper up there because it's less in demand. So it ends up

00:00:55.280 | working out in the wash to be free, and you're going to have a lot less tourists up there than

00:01:03.440 | you would in the capital area. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about

00:01:08.240 | upgrading your life, money, and travel. If you're new here, I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and one

00:01:12.480 | of the areas I love optimizing the most is travel. I've been to 60 plus countries, and on every trip,

00:01:17.760 | I love meeting locals, understanding their culture, having unique experiences, and eating all the food

00:01:22.800 | a place has to offer. So a few months back, I started doing episodes on top travel destinations,

00:01:27.840 | and the feedback I got from you all was so positive, I'm going to keep it going. And one

00:01:32.000 | country that's been on my list for years but that I haven't made it to yet is Iceland. I thought

00:01:36.720 | that finally it was going to happen when some close friends of ours got engaged and said their

00:01:41.200 | wedding was going to be there, but it ended up being scheduled only a couple weeks after our

00:01:45.600 | youngest daughter was due, so it didn't happen. But it's not just me that wants to go. I've heard

00:01:50.240 | from so many of you that it's at the top of your list as well, so I thought it would make for a

00:01:54.160 | great episode. And funny enough, I already knew the perfect guest, Brandon Presser, who's joining

00:01:59.520 | me now for his third appearance on the show after we did an episode on Japan a few months ago.

00:02:03.920 | When he was researching a guidebook on Iceland that he was writing, he spent six months in the

00:02:08.960 | country and literally went everywhere. I mean, every restaurant, every hotel, every fjordhead,

00:02:13.920 | every farm that had an extra bed. So when I say he knows the country, he probably knows it better

00:02:18.720 | than most locals do. And I'm excited to talk about when to go, what to see, all the experiences to

00:02:24.320 | have, and everything to eat and drink. I'm really excited for this one, so let's jump in right after

00:02:29.440 | this. Brandon, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me again. Yeah, I mean, it seems

00:02:40.000 | like you knew everything about Japan, you know everything about Iceland. There are even other

00:02:43.680 | countries you know everything about, so I'll probably have you back. But what is it about

00:02:47.360 | Iceland that makes it a kind of place that you would want to learn everything there is to know

00:02:51.600 | about the country? Well, I think I approach travel in thinking about a destination qualitatively and

00:02:59.600 | quantitatively. And so for me, doing Iceland was really, really rewarding when I was writing The

00:03:05.280 | Lonely Planet Guide because I would finish a trip, like six, seven months in the country,

00:03:09.920 | and I'd go, "Okay, I have actually seen everything. I've been to every single place.

00:03:15.920 | I have vetted everything that there is to do. There is no such thing as not found in the guidebook

00:03:21.520 | because if I didn't put it in, it's not worth doing." And so there was a great amount of sort

00:03:26.000 | of quantitative satisfaction that I had seen everything, and then I could kind of pivot to

00:03:31.040 | the quality and then troubleshoot exactly what a perfect trip for any type of traveler and any

00:03:37.760 | length of trip would be like. Okay, but what is it about Iceland? What makes it so special?

00:03:44.080 | On my first trip to Iceland, I learned a lot of Icelandic words, which I think is important,

00:03:48.640 | and we'll get to that soon. But one of my favorite words in Icelandic is "kræma".

00:03:53.600 | "Kræma" means "simmering". And it's in two senses. "Kræma" is simmering like the earth

00:04:01.840 | is shaking. There's volcanoes erupting. It's an active geological environment. And then "kræma"

00:04:09.040 | is simmering as in creativity, the spirit of the local people, the imagination they have,

00:04:16.640 | the cool design, the music. And I think those two things together, the nature and the culture,

00:04:25.360 | make a place like you've never seen before.

00:04:29.840 | Yeah, I've seen so many pictures and I don't know how somehow it's escaped

00:04:33.520 | our travel list for so long, which will change. I'm sure by the end of this conversation,

00:04:38.720 | I'm going to be going to book flights. You know, it's a small country. You keep going back. Does

00:04:45.280 | that mean that there's always something to find, even though you've seen it all?

00:04:48.880 | Definitely. And I think one of the weird things about Iceland is you can visit the same thing

00:04:55.440 | twice and have a really dramatically different experience. So a good example of that would be

00:05:02.080 | a hike, even a one-hour hike along the coast. You could do it at 11pm in June and you have the

00:05:10.560 | midnight sun and there's this eerie quiet in good weather and you're with friends. Or you could do

00:05:18.720 | it in the middle of winter and it's stormy and brooding. And you'll see the country in so many

00:05:25.440 | different ways and that weather and the vibe. It's always something new. But then there's

00:05:34.160 | something else in Iceland that is sort of a big takeaway for me. And a lot of what I learned in

00:05:43.120 | Iceland is something that I actually do in my regular life, which is Icelanders think of their

00:05:49.280 | lives in eras. They don't think of graduating from college and taking on a job in a certain

00:05:57.440 | field and they're like, "Okay, that's it. I'm going to be a lawyer for the rest of my life."

00:06:01.360 | Icelanders have this notion of, "Okay, I'm going to own a restaurant because that's what I'm

00:06:06.160 | passionate about right now." And five years later, they're like, "You know what? I'm going to get my

00:06:09.840 | teaching certificate because I really want to teach elementary school." And then seven years later,

00:06:14.880 | they get interested in being an interior decorator and they open a design firm.

00:06:18.880 | And with such a small population and with such good social equality, these things are possible.

00:06:25.360 | And so I like to think of my trips to Iceland, and I go all the time, as eras. And every time I go

00:06:31.760 | back to Iceland, I sort of reflect on myself. What's changed in me in the last year since I've

00:06:38.240 | been there? What era am I in? Okay, so how do we even start to think about this?

00:06:44.640 | I haven't gone to Iceland. So let's say I'm planning a trip or anyone's planning a trip.

00:06:47.600 | It's a small country. Does that mean it doesn't need the full 2 weeks to give it justice?

00:06:53.920 | Is there too long of a trip? Too short of a trip?

00:06:56.720 | I would say that you can do any trip that you can. It's worth doing. And the first thing to

00:07:03.520 | remember is it's so close to the United States. Of course, it's very close to Europe as well,

00:07:09.280 | depending on where you're coming from. But if all you have is 4 days, we'll get through some

00:07:16.640 | planning ideas for the perfect 4-day trip. I mean, if you have 10 days, even better.

00:07:21.440 | But I kind of want to challenge you to think of Iceland as a place that you can keep going back to.

00:07:25.760 | I think a lot of Americans like to go back to Mexico, and even for a long weekend,

00:07:30.160 | this can be a long weekend place that you can have 6 different versions of that long weekend

00:07:36.400 | and keep going back. Icelandair has a stopover program on the way to Europe. So you can even

00:07:43.040 | tack on 3 nights in Iceland on the way to your trip to Paris for free, or do it on the return.

00:07:51.680 | And so I think the big thing to start off with is that Reykjavik covers a huge amount of the

00:08:00.320 | population and urbanization in the country. So Iceland has 390,000 people, 240,000 of which live

00:08:09.280 | in the Reykjavik area. And so if you're going to plan a trip, you're definitely going to want to

00:08:15.760 | spend some time there. And I would say the first thing to remember is if you're going to math your

00:08:21.120 | trip, 20-25% of your trip should be in Reykjavik, and the rest should be out in nature. I think a

00:08:29.280 | lot of people do the opposite, where they base themselves in Reykjavik and then do trips out

00:08:34.320 | into the nature. You need to keep your time in Reykjavik to around that 20-25%. So a 4-day trip,

00:08:40.560 | do 1 night in Reykjavik. If you're doing a 10-day trip, 2 nights in Reykjavik.

00:08:46.080 | Because you're really going for that mix of nature and culture. But you're really just

00:08:52.960 | going to get a tiny Scandinavian city if you base yourself in Reykjavik the whole time,

00:08:59.600 | which isn't a huge value add. So one challenge I have is we have kids.

00:09:05.360 | Does that mean you're going to be staying in 1 or 2 places or 1 or 2 nights in a place,

00:09:11.200 | then move, then move, then move? Or when you say the other 75% of your trip,

00:09:15.280 | could that be in 1 or 2 places in nature? Yeah, totally. We can jump right into what

00:09:21.440 | a good 4-day trip would look like if you want. I think what you would do is you would land at

00:09:30.320 | Keflavik, the international airport, which is a 1-hour drive from Reykjavik.

00:09:36.640 | And what you'll do is you'll pick up a car in Keflavik, and you actually will drive in the

00:09:41.520 | other direction, not to Reykjavik. You'll drive to southwest Iceland, to towns like

00:09:47.760 | Hetlar, and you'll set up there, get an Airbnb, stay in a hotel, and base yourself there to do

00:09:57.440 | hikes and day trips out to waterfalls or horse farms or whatever you want to do.

00:10:02.800 | And then as the trip comes to an end, you'll drive into Reykjavik, spend a night there,

00:10:09.760 | spend a day there, and then head back to the airport. If you have the means, sneak in a night

00:10:16.800 | at the Blue Lagoon Retreat, specifically retreat because it's absolutely unreal. It's an amazing

00:10:24.400 | hotel. Or get the spa package at the retreat, which gives you a day pass to this private Blue

00:10:30.400 | Lagoon. And then you head home on your flight from Keflavik. That would be the perfect trip.

00:10:35.040 | So we did jump ahead a little bit. Let's rewind a little and just like,

00:10:38.880 | Iceland is a place where you can go and be very cold, or you can go and have sun 24 hours a day.

00:10:45.680 | How do you even think about when to start planning a trip? Is there an ideal season?

00:10:50.080 | Is it different depending on what you want to do?

00:10:53.040 | Yeah. So if you're thinking about it in terms of wanting a lot of daylight, the solstice

00:11:00.080 | in June is going to have 24 hours of daylight. And when you read a lot about Iceland,

00:11:06.800 | a lot of online sources get it wrong. They say June, July, August. But if you're doing the math,

00:11:12.560 | and you're actually thinking about the sun, if it's kind of mid late June that has the most sun,

00:11:18.240 | then it's May and July that have the second most sun. So if you want all of that daylight,

00:11:25.200 | I would look at doing warm weather during the summer. Best hiking is July and August when

00:11:33.360 | practically every pass and every road is open because the weather has warmed.

00:11:38.960 | If you're just looking for that daylight, think maybe May because you're not really in the highest

00:11:45.040 | of high season. But in the way that people know the glory of the midnight sun and all that good

00:11:50.880 | stuff, they think that there's basically darkness for the rest of the year. But I love going in

00:11:57.520 | March and October because you actually still get... So for example, March 1st, you have the sun coming

00:12:04.640 | up at around 8, 830 a.m. and the sun goes down at like 630, 645. You still get a full day of daylight

00:12:12.880 | and you get some glow on the horizon. And you get no tourists really relative to the summer.

00:12:19.360 | And the same goes for October. I think I probably prefer October a little bit more because you have

00:12:27.120 | more green from the summer before the snow cover. March tends to be a little bit more brown. So if

00:12:33.440 | you want those perfect photos, I think October would be my ideal time to go. And I'm actually

00:12:39.760 | going to go this October. And I kind of regret telling everyone that it's the best time to go

00:12:44.400 | because now it's going to be overloaded and my hotels are going to be expensive.

00:12:47.440 | Well, you just got to book it quick. Or you probably know everyone. But what about the

00:12:51.600 | winter? Is there a case to be made to go visit Iceland in December or January?

00:12:57.120 | Yeah, absolutely. Much in the way that the Danes have commoditized this idea of hygge,

00:13:04.320 | this coziness that is so cozy, it's sort of impossible to describe.

00:13:10.160 | Icelanders embrace that as well. And if you're looking for a cozy, more romantic holiday

00:13:18.400 | where you're snuggled up in a cabin or you want to embrace cafe culture in Reykjavik,

00:13:26.800 | you can certainly go in the dead of winter. I think your experience then will be a little

00:13:32.640 | more culturally heavy than it will being out in nature because it's not that Iceland's really,

00:13:38.800 | really cold. So I grew up in Ottawa in Canada, and that is proudly the coldest capital in the

00:13:46.400 | entire world. You would think Reykjavik would be colder by temperature. It's the wind in Iceland

00:13:53.680 | that makes hiking and traveling really difficult. And the wind can be there in June. It can ruin a

00:14:01.840 | hike even on the warmest of days. Wow. Okay. So that's kind of when to go.

00:14:08.080 | Before we go into places, you talked a little bit about the vibe and the experience, but what's the

00:14:14.160 | culture like? What are people like? Are people friendly? Can you get to know them? How would

00:14:18.240 | you describe culture in Iceland? Yeah. I mean, I think our first cultural touchpoint for a lot of

00:14:24.000 | people is Bjork, and she brings this weirdness, right? The swan dress and all of this kind of

00:14:35.120 | stuff. And she is certainly a character. But there is something about her that you find in a lot of

00:14:42.160 | Icelanders, which is this uninhibited creativity. There is no shame in pursuing your passions. And

00:14:50.640 | you find that a lot of people are artists in some capacity or have this propensity towards the

00:15:00.800 | creative. And it can be really refreshing how it's expressed in a cool haircut or people designing

00:15:08.160 | their own jewelry. There's no fear of being judged. But on the other hand, there's this

00:15:14.240 | scanty coldness. You don't get that effusive American-ness when you say, "Hi, how are you?"

00:15:21.520 | We never really mean, "Hi, how are you?" when we say it. Because you're supposed to answer,

00:15:26.880 | "Good, how are you?" and not actually answer. So it's not weird to get a very one line,

00:15:33.520 | "Hi, how are you?" and an Icelander will say, "Good." And it doesn't mean they're not friendly.

00:15:39.440 | When you start befriending Icelanders, their genuineness, their loyalty, and their care,

00:15:49.680 | I mean, it's like no other place on earth.

00:15:52.560 | Wow. And how do you go about doing that if you walk into a bar and you're like,

00:15:57.680 | "Hey, how's it going?" It's like, "Good." Is it just pushing through it?

00:16:02.480 | What's your tips there for people who want to experience that warmth?

00:16:07.040 | So I actually wrote a section in one of my Lonely Planet guides about how to blend in in Reykjavik.

00:16:14.400 | Because it's just so painfully obvious who's a tourist and who's not.

00:16:19.680 | And you have to remember, there's almost 400,000 people in Iceland.

00:16:23.360 | And last year, there were 1.7 million visitors. So if you just took six random people in Iceland,

00:16:31.440 | five of them are going to be visitors. So it's this huge onslaught of people who are not from there.

00:16:37.360 | So one of the things that Icelanders love is swearing in English.

00:16:42.080 | And they will talk amongst each other in Icelandic, but they will say with a very aspirated

00:16:49.440 | Icelandic accent, like, "Fuck!" A lot. And so if you can meet them at that obsessive swearingness,

00:16:59.200 | it'll actually endear the conversation. I think learning a few Icelandic words

00:17:08.800 | also really helps. Everyone speaks English at this point.

00:17:15.040 | But showing some local courtesy will really go a long way.

00:17:19.440 | And I think getting out of Reykjavik and going into smaller towns,

00:17:27.280 | it's a lot easier to make local friends there. Because by virtue of Reykjavik having a lot of

00:17:33.920 | locals, it also has a lot of tourists. A lot of the hotels are there.

00:17:37.520 | But when you're off in the smaller town like Húsavík or Akureyri or Eylsæs,

00:17:45.040 | you'll meet people off faster because they're like, "Who are you? This is a town of

00:17:50.320 | 700 people. I've never seen your face."

00:17:52.240 | Yeah. And you said local courtesies. Are there any kind of

00:17:56.320 | cultural norms to be aware of when it comes to etiquette or things to do or not to do in Iceland?

00:18:03.280 | One of the big things is because it's so windy, like I said, never carry an umbrella.

00:18:08.080 | And Iceland has pretty bad weather on the whole. A friend of mine from Iceland actually texted me

00:18:13.840 | this morning a picture of snow and was like, "This is what's going on here one day away from May."

00:18:21.360 | But never carry an umbrella because the wind will just tear it to shreds.

00:18:26.640 | So if you ever see someone walking down the street in Reykjavik with

00:18:29.200 | an umbrella, you know that they're not from there.

00:18:32.560 | Another thing is there's a lot of stray cats in Reykjavik. If you have a funny comment about

00:18:38.480 | loving cats or knowing about the stray cats, that's absolutely a thing. And a lot of people

00:18:45.200 | at Reykjavik also refer to sections of town by the zip code. So central Reykjavik is 101.

00:18:52.160 | And so people are like, "Oh, where are you staying?" If you try to say the cross street,

00:18:58.800 | that's not what it is. You say, "Oh, I'm staying in 104." Or like, make sure you know the zip code,

00:19:04.160 | the postal code of where you're staying. Because it's like these little things

00:19:08.240 | that will signify that you're not like a total noob.

00:19:11.360 | Even if you are.

00:19:12.000 | Even if you are.

00:19:13.920 | Okay. So I'm ready to start planning. You've sold me. What are some of the real highlights

00:19:21.920 | that someone needs to make sure to include on any trip? And then let's talk about...

00:19:25.760 | You talked a little bit about four days, but let's talk about planning a week or 10 days.

00:19:29.840 | Okay. So to give you a sense of Iceland's size, it's about the size of Ohio.

00:19:34.800 | But you're never going to drive through Iceland in the middle. You're not the Cincinnati,

00:19:44.240 | Columbus, Cleveland, Chevron. You're never going to drive that. Instead,

00:19:48.000 | you're going to have to drive the circumference of the island. And there's a very aptly named road

00:19:54.800 | called the Ring Road. And a lot of people set their sights on the Ring Road when they want to

00:19:59.520 | visit. And I think if you were to complete the Ring Road without stopping, I think it would take

00:20:06.960 | about 17 hours. And so a lot of people think, "Okay, I'm going to do this in 5 days. I'll drive

00:20:14.480 | 5 hours a day. Look at cool things out the window. Stop every once in a while for a cool thing."

00:20:22.240 | I wouldn't attempt the Ring Road unless you have 10 days. And I probably wouldn't even

00:20:29.600 | plan it so that you were moving like 2 hours and then a night, 2 hours and then a night.

00:20:37.280 | I would actually try to book 2 nights every time you stop so that it doesn't feel like a total

00:20:42.480 | slog. And while you will see beautiful things out the window on the Ring Road, and all the car

00:20:48.400 | accidents in Iceland happen because people see something so beautiful that they slow down not

00:20:53.200 | realizing someone's right behind them. They don't pull off the road, that kind of thing.

00:20:58.160 | But you really need to get off the Ring Road. All of the best stuff are all along the detours.

00:21:07.520 | And so giving you the luxury of time will definitely give you the opportunity to see

00:21:12.720 | those cool things. And I would even challenge you to do a different loop and mix it up.

00:21:22.960 | And just look at looping along the West. So that would be going from the airport up through Reykjavik

00:21:30.560 | all the way through West Iceland, the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, all the way up into the West Fjords,

00:21:36.720 | which are kind of like those lobster claws that are snipping off the side of Iceland.

00:21:40.880 | Going through all those fjords all the way up there, and then coming back down past Reykjavik.

00:21:47.680 | There's a different way that you could come down so you're not doubling back on anything you've

00:21:52.800 | done. And that would be an incredible Ring Road alternate that very, very few people do.

00:22:01.280 | So those would be the 2 big driving itineraries that I would put forward. Of course, if you have

00:22:08.560 | 2 weeks or 3 weeks, it's just the more time that you get to marinate in these incredible

00:22:13.360 | destinations. I can kind of go through each region very quick.

00:22:18.240 | Yeah, let's do that.

00:22:18.800 | And how Icelanders kind of see it. So you have the capital area, which is Reykjavik. And then

00:22:24.640 | they have the suburb, Coburg, and then Hafnarfjörður, which is like a little town nearby.

00:22:29.360 | So that greater region is very urbanized. A ton to do. That's bars, clubs, big restaurants,

00:22:40.560 | big, cool hotels. That's where you're going to get your fix of that.

00:22:43.600 | And then right outside the capital region is what you may have heard, the Golden Circle.

00:22:52.960 | This is strictly a tourism product that was created so that people could have a really

00:22:59.040 | fun day trip outside of the city. And basically that touches on 3 geological features. One is

00:23:06.080 | a big geyser called Geysir, which is where the word geyser comes from. And then Gullfoss,

00:23:12.240 | which is Golden Waterfall. And then Þingvellir, which is where the old parliament was and where

00:23:19.120 | actually the continental plates are cracking open. So you get these three really cool things.

00:23:27.440 | It's like a four-hour experience. It's a totally fake thing. And you could certainly drive through

00:23:34.720 | it on your way to something else. What's sort of exciting is just beyond that, Blue Lagoon is

00:23:39.920 | actually opening a brand new second resort up there. It's just about to open. So that's really

00:23:48.400 | exciting and will change the flow of how people are moving through that Golden Circle.

00:23:54.160 | But the thing to remember and before I quickly touch on the regions is that there's no such

00:24:00.240 | thing as THE waterfall that you have to see. You can hike anywhere in Iceland and it's absolutely

00:24:06.320 | beautiful. And there's waterfalls that you think you'll have discovered because there's no tourists

00:24:11.600 | there. So I would kind of stay away from the Instagram version of Iceland that has prioritized

00:24:21.280 | really random places like this waterfall or this gorge or this fjord and keep things a little bit

00:24:31.440 | more up in the air. I think the West travel... I'm going to do it clockwise. So you're leaving

00:24:39.040 | Reykjavik. The West has a few small towns and this very famous Snæfellsnes Peninsula with

00:24:45.600 | a glacier all the way at the tip. And this is where Journey to the Center of the Earth,

00:24:50.080 | the Jules Verne book actually takes place. It's beautiful. There's a lot of hot springs,

00:24:58.400 | horse farms. You can do a loop of the peninsula and it could be its own sort of Golden Circle

00:25:05.440 | in its own right. A lot of the sagas. So Iceland's very rich history that's detailed in these very

00:25:15.360 | sort of Dickensian, like Shakespearean, "he killed this person and that person, revenge killed that

00:25:20.880 | person." A lot of that takes place in the West. Then beyond the West, you go up to the West

00:25:25.200 | Fjords, which I mentioned earlier. This is my absolute favorite region in Iceland. This is

00:25:32.080 | Iceland on steroids. The fjords are fjordier. Everything's really dramatic. The waterfalls are

00:25:39.440 | huge. There's some abandoned herring factories that have been turned into cool places to stay.

00:25:46.320 | It's just totally unreal up there. The best time to visit is July and August for that region

00:25:53.520 | because it can be a little bit trickier to get through some of the roads. There's a lot of road

00:25:59.120 | closures in the off season. But if you are going in the peak of summer, I would devote all of my

00:26:04.880 | energy and go up to the West Fjords. I absolutely love it up there and try to get there as much as

00:26:11.840 | I can, even though it's pretty far out of the way. For what it's worth, for anyone listening,

00:26:16.160 | I just pulled up Google Maps while Brandon's talking so I could kind of just track where you

00:26:20.400 | are. So are we on the north side? What are some towns so I can make sure I'm in the right place?

00:26:28.160 | So each region has their main town. The west is Borganes and Stikisomers. Those are the two

00:26:35.200 | kind of main towns. Then up in the West Fjords, you have Isafjordur. That would be if you were to

00:26:44.800 | want to fly domestically. We'll talk about kind of flying to kind of cheat some time off of your

00:26:52.160 | itinerary. You would fly into Isafjordur and then you could rent a car there and kind of drive around

00:26:56.400 | all those fjords up there. And there's a really famous waterfall. Not to go against what I just

00:27:02.960 | said about not coveting certain waterfalls. But while everyone is kind of going gaga over the

00:27:07.440 | Goodfoss in the Golden Circle, there's Dinyandi waterfall that looks like an actual perfect

00:27:12.320 | Bundt cake. And it flows. It looks like an AI generated a photo of it. It's totally unreal.

00:27:19.040 | There's some really, really, really cool towns up there that have 50 people,

00:27:25.040 | 200 people, all with places to stay. And it really just feels like you're on the end of the earth.

00:27:31.200 | So then going across, so now you're kind of at midnight on the clock, is the whole northern

00:27:39.040 | stretch of Iceland. And the big city in that region is Akureyri. And Akureyri is the second city

00:27:46.160 | of Iceland. And to tell you how much smaller it is than Reykjavik, Akureyri has like 20,000 people

00:27:54.000 | on a good day. But it's really charming because it's the biggest city in the area.

00:28:00.160 | So there's all these cafes, and there's a bookstore, and there are these restaurants.

00:28:04.080 | But when you're driving into the city, you can see it in its entirety. It's so tiny.

00:28:09.760 | There's something really charming about it. And people have a lot of northern pride,

00:28:14.480 | because so many of the rest of the people in the country live down in Reykjavik.

00:28:21.040 | So just beyond Akureyri, there's Mívat, which Mívat actually translates to fly water,

00:28:28.320 | because there's a lot of flies in the spring when everything blooms. But in the summer,

00:28:34.880 | it's absolutely stunning. But that whole area has had a lot of ancient volcanic activity.

00:28:40.640 | And there's some really cool formations to check out. And then Husavi is like a college town

00:28:45.840 | nearby, like a really young, cool vibe, best place in Iceland to go whale watching in season.

00:28:52.080 | You can go out and see dozens of whales. Really cool town to spend some time in.

00:28:58.560 | And then you kind of go along to the east, so you know, like three o'clock, and those fjords

00:29:05.280 | are really thin and jagged and kind of have a similar vibe to the West fjords. Some really

00:29:10.720 | extreme mountains meeting water, some really cool little towns. And then, you know, you kind of

00:29:19.280 | come around to Skaftafell, which is like a really cool geological formation,

00:29:24.640 | the glacial lagoon, which you might have seen on Instagram, and then you have the black sand

00:29:30.720 | beaches in the south, and that crawls all the way back again to that golden circle area.

00:29:37.520 | So you went through the whole south pretty fast. Is that kind of maybe something that's often left

00:29:43.360 | off an itinerary? So the south is extremely popular, because it's super easy to get to and

00:29:49.920 | the roads are always clear and really flat. Because of a lot of northern weather will hit

00:29:55.840 | the highlands of Iceland and dissipate. So you'll get rain, but you might not get as like extreme

00:30:04.480 | winds or, you know, things that would close a road. So I find like a lot of people on short

00:30:11.120 | itineraries will kind of do that southern area. Vík, which is about halfway, kind of six o'clock

00:30:17.760 | when you're looking at Iceland as a clock. Vík is kind of the farthest point a lot of people go

00:30:22.560 | on a short trip. And then everything that's sort of west of Vík are the stuff that people

00:30:30.640 | explore. So there's like a really good waterfall at Skóður, and you can do some really cool hiking

00:30:36.320 | around Skóður. And my favorite hike in all of Iceland is actually from Skóður up over where

00:30:46.560 | that big eruption was back in the, like about 12 years ago. And then you land down into a valley

00:30:54.400 | called Þarsmörk between three glaciers. So it's, the weather's always like pretty good in Þarsmörk

00:31:00.800 | because it's protected by glaciers. And that hike is called Fimvalhals. It takes a whole day to do.

00:31:09.040 | I would definitely recommend having a guide take you to do it. Takes like 10 hours. And then you

00:31:16.320 | end up in Þarsmörk for the night and you could spend a night in Þarsmörk and then arrange to

00:31:19.920 | be picked up and driven back out to the ring road again. That brings up a good point. Guides,

00:31:24.240 | is that something that if you're going to Iceland, you're like, you probably should organize a lot of

00:31:29.040 | guides and trips or can you do this all on your own except maybe a few things like what you just

00:31:33.600 | mentioned? Well, the one thing that a lot of people do is they get in trouble when they take

00:31:38.720 | their little Yaris car on an F road. So F roads are F for Fjall, which means mountain. And it is

00:31:47.200 | strictly prohibited to drive your rental car unless you have like a chonky, you know, SUV four-wheel

00:31:53.440 | drive. But it will say like in a sticker in the vehicle, whether or not that car can go on an F

00:31:58.160 | road, you will know. And I mean, I've in the times that I've driven by broken cars on F roads because

00:32:06.720 | the tourists thought they were superhuman and thought they could do it. I mean, if I had a

00:32:10.000 | nickel, I would honestly be a millionaire. So you need a guide for that. I wouldn't want to

00:32:15.680 | try to get a car across a small river and having it swept away. You know, if you really want to get

00:32:22.720 | into the highlands, go to places like Thorsmark or, you know, have that kind of rewarding experience,

00:32:28.000 | I would absolutely hire a guide. I would also hire a guide because like I said, you don't

00:32:33.920 | have to be precious about the exact trail to hike or the exact, you know, gorge to check out or

00:32:40.960 | waterfall. And what a guide will do is a lot of them have significant training and they're going

00:32:47.280 | to know, okay, you know, the weather is coming in from the West. So we were going to hike in the

00:32:52.640 | West, but today, you know, we'll hike Eastward. We'll have beautiful skies and a chance of northern

00:32:58.240 | lights. And they'll switch it up. And they'll know because they have that experience from growing up

00:33:04.160 | in rural Iceland, what the weather is doing. And they'll just optimize your hike. Like you don't

00:33:09.680 | have to put on your raincoat and have terrible wind just to say that you walk from A to B,

00:33:16.880 | your guide will give you the exact same experience that you didn't even know existed by walking you

00:33:22.080 | from C to D. Okay.

00:33:24.000 | That's the value.

00:33:24.960 | Yeah. And any tips for finding these guides to get a good one? Or is it easy?

00:33:29.360 | Yeah. You know, Iceland is so small and there are a lot of tourism businesses. And I don't

00:33:38.160 | necessarily want to prioritize one over the other because it's such a tiny place. But I will

00:33:43.920 | shout out one of my favorite groups on the island, Midgard Adventures. They're just such a cool,

00:33:51.840 | cool group of people. They're all really young. You know, they're in their late 20s and 30s.

00:33:59.200 | And they have just like this incredible spirit about them. And they really vibe with this like,

00:34:05.360 | "We're not just going to take you to this thing because you saw it on Instagram. We're going to

00:34:09.760 | give you a whole experience." It's not weird to end up at one of their houses at the end of the

00:34:16.000 | day because you guys were bonding over some really cool music and you go and listen to records at

00:34:22.640 | their house and their mom cooks for you or something like that. And I just love them so

00:34:27.520 | much. And I remember the first time that I was in Iceland, like 18 years ago, I met some of those

00:34:34.480 | guys when they were like teenagers. And now they're married with kids. And I just really

00:34:41.040 | respect what they're doing. There's a lot of people doing cool stuff like that. But it's been

00:34:44.080 | fun to watch them over the years. And you mentioned Northern Lights.

00:34:47.680 | And I know we didn't bring that up earlier. If that's on someone's bucket list, I want to see

00:34:52.560 | them somewhere somehow in the world. Is tacking that on in Iceland a good time to do it?

00:34:57.920 | Yeah. So we're actually about to enter the era of solar maximum for Northern Lights. And basically,

00:35:05.440 | what that means is the sun is sort of on a... It's like an 11-year cycle of how it's producing

00:35:12.400 | flares. And so we're coming into solar maximum, which is supposed to be in 2024. But you don't

00:35:18.880 | have to be in full maximum to have great Northern Lights. So they're going to be great this year.

00:35:26.240 | And so there's 3 ingredients that you need for Northern Lights. You need

00:35:30.000 | flares, you need darkness, and you need a lack of clouds.

00:35:34.960 | And a lot of people are going to try to sell you on a Northern Lights tour. It's completely bogus.

00:35:43.040 | You don't have to pay all this money to have someone drive you out into the wilderness.

00:35:47.840 | You can do it yourself because you're just looking up. And if you're going to follow that

00:35:53.040 | 40 itinerary we were talking about where you're going to go base yourself in the wilderness,

00:35:58.240 | in a rural part of Iceland for the majority of your trip, you can just look out the window.

00:36:02.960 | But I've also seen amazing Northern Lights in downtown Reykjavik because when they're good,

00:36:11.280 | they're good. And there's a website that gives you intel.is. It gives you intel and a score

00:36:25.120 | on what the flares are going to be doing that night. And it'll also tell you how much cloud

00:36:28.960 | cover there's going to be. So you can kind of make a judgment. I think the scale goes to 9,

00:36:35.760 | but a 4 is good. If you get a 4, you're like, "Okay, I'm going to see some Northern Lights if

00:36:40.400 | it's clear. The conditions have to be correct." And so because you need darkness, you would think

00:36:47.440 | December and January are actually the best months, but it's not true. Where all the factors collide

00:36:53.840 | the best is sort of in that March and October range. So you're going to get all that daylight

00:36:58.560 | during the day and then you're going to get maximum Northern Light potential. I just wouldn't

00:37:02.880 | fall into the trap of needing to pay someone $150 for them to drive you somewhere when you have a

00:37:10.720 | car and you could ask the hotel you're staying at, "Where is a particularly dark place to go?"

00:37:16.320 | But if you're in Reykjavik, just drive an hour out of the city on the South Coast,

00:37:20.800 | the best Northern Lights I've seen are in that area.

00:37:23.040 | And we didn't talk too much about transportation, but it sounds like everyone needs a car.

00:37:26.960 | Yeah. Again, if you're going in the dead of winter and you just kind of want to be

00:37:32.400 | cozy in a cabin, or you just want to be cozy in Reykjavik and kind of bop around,

00:37:37.040 | you could certainly land in Keflavik and then take the bus up into the... The buses run all the time

00:37:43.200 | and they're like coach buses. They don't feel like a public bus that you might find in a city in the

00:37:48.880 | US. And then you will get to your hotel and you can kind of have your low-key experience in the

00:37:55.760 | city. But yeah, I would absolutely rent a car. It just really maximizes your ability to get

00:38:03.440 | out into nature because that's why you're there, right? Nature and culture.

00:38:07.840 | Any tips on cars? I mean, you mentioned not all of them can go on certain roads.

00:38:12.480 | Is there something you'd be like, "This is what you should be opting for," or

00:38:15.840 | steer clear of all the US chains, like focus on local or anything like that?

00:38:20.240 | There was this really funny era in Iceland about 10 years ago when they got a surplus of Yarises.

00:38:29.920 | And they were so omnipresent everywhere. You'd pull up to an attraction and there would just be

00:38:36.560 | 86 Yarises lined up in a row that locals were calling tourists Yarises. They're like,

00:38:43.200 | "There's another Yaris." And it's diversified since. When you get the four-wheel drive,

00:38:50.880 | you get the opportunity to drive on the mountain roads, so it gives you more accessibility.

00:38:55.520 | They are significantly more expensive as a result. And if you don't have any experience

00:39:01.200 | using four-wheel drives on those roads, this is not the time to start.

00:39:09.040 | So my instinct would actually be to get an affordable vehicle

00:39:14.240 | so that it can get you around. If you're going to rent that Airbnb out in Kosovo,

00:39:22.320 | and you're going to want to drive to a cool restaurant nearby and drive to do a few things,

00:39:28.960 | do that and then save your money to splurge on a guide. And that guide will likely come

00:39:36.640 | with their own vehicle and take you up into the mountains or up into places where you don't really

00:39:42.400 | know where you're going. And it's not the time to try to figure it out.

00:39:45.600 | And then I guess while we're on transportation, you mentioned flights. Is that something people

00:39:49.200 | should be thinking about if they have limited time or everything's small enough that

00:39:55.120 | is it really just kind of like a luxury that's not necessary?

00:39:58.800 | One of my ideas for an alternate long weekend is instead of picking up that car a couple of

00:40:06.800 | weeks airport driving into the south and doing this ring with Reykjavik, if you've done that,

00:40:11.840 | or if you just want to be in a place that is less expensive, what I would actually do

00:40:16.640 | is take a domestic flight to Akureyri. So you land, then you're going to get on a very short

00:40:24.960 | domestic flight to Akureyri in the north, and you're going to do your own circle up there.

00:40:29.360 | So it's going to be Akureyri, Mivat, and Husevik. And you're going to love really cool stuff up

00:40:34.320 | there. The internal flight, the round trip to get up there and back to the international airport

00:40:40.000 | is going to be about $140. And that cost is immediately defrayed by virtue of all the

00:40:47.520 | accommodation being so much cheaper up there because it's less in demand. So it ends up

00:40:53.840 | working out in the wash to be free. And you're going to have a lot less tourists up there than

00:41:02.000 | you would in the capital area. And it comes with a little bit more bragging rights where you're up

00:41:07.440 | in this much farther place. And you're still going to get your little taste of culture in

00:41:12.240 | Akureyri, the little big city of Iceland. But then you're going to go... It has all the things that

00:41:19.120 | the capital region has and that Southwest Iceland has. It has the really cool hot springs and it has

00:41:26.800 | the spas and really great hiking and really cool horse ranches. It's just going to be

00:41:32.800 | way less tourists and way more opportunities to connect with locals.

00:41:41.120 | And I assume you could still go rent a car there and do all those things.

00:41:45.520 | Oh, totally. There's a car rental right at the Akureyri Airport. In a past life,

00:41:49.840 | there actually used to be a direct flight from Akureyri to Copenhagen. So at one point,

00:41:54.320 | that was an international airport too. And I think they're going to bring that back at some point.

00:41:58.800 | Cool. Okay. So we've talked about a lot of regions. Let's zoom in to the capital for a

00:42:05.760 | little bit because I know it's probably going to be a home base for everyone. There's probably...

00:42:11.360 | If someone's looking to have a food nightlife experience, that's probably the place to do it.

00:42:18.000 | Though I imagine you can eat anywhere in Iceland. Of course, people eat wherever they live.

00:42:21.200 | But let's talk about it a little bit.

00:42:23.440 | Totally. Okay. So we'll start with accommodation. I have a really

00:42:29.120 | tricky feeling about Reykjavik because the city center becomes a bit of a tourist town.

00:42:38.320 | A lot of people Airbnb their apartments. There's a lot of hotels that have gone up.

00:42:44.640 | It can be pretty intense. And there's a part of me that gets a little bit sad because it's

00:42:49.680 | supposed to be a city for locals. And then it becomes this hub. So for me, I like to pick a

00:42:56.640 | hotel when I'm in Reykjavik instead of an Airbnb. And that's because it's kind of like that Barcelona

00:43:06.880 | thing where there were too many Airbnbs and suddenly the city had no soul. And I want to put

00:43:15.360 | my money into a hotel in Reykjavik because I believe that to be more culturally sustainable.

00:43:24.080 | And it keeps zoning a little bit better. And the price of an Airbnb is so high in Reykjavik

00:43:33.760 | that you're not really getting a huge value in picking an Airbnb over a hotel.

00:43:39.680 | A lot of the Airbnbs are really small or they're just like a room in someone's house. And I

00:43:43.600 | appreciate having a family and needing two bedrooms or something like that. You'll find

00:43:50.000 | all of that out in the countryside. There's summer houses and cool Airbnbs to rent that

00:43:56.240 | fit families all over Iceland in the countryside. I would stick to hotels in Reykjavik for a price

00:44:05.440 | reason and a cultural sustainability reason. Now, as far as picking things to eat or things...

00:44:12.880 | If we go back to that idea of eras before, a restaurant could be doing wildly successfully...

00:44:24.640 | Could be wildly successful. And the chef could just be like, "You know what? Now I want to be

00:44:28.800 | a schoolteacher. I'm going to close my restaurant." So the shelf life of eating establishments in

00:44:34.640 | Reykjavik is a lot shorter than I would like it to be, especially when I was writing guidebooks

00:44:40.880 | and I needed them to stay open so that my guidebook would stay relevant.

00:44:45.680 | So the best resource, in my opinion, is Grapevine. It's the local paper. All of it's online.

00:44:53.520 | They've done a great job for years and years and years. And they're totally tapped into the

00:44:58.160 | community. On their website, they have a best of list. And I love all of their recommendations.

00:45:06.560 | I always wholeheartedly agree with their point of view. Some of my personal favorites that have

00:45:13.520 | been around for quite a long time are Fish Market, Fish Company, Dill, which is just a great

00:45:22.960 | restaurant if you're celebrating something. It's sort of a cut above and just really wonderful.

00:45:28.800 | Ox is really cool. It used to lurk in the back of another restaurant. Now it's opened in its own

00:45:37.120 | space. And then the cafe culture side, Reykjavik Roasters, they're everywhere now. It started as

00:45:43.840 | one spot. There's a few locations. Great stuff. Great places to sit and hang out.

00:45:49.120 | I really like Cactus Espresso Bar. And all my friends in Iceland are talking about this new

00:45:55.440 | place that's opening called Anna Jona. That is getting a lot of buzz. And I'm really excited to

00:46:01.840 | go check that place out when I go back. The other thing also on the food side

00:46:07.600 | is not to snub fast food. Icelanders love their American style fast food and their candy.

00:46:21.280 | So you got to get a hot dog. And when you order the hot dog, ask it for it, "Einar með ott",

00:46:29.920 | which means one with everything. And it comes with crunchy, funny things on top.

00:46:36.160 | And that's a must. It's like drunk food at three in the morning after you've been out

00:46:42.880 | at the bars. And because Icelanders sort of covet American style fast food or the way that we're

00:46:53.280 | doing food, food halls are really trendy right now. There's just food halls everywhere.

00:46:58.880 | And when Iceland is really busy, it can be hard to get a reservation at a restaurant.

00:47:03.280 | So going for dinner at a food hall is a totally worthy option. Because you don't have to plan.

00:47:11.920 | And then if you're with a bunch of friends, or if you're both in the mood, you're just with

00:47:17.040 | one person, you're in the mood for different things, you can each get what you want.

00:47:20.080 | And I really like the one at Klemmer, that particular food hall. And then there's a new

00:47:27.600 | one at the post office, Posthus, that is pretty cool as well.

00:47:33.200 | And so that's places to go. But what about specific things? Are there things to try to

00:47:38.320 | eat to make sure you get to drink in Iceland that, you know, just if you want to have that

00:47:42.640 | kind of local culinary experience?

00:47:45.200 | Yeah, you know, there's a lot of novelty food in Iceland, like rotten fermented shark,

00:47:52.480 | and all this kind of stuff. And it's pretty gimmicky. And it doesn't make a meal.

00:48:00.320 | So the two things that I always recommend is fish and lamb. And the lamb roam free

00:48:09.760 | in the Icelandic countryside, and they eat angelica. So they have a very distinct taste,

00:48:15.280 | because they sort of absorb that herbaceousness when you eat them. It's really incredible.

00:48:22.240 | And they serve the lamb towards the rare side, it's a really different lamb experience than

00:48:28.000 | what you're going to have in an American restaurant on the fish is just totally incredible, you know,

00:48:33.920 | everything is fresh, freshly caught, and you're going to find it in a lot of different forms.

00:48:39.760 | At the more down to earth restaurants, a lot of restaurants in the countryside,

00:48:43.600 | you're going to get lamb soup, or lamb stew, or a fish soup or a fish stew. And that's

00:48:51.680 | the perfect way to fill up for significantly less money while you're on the road. And you know,

00:48:59.440 | it's in a vat. So like it comes quick, and they serve it to you. By far my favorite thing is to

00:49:05.680 | eat all like grandma's recipe, even at the nicest restaurants.

00:49:10.000 | And is I'm thinking about all these places you mentioned, is Reykjavik small enough that it's

00:49:14.480 | like it's pretty easy to get around? Do you if you're there for two or three days? Do you need

00:49:18.000 | the rental car there to go check these places out? Or how do you think about that?

00:49:22.800 | Absolutely not. If you're planning to only go to Reykjavik on your trip for a few days,

00:49:27.920 | do not get a rental car, because parking is a total nightmare in the city center. You know,

00:49:34.160 | all the locals have vehicles because they want to go out to their summer houses on the weekends,

00:49:37.840 | you know, they want to get out of the city and explore. And a lot of their needs like a lot of

00:49:42.880 | the big grocery stores and malls and you know, the shopping, the big box shopping that they need

00:49:48.480 | to do is a little bit outside the city center. So they need a car for that. I would absolutely

00:49:53.200 | advise against getting a vehicle in the city. Socially, you know, beyond restaurants socially,

00:50:02.000 | right, there's bars and all that. But the big social pastime is the hot pot culture,

00:50:06.720 | the hot springs culture. You know, there's water everywhere. And, you know, Blue Lagoon has been

00:50:13.120 | famous for a very long time. It's right near the airport. So a lot of people go,

00:50:17.280 | but I would highly recommend going to a municipal pool. While you're in Reykjavik,

00:50:23.120 | there's a lot of them. My favorite one is Vesterbyrlajk on the west side,

00:50:30.240 | and it's walkable from the city center. I've been there 300 times maybe, and it's totally

00:50:36.720 | walkable from the apartment that I used to have, which was right in the city center.

00:50:40.160 | And there's just a social element to bathing in the water. It's like the perfect hangover cure.

00:50:49.600 | I like going in the evenings. At the end of the day, it's like you've been walking around,

00:50:54.160 | your legs are tired, maybe you were on a hike. And I would absolutely do it in central Reykjavik,

00:51:01.360 | in addition to doing it all over the country. But this is a really important part of the Icelandic

00:51:06.400 | experience. And a lot of fancy hot spring destinations have opened. There's Sky Lagoon.

00:51:13.840 | There's actually one called Krøyma, Simmering, like we were talking about before.

00:51:17.760 | There's Secret Lagoon. There's a new one that opened called Kvamsvik that's just outside the

00:51:23.120 | city. You'll need cars to get to these. They're significantly more expensive,

00:51:27.760 | but if you think of it as entertainment, instead of a swimming pool, it becomes worth the money,

00:51:35.040 | in my opinion. And you can get a beer at a lot of them.

00:51:37.840 | An advice someone gave me was that all around, most towns have these community hot springs.

00:51:42.880 | They're free and open to the public and great way to meet people. So it sounds like you could

00:51:47.440 | balance both of those and do this as you're traveling around the country.

00:51:51.200 | Yeah, there's a whole mixed bag of municipal pools all over the country. So a little

00:51:54.960 | municipality will have a pool where you could do laps and then a hot tub next to it where you can

00:52:02.480 | soak. And you have to pay a fee to use those. And then there's just ones in the wild where

00:52:08.080 | people have cemented a little thing or there's a barrel and you get pointed in the direction.

00:52:14.720 | You can actually look on Google. If you Google hot springs, there's so many websites that are

00:52:19.280 | trying to commoditize this, make money off of you for clicking it. You could just get it on

00:52:23.360 | Google Maps. There's lists everywhere of where these are. My favorite are up in the West Fjords

00:52:30.560 | along the Strandir coast. One is called Draungsnes and the other Krasneslaug. Both of

00:52:39.840 | those. They're my two favorite in the wild hot pots. They're not quite free anymore.

00:52:49.040 | A lot of the ones that are out in nature, there'll be like a little donation box,

00:52:52.400 | which is tricky because you don't need to take out cash in Iceland at all. Everything you can

00:52:57.840 | do on a credit card. But there is an expectation now if you're a tourist that you do leave

00:53:03.840 | something when you go to the more wild ones out of courtesy, because they have to be cleaned and

00:53:09.760 | they have to be maintained. And with more tourists comes more usage and you need to keep the water

00:53:16.800 | clean. You have to bathe in a shower completely naked before you put your bathing suit on to go

00:53:24.400 | in. That is a social requirement. It is a must. A lot of the fancier facilities have private showers.

00:53:31.680 | All the municipal pools just have nozzles. You must get naked. A lot of the facilities used to

00:53:37.840 | have professional watchers that would watch you bathe to make sure that you were using soap to

00:53:44.400 | clean under your arms and your bathing suit area. Wow. Okay. That just reminds me, there's a cultural

00:53:50.400 | norm. Make sure you know that so you don't get in trouble. Any other random things like that

00:53:54.640 | to keep in mind? My ultimate favorite municipal pool

00:53:59.360 | is the one in Hofsos in the Northwest. That one's super cool. It's built almost like an infinity

00:54:07.920 | pool. It's pretty incredible. The ones you have to pay $50 to go to are kind of similar. So if

00:54:15.360 | you're in the region, detour to Hofsos and definitely go to that one. Awesome. Any other

00:54:19.440 | things in Reykjavik to not miss, whether it's museum, art, nightlife, other things?

00:54:26.000 | I would definitely refer back to Grapevine for the latest on cool shops to check out. There's

00:54:32.400 | just a roaring design culture. And a lot of shops will have small boutiques of things that people

00:54:39.840 | are making locally or doing. And all over the city, shopping is super fun. I don't know,

00:54:47.840 | I think by virtue of relishing experiences and knowing just the incredible nature that Iceland

00:54:56.160 | has... I don't love being cooped up in museums when I'm in Iceland. That personally isn't my

00:55:02.640 | favorite thing to do when I just want to be out and exploring all of the destination's natural

00:55:09.360 | virtues. So there's a few really wonderful museums. I definitely don't want to bash them.

00:55:16.160 | I like cafe culture. I like holing up and having an incredible cup of coffee,

00:55:24.320 | people watching, seeing who else is there, going to like cool shops,

00:55:28.480 | dialoguing with the people who own those shops about like the traditional

00:55:34.160 | loopy sweaters that they're making out of wool, from that to really cool bathing gear,

00:55:43.040 | interior design stuff, that vibe.

00:55:48.000 | I mean, we hit a lot of things. We talked about hot springs, we talked about hiking,

00:55:53.360 | northern lights, eating. What about the language? You said it'd be good to learn a few words.

00:55:57.840 | Any tips for which ones and where and how?

00:56:00.560 | Yeah. I mean, there's a few pronunciation conventions that can be really confusing.

00:56:06.080 | The rite of passage in Iceland is trying to name that volcano that erupted about 12 years ago,

00:56:13.600 | that had the really, really long name. And there's like 100 YouTubes of news anchors

00:56:18.240 | flubbing the pronunciation. It's Eyjafjallajökull. And if you can nail that,

00:56:26.320 | people will be really impressed. So I would work on that before you arrive.

00:56:29.840 | A few things like on signs that you want to check out to kind of understand that there's a few extra

00:56:38.240 | letters in the Icelandic alphabet. So there's the Eð, which is like a D with a slash in it.

00:56:44.960 | And that is pronounced like a Þ. And then there's Þórn, which is like a P, but the cup of the P

00:56:53.520 | is like a little bit lower. It's sort of in the middle of the stem. And that's a Þ, like thing.

00:56:58.960 | And then there's a O with an umlaut that's like Ø. And then a double L is actually like

00:57:09.040 | the T-L in kettle. So Fjall is like F-J-A-L-L, or like there's a place called Hetlisandur.

00:57:19.200 | So it's not Hellesander, it's Hetlisandur. And it's little things like that, that if you can

00:57:25.440 | get them right, like an H and a V has like a K sound. So there's a town outside of Reykjavik

00:57:32.800 | called Hveragerdi, but it starts with an H. So you'll kind of lose people if you're like,

00:57:39.200 | "Where's Hvaragerdi?" It's Hveragerdi. So it's tricky, but you need to get these

00:57:45.840 | things in order for people to properly understand you. The J is like a Y. So again,

00:57:52.160 | the word for mountain, Fjall is F-J-F-J-A-L-L-T-L. Those are just a few examples.

00:58:00.000 | So unlike some places where it's like, "Oh, maybe I should learn where's the bathroom,

00:58:03.040 | where's this?" It sounds like maybe the better thing to focus on is just try to nail some

00:58:06.960 | pronunciation. So when you're talking about places to go and landmarks and stuff like that,

00:58:12.240 | you could just say them. Yeah. The ones that I just

00:58:15.360 | mentioned, I would go back and re-listen if you are going and try to get those.

00:58:20.320 | That's like a good five or six to nail. There's a few more, but I feel like that might be too deep

00:58:28.000 | of a dive. That's a really good start. If there are three words that you're going to remember,

00:58:33.520 | gratitude, I think, is always the most important to express gratitude. So thank you, tak fredigt.

00:58:39.280 | And then people say bless, like bless you, bless when they say goodbye. So it's not

00:58:50.960 | religiously charged. It's just when you leave a store or say goodbye to someone, they will say

00:58:59.440 | bless to you, which can be a little confusing if you don't know what it's for. And then

00:59:03.520 | good day, good day. Okay. All right. Any other kind of secret places,

00:59:11.120 | that great Iceland vibe, maybe not as crowded that you want to tap on?

00:59:16.240 | I really can't overexpress how much in the way that so many Icelanders live in the Reykjavik

00:59:23.280 | region. So many tourists congregate in the Reykjavik region. If you have the energy to get

00:59:31.520 | far away out of the region, the east fjords or the west fjords, you will have an experience that you

00:59:41.680 | covet with significantly less people. So if that is something that's really important to you,

00:59:48.000 | put in that energy, take that domestic flight, or put in the drive. And you'll get that return.

00:59:56.000 | And I know you don't have kids, but you've met plenty of people that have traveled around

01:00:01.440 | Iceland, kid-friendly place, culturally and some of the activities?

01:00:06.480 | A wonderfully family-friendly destination to the point where in the news, you'll hear

01:00:11.120 | the biggest scandal that happens is a teenager stole a car and drove it a block,

01:00:17.840 | and then got out and returned the keys to the owner. It's that kind of cat stuck in tree.

01:00:24.880 | It's that kind of destination where it's super safe. And there's a culture of leaving your

01:00:31.120 | children in their prams outside of a restaurant, because it's supposed to be good for them to be

01:00:37.360 | kind of bundled up in the cold. You'll find that all throughout Scandinavia, but it's not weird

01:00:42.400 | to go to brunch, but leave your baby outside. Yeah. So this is something my wife and I were

01:00:46.880 | talking about, because it's also true in other countries, like you said. And so don't be alarmed

01:00:51.520 | if you see that here, because I think in the States, people would definitely freak out.

01:00:56.560 | Yeah, totally. And I mean, kids are going to love this. It's such a candy-friendly destination.

01:01:01.680 | And there's skir, also is very proteinous kind of yogurt. That's absolutely delicious.

01:01:06.960 | But there's a lot of things that kids are going to love. The amount of licorice, there's a bizarre

01:01:12.160 | licorice obsession. And they have all these really cool candies. Ryn is my favorite. And it's

01:01:18.960 | basically like a KitKat in a Rice Krispie treat dipped in chocolate. And every time I go,

01:01:29.040 | I bring back like 20 boxes of Ryn. And they love their licorice dipped in chocolate as well,

01:01:36.720 | which is like my... I'm not like a salty, sweet person, but Ryn is like my absolute guilty pleasure.

01:01:42.640 | Wow. All right. I feel like we hit so much. Anything we missed that you want to make sure

01:01:47.680 | we cover? Because I don't know, I'm ready to go. And I want to make sure I have it all.

01:01:53.360 | I would definitely do some research on the hot springs. There's like Vörk in the east,

01:01:58.960 | Forest Bath in the north, Geosi and Husavik. These are all really, really cool hot springs to check

01:02:05.280 | out. I would also challenge you to eat sort of unconventionally when you're outside of Reykjavik.

01:02:13.680 | One of the best meals I've had in Iceland was at the museum in Borgarnas, which is in the west.

01:02:18.720 | It's the settlement museum, which tells the story of the sagas and Iceland settlement.

01:02:23.280 | But they have really good food at their buffet there. So a lot of the conventions and the way

01:02:28.400 | we think about where to eat and what's cool, throw that all out. You can go to a gas station

01:02:33.440 | in Iceland and have a really good hot dog. So put all that prejudice aside.

01:02:39.040 | Amazing. So I've talked to a few people that are planning trips this summer. And they're saying

01:02:43.120 | Iceland is a little packed. I know you have a few places that you wanted to recommend if someone

01:02:47.840 | wants that experience, but maybe doesn't, for whatever reason, want to make it to Iceland,

01:02:51.360 | or Iceland's too full. How do you get that same similar vibe somewhere else?

01:02:54.960 | Yeah. There's a lot of places in the greater region that are going to give you a lot of

01:03:01.840 | things that Iceland gives you, but without that tourist traffic. And one of my favorite places

01:03:07.680 | in the entire world is Newfoundland, the easternmost province in Canada. And a lot

01:03:12.560 | of people... I don't know. Canada has a problem with perception. People don't find Canada sexy.

01:03:18.000 | But Newfoundland is an island. It looks like it broke off Iceland at some point,

01:03:23.600 | millions and millions of years ago. It has all the fjords. It has this really distinct culture.

01:03:29.040 | Local Canadians actually still have a brogue, a Scottish brogue in some of the smaller towns.

01:03:35.200 | And you could do a really cool trip from the States where you fly in to the capital. You

01:03:40.480 | rent a car for like four or five days, drive up to the Bonavista Peninsula, stay at really cool

01:03:46.000 | inns and B&Bs, or even rent a cottage. And you're going to get like icebergs, whale watching,

01:03:52.640 | amazing hiking. One of the best hikes in Canada, the Skurwink Trail is up there.

01:03:58.160 | It's just one of the most stunning places on earth. And it's so cheap because it's the Canadian

01:04:03.760 | dollar and not the kroner or even a euro in Europe. It represents amazing value.

01:04:11.040 | I love northern Norway as well. There are tourists up there. But Lofoten is a peninsula of islands

01:04:21.360 | that have all been strung together by bridges. I am obsessed with that area. And it's the most

01:04:27.760 | dramatic mountains and water. You can rent these old fishermen huts, these bright red cabins right

01:04:36.080 | out on the fjord. That area is really, really special to me. I've been there five or six times

01:04:43.120 | and I'm always desperate to go back. That will give you a lot of the same energy. And you can

01:04:48.320 | really visit that any time of the year as well. And Greenland is ascending right now. They're

01:04:54.880 | actually building new international airports that are going to have direct flights from the US.

01:05:01.680 | And that's going to start in late 2024, early 2025. And it's just going to completely change

01:05:08.240 | the island. You're getting everything, this incredible, curious Greenlandic culture,

01:05:16.400 | flashes of Scandinavia, and that Danish vibe and extreme desolation and nature.

01:05:24.400 | I'm really excited for Greenland to evolve because right now you have to fly actually

01:05:30.080 | through Iceland or through Copenhagen. So it's a really big trek for an American.

01:05:34.880 | But when those airports open, everything is about to change.

01:05:38.560 | Wow. Yeah, you might be the first person I've ever talked to that's even been to Greenland.

01:05:42.480 | So... Yeah, I've been twice.

01:05:44.000 | But I think I remember when I introduced you in a previous episode, it was like you've probably

01:05:49.440 | been to 130 plus. So you've probably been almost everywhere. Places that most of us have never been.

01:05:54.000 | Any other places this year you've got on the docket that you're excited to check out?

01:05:59.040 | Well, I'm definitely going back to Iceland and spending some time there. I'm really

01:06:04.880 | excited to get back because it's been about, I don't know, like 18 months.

01:06:11.520 | I don't know. I'm pretty open. The summer is looking really, really, really busy.

01:06:18.320 | As far as movement, there's still a lot of pent up

01:06:22.640 | kind of anger that the pandemic had us all shut in. Prices are really, really high. I'm

01:06:29.680 | really interested in kind of dipping into more emerging destinations. I'd really like to visit

01:06:34.800 | the Caucasus and Georgia in particular. That's high on my to-do list. I'm going to go back to

01:06:41.520 | Japan at the end of the year again because I always spend November and December in Japan.

01:06:45.680 | I'm excited about some islands in the South Pacific that are ascending and some West Africa.

01:06:52.000 | Wow. All right. This has been incredible. I keep saying it, but it's like we've been

01:06:56.800 | talking about taking this trip to Iceland for almost a decade. And now I feel like as soon as

01:07:01.280 | Amy hears this episode, she's like, "All right, let's get it booked."

01:07:04.000 | All right, Liz, one more thing that I wanted to mention. The Icelanders believe in a hidden world

01:07:10.800 | and hidden people, which means that there are elves that we can't see that are lurking in

01:07:16.640 | stone formations. You'll find a lot of the names of things like farms or elf church or elf lake,

01:07:23.840 | like Alftavat, elf lake. The government actually has someone who can communicate with a hidden world

01:07:31.280 | on Retainer. And so when they want to build a new road in the middle of a lava field,

01:07:36.320 | they actually have to consult her to check if the elves are okay with their land being touched.

01:07:42.480 | And I just love that there is this very quirky facet that underlies your experience.

01:07:50.400 | Is there any way that someone traveling could soak that in? Is there some elf tour or

01:07:56.160 | can you meet with this government representative of the elves?

01:08:00.320 | There is. There's actually a place called the Elf Garden in Hapnafjordur, which is the town

01:08:08.080 | just outside of Reykjavik. A really easy drive if you have a car. It's in the greater Reykjavik

01:08:13.920 | area. And it's the woman who used to work for the government doing this. And she has an elf center.

01:08:20.400 | And you can learn where the elves are hiding. And if she's around, you can talk to her.

01:08:24.480 | Okay, Brandon, I have one more thing. It's a little bit of a long shot. And so feel free

01:08:29.760 | to say no. But on the wild chance that we could get a handful of people in the All

01:08:35.920 | the Hacks community interested to plan a trip to Iceland, would you be up for like being a

01:08:41.840 | part of that and organizing some kind of like All the Hacks Iceland experience that, you know,

01:08:48.240 | meets the needs of these people? So if we're coming with kids, like we'll find someone,

01:08:51.920 | maybe a local teacher who can watch kids during the day. So we can go on some of these adventures

01:08:55.520 | if kids are young, that kind of stuff. Oh, definitely. I mean, three phone calls,

01:09:00.800 | and we'll have one of the best guides all to ourself to take us on the hidden hikes.

01:09:06.160 | Check out some of those hidden hot springs that no one else knows about.

01:09:10.080 | Meet some locals, spend time with them. Oh, yeah, let's do this.

01:09:14.320 | Okay, so I'm gonna go all thehacks.com/iceland. I'm gonna put a small survey.

01:09:18.720 | This is not something that I'm saying is happening, right? This came up on the fly.

01:09:22.480 | But if you go to allthehacks.com/iceland, you can answer a couple questions that I'll write up.

01:09:27.440 | And maybe we'll see if this can happen. Where can people stay on top of all the travels you're

01:09:32.560 | doing, everything you're writing? Because you just have such a great wealth of knowledge when it

01:09:37.120 | comes to all this stuff. I try to post organically on Instagram, you know, when I'm on a trip

01:09:42.480 | researching for... I write mostly for magazines now. I write a lot for Bloomberg and Vogue and

01:09:48.080 | Condé Nast Traveler and Travel and Leisure. So on my Instagram, I'm just kind of posting

01:09:54.080 | different stories that I'm writing, different places that I'm researching.

01:09:57.760 | I really love connecting with all the listeners there. It's been super fun. When we did the Japan

01:10:02.720 | episode, I get like a message a day from people that are currently in Japan, like with a photo of

01:10:09.200 | one of the restaurants I recommended being like, "Oh my god, I just ate here and it was so good.

01:10:13.200 | Thank you." And that is for me... I just want people to enjoy travel. It's become so expensive

01:10:20.880 | that I want people to get the most out of their experiences.

01:10:24.560 | So feel free to reach out to me there. I have a personal website, brandpresser.com. It's not a

01:10:29.280 | blog. It's just where I aggregate a lot of my information and books and articles.

01:10:33.520 | Yeah. And you didn't say it, but it's brandpress is your Instagram.

01:10:36.880 | Oh, yeah. I'm so bad. I'm so bad at being like, "Yo, follow me." Then I didn't even say what my

01:10:42.400 | handle is. Yeah. Brandpress. The first 5 letters of my first name and last name.

01:10:46.080 | Awesome. Alright. Thank you so much for being here. I will

01:10:48.960 | send you some notes when we're there, which hopefully isn't too far from now.

01:10:52.640 | Awesome. Thank you so much.

Iceland: Planning an Epic Adventure

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