My Trip to Iceland

on

Reykjavik, Iceland 
May 29th - June 2nd, 2018

Iceland Landscape
Why we went:
My friends, Lia and Ting, and myself always joked about running away to Iceland when we were in High School. At one point, we even created a hoax to make our classmates believe we flew to Iceland in the middle of the school week. After plotting our fake trip, we realized that we should actually look into going! We all had part-time jobs and some money saved and figured that this would be a great way to spend our small earnings.

This was my first time taking an international trip without my parents, and my first time in Europe so it was really exciting!

My friends and I Reynisfjara where there are black sand beaches and basalt sea stacks
Itinerary:
We flew with WOW Air (which is now no longer an airline) from BWI to KEF. It was very inexpensive and a really quick flight. We stayed in a hostel that had bunk beds and split the price amongst the three of us which made our housing for the week really inexpensive. We booked two full day tours that would show us everything that we wanted to see in Iceland. One regret is that we did not go to the Blue Lagoon.

Since we did not have that much money, we spent very little on food and drink. Normally, we don't really eat that much, so this wasn't that difficult for us. We saved our money for one really fancy Icelandic meal. I also used my money to buy small knick-knacks and gifts to remember my time in Iceland.
Beautiful Scenery

Experience:
Iceland was definitely one of my favorite trips that I've taken! Since we went in the summer, there was daylight for pretty much every hour in the day. I remember one night we went to bed pretty late around 4am and it was still bright out and when we got up at 11am, it was the same amount of brightness. The sun never went down!

Everything smelled like eggs, which is probably from the sulfur found everywhere in Iceland. I think that, the lack of sleep and nighttime make us go a little crazy!
Me amongst flowers
Since we were trying to save money on the trip, we were only able to bring one small bag each that we lived out of for the week. It was much easier to do than I originally thought.

We got to see breathtaking waterfalls, landscapes, and animals in their natural habitat. We got to learn so much about Icelandic culture and history.
Seljalandsfoss Waterfall
Luckily, everybody pretty much spoke English so there was no language barrier. Additionally, we had a pretty easy time navigating around Iceland and exchanging our money.

Overall, this trip was amazing and I really want to return to Iceland. I think we might have spend $400 total on the entire trip, which is really inexpensive for international travel.