My Icelandic Experience (Favorite Spots + Travel Hacks)
My friend takes cool photos — Courtesy of Chad Quartaro
What ended up saving us was Snap Map… (Travel Hack!)
Volcano Peak (Left) & Lava Flow (Right) — Courtesy of Ryan Cerrone
If you make this hike, you will see three volcano craters from the Fagradalsfjall (1 peak) and Geldingadair Volcano (2 peaks). Both volcanoes erupted this past August!
In the picture above on the right, you see the eruption’s aftermath with this newly laid-out ash that goes on for miles.
This hike is a 1-hour drive from Reykjavik, though, along the way, you’ll find the famous geothermal spa Blue Lagoon, so you can stack your itineraries accordingly.
It is a 4.5 miles hike where you’ll see the newly formed lava ash and peaks of two volcanoes along the way. As the molten lava below is still cooling, you’ll see steam coming from the ash. If you’re interested in checking this out, keep an eye on the status of the volcanoes because experts say there is a chance it will erupt again.
So about our off-path story…
While the sun was setting, on the way back, we wound up on this off-trail path which included a 75-degree incline climb down this mountainside. I say climb, but it ended up being spurts of very controlled foot slides in the divots of the mountain. It wasn’t all bad, however. On the way back, you could see the sunset christened over the mountainside with the Labrador sea in the crevices between the mountains. It was gorgeous.
We later discovered that we were on the trail for most of it, but there was a way around that climb down the mountainside we did. I would not recommend doing it.
What ended up saving us was Snap Map! While I was trudging along, I was browsing my Snapchat. I look at the map view to see our trail drawn in my Snap Map. Snap map helps keep track of your hiking path or even where you parked your car!
My bitmoji and I were very happy.