My wife and I have dreamed of a trip to Iceland for quite a while now, so when the opportunity came, we jumped on it. Over the years we’ve done some epic road trips, that have taken us from our native home of Newfoundland, to British Columbia, the great wilderness of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Alaska, and everywhere in between. I’ve always loved the idea of getting behind the wheel and just driving in anticipation of what lies ahead. I hate having a strict schedule, reservations, etc. For us, the only way to explore Iceland was in a camper van, taking each day as it came.

While my wife took care of the flight arrangements, I researched the hell out of our camper options. In the end we settled on Happy Campers. They had just the van we wanted, a free shuttle from the airport, and the best price to boot.

We opted for the Happy 2 van, which gave us plenty of space for sleeping, a sink, stove, heater, a fridge, and everything we needed for cooking and eating. Given that this was going to be our home for nearly ten days, we figured the extra wiggle room this van offered was well worth the extra cost.  We named it the Mystery Machine, partly because the colour made it look so much like the van from one of my favourite childhood cartoons, and partly because we never really knew what laid ahead as we drove.

As a photographer, I initially envisioned my time in Iceland as a photography trip. I had packed all my gear and was ready for anything. I was ready to spend hours hiking to remote locations to sit and wait for the sun to set to get the perfect light etc. etc.. But I knew when we started planning this trip that things weren’t going to work out that way at all. The weather never really co-operated, and we just didn’t have the time that would take to spend hours at a single location. The reality was that this was vacation with my wife, not a photo tour, and we wanted to see as much as possible. In the end, my DSLR spent a lot of time in the Mystery Machine and only came out for very few occasions. Instead I opted almost exclusively to use the camera on my Pixel 2 XL. It wasn’t always perfect and messed up some of the panoramas I took, but it was in my pocket all the time, takes great photos, and allowed me to move quickly. The main exception was for waterfalls since it’s not easy to get a long exposure on the phone. As a result I took a LOT of photos, so I had a hard time picking which ones to include!

That being said, I’m still passionate about photography and I tried my best to capture the scenes in front of me using whatever camera I had with me, so there are a lot of pictures in this blog! I’m not going to try to walk you through the details of how we spent each day, instead I’ll let the photos do most of the taking for me. Besides, my amazing wife and travel partner is currently working on writing out all those details on her blog over at Sue’s Outdoor Crew, so make sure to follow along with her as she writes about our trip and shares her photos as well.

On our first day, after picking up our van, we headed to the grocery store and picked up some grub to last us for a couple of days. In case you aren’t aware, Iceland is quite expensive, which is another great reason to have the camper. We were able to avoid eating at restaurants and survive on sandwiches, and hamburgers (hey we’re camping after all!)

After confirming some things on the map and picking out our first couple of stops, we hit the road and started the Golden Circle drive. That brought us first to a waterfall that we didn’t even know was there (we just saw cars parked and decided to check it out), to the geysers and a few other stops along the way.

We ended our first day at The Secret Lagoon, which wasn’t really on the plan. But at this stage we had not planned to go the Blue Lagoon, so we figured this would be our trip to a hot spring. As it turned out we hit a few more before the trip was over (including the Blue Lagoon). We just couldn’t help ourselves!

On day two, we started our journey along the ring road. After some research, we decided that heading east along the south coast was the best way to start. This area has a lot to see, and we figured that in a worst case scenario, we could hightail it through the north if we started to run short on time. We spent about two days driving this section of road, and saw a lot of rain. But we were prepared with rain gear and waterproof clothes, so we didn’t let the rain stop us. I was actually quite surprised at the number of people in tents when we arrived at the campgrounds. We do our share of camping and we’re no strangers to sleeping in a tent, but given the weather I was VERY happy to by in our Happy Camper!

Even though we got wet, I was just happy that we still had the views as we drove and stopped at the sights. We still managed to squeeze in waterfalls, the Sólheimasandur plane crash site, the black sand beach and more. The rain even let up a little, although the wind was pretty relentless at times, especially on the beach. Which actually made it all the more awesome with big waves crashing.

On day three, we continued our trek across southern Iceland, and explored the moss covered lava fields, glaciers, and yes… more waterfalls!

Can you spot the Happy Camper in this photo? Trick question because there are two: One at the top and one in the parking lot!

Although some of our camping spots were literally gravel parking lots, others came with lots of privacy and amazing views.

Day four greeted us with heavy fog and we didn’t see much of anything as we drove through the east fjords. It was a bit of a bummer, but we had no real choice but to keep driving. We tried a couple of times to wait out the weather, but had to just keep moving. eventually the weather did clear to reveal some equally astonishing sites.

Day four was our longest day for sure. As we drove up the east coast, we decided to push through to see Dettifoss, an absolutely stunning waterfall. It turned out that we took one of two possible ways to get to Dettifoss, so we didn’t end up exactly where we thought, but that’s part of the adventure!  That night we made it to the campground in Ásbyrgi Canyon and found a spot to park our Happy Camper next to the canyon wall. After sleeping in a couple of gravel parking lots, this was a refreshing way to spend the night.

From here, we drove across the north, and although it wasn’t part of our initial plan, we ended up with time to drive the West Fjords, which was simply awesome. This is where having a camper van really paid off. Not having to worry about sticking to a schedule and having food in our fridge meant we could change plans at a moments notice.

Even though our lunch was pretty much the same sandwiches every day, you couldn’t beat the views!

After the West Fjords, we were back to our original plan to explore the Western Penninsula. This area wasn’t on our radar at all until we talked to the staff at Happy Campers but it was well worth the drive (even in the rain).

Our last full day was spent exploring Reykjavik. We found a spot just a couple of blocks from downtown where we could park for free and headed out on foot. We did a LOT of walking that day, which was good because it started by eating a couple of cinnamon buns from Bread and Co. We really enjoyed taking in all the sights that Reykjavik had to offer, and after a long day of exploring I took a quick nap in the van before we headed to our final destination.

To cap off our trip we decided at the last minute to go to the Blue Lagoon. Because we decided so late, the only time we could get was a 9:00pm entry. We weren’t sure that was a good idea or if we would have enough time, but it turned out to be the best. With the sun low in the sky we weren’t blinded by the sun, and we were treated to a fantastic sunset from the water. Bathing in the warm water and taking in the night sky really was a great way to end such an amazing trip.

All in all our trip to Iceland was a complete success and I can’t think of any regrets. One day I’d like to go back and venture off the paved roads to see what lies down those “F roads” I so wanted to travel down. Unfortunately, that’s one thing our Happy Camper was not able to do! But for now, Iceland is off the bucket list.