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Seriously, who doesn’t have Iceland on their bucket list! I’ve had a loose itinerary for Iceland ever since WOW Airlines offering amazing deals from my home airport of Detroit almost a decade ago. Alas, as WOW faded into oblivion, rather abruptly, my plans settled in to a state of neglect. When looking for a babymoon before our second child arrived, Luke and I knew we wanted to bring our two year old, Quinn, and that it had to be a nonstop flight somewhere from Detroit. When we found relatively cheap nonstop tickets to Reykjavik, I knew it was time to brush the dust off the old itineraries.

We planned our trip over a long weekend where we would pack in as much as we could with a toddler. The flight that I had picked was a red eye, with the plane would depart from Detroit around 8 pm and land at 6:00 am in Iceland. Perhaps it was my pregnancy brain, but I thought this was a perfectly logical choice, confident we would get a decent amount sleep. Of course in hindsight, I’ll acknowledge I did not not factor in the fact that our flight time was only six or so hours. Needless to say, Luke and I didn’t bounce back as fast from our lack of sleep. More on that later. 

This was our first time flying internationally with Quinn so there were a few concerns I’d like to expand upon that I couldn’t find much information on during my research phase. Also, let me preface that while I’m being transparent with my decision process, please do your own research and make your own educated decisions. I knew we were going to be renting a car so providing a car seat for Quinn a factor that we had not encountered thus far in our travels. The first option I weighed would be to rent a car seat from the car company. After reading accounts of other people going this route and the car seat being oversold when they got to Iceland and not having one available eventually turned me away from this option. Additionally, using a car seat that I was ignorant of the history had me worried about what that car seat had endured before we got it. Had it been in a car accident already? So I delayed adding one to my rental until it was too late and one definitely couldn’t be guaranteed. That said, a key reason to go this route is that legally, car seats in Iceland have to be approved by the EU. Most American car seats do not meet this criteria, so a car seat rented from the rental company would fulfill this requirement. As a rule follower I agonized over this decision. AGONIZED. Eventually, after scouring travel forums on Iceland Facebook groups, I decided to buy the lightweight travel car seat from Cosco after seeing many, many accounts of parents using it in during their road trips in Iceland. It is not EU approved but with so many people using it I decided to take the educated risk. The Cosco seat worked well, but was so very flimsy. In the future we will likely just travel with our own car seats. We checked our Cosco car seat at the gate in Detroit. A little snag in Iceland was that after deboarding the plane, wasn’t explicitly stated but we had to pick up the car seat in baggage claim after going through customs. Once we got to baggage claim though, we initially couldn’t find the car seat along with our other luggage, but a helpful worker showed us where the extra large luggage was placed along the back wall and not on the conveyer. While picking up our rental, we were upgraded from a car to an SUV at the Hertz rental counter and upon installing the car seat I wish I would have brought our own. I know that this Cosco seat has passed all the safety testing, but it was so very flimsy feeling.

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Southern Coast

After leaving the airport we decided to hit the very popular Blue Lagoon. I bought my tickets literally the day before on our way to the airport, which is against every piece of advice I’d seen regarding this popular site. I was around 31 weeks pregnant while we were at the Blue Lagoon and had flip flopped many times on whether I would go in the hot springs, despite also going in the Laird Hot Springs Provincial Park in Canada a few weeks before. In the end, I’m so glad we did. Quinn is still talking about the hot springs, especially her floatie, which was due to her age. We had the second times slot of the day, getting to Blue Lagoon around 7:30 am, and we luckily had the place mostly to ourselves.

After leaving Blue Lagoon we had some time to kill as we couldn’t get into our Airbnb until 4:30 that afternoon. Filling that gap I had planned a long day of driving to Vik (about 3 hours) to visit the black sand beach, Reynisdrangar. The drive back to Selfoss to our Airbnb that evening would be about two hours. About an hour from the Blue Lagoon our sleep deprivation starting hitting us hard. We barely made it Selfoss as we were both falling asleep. We found a Bonus grocery story where we got snacks and took a very hard hour long nap. After doing some reading (post nap) I learned that napping in cars like that in public places is technically against the law. My rule following self still feels guilty about that nap.

Well anyway, slightly refreshed, we got lunch at Tommi’s Burger Joint. Continuing on to Vik, we had the most beautiful sunny day where we made pits stops at iconic waterfalls like Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss, but my top sight I was eager to explore was Reynisdrangar Beach and its stunning black sands. You can walk behind the waterfall at Seljalandsfoss, but upon seeing how soaked people were getting by walking the full loop we decided not to venture that route, especially when Quinn was surprisingly scared of the waterfalls. When we finally made it to Vik the weather made a turn for the worse and strong winds picked up. With the incredibly strong winds, the volcanic sand was quite painful when it pelted you. So despite the long three hour drive to visit the iconic beach, we were there for maybe five minutes. This was also a location where we encountered the massive crowds that people talk about regarding Iceland. Prior stops had yielded only handfuls of people, but the beach was quite busy for the weather. Reynisdrangar is known for the dangerous sneaker waves that have swept away unexpecting tourists that venture too close to the water. The threat of these waves was high while we at the beach, leaving me quite nervous,  however so many other tourists were right at the water’s edge. 

Once we got back in our rental we had a error showing up on the dash of our hybrid saying that the battery wasn’t charging. With this being our first hybrid, we ignored the error thinking that we could still rely on gas power. That said, our concern spiked after we got back to Selfoss and our rental wouldn’t shift into park. The first couple of numbers we found for Hertz Rental in Iceland were disconnected, even the ones on the paperwork, but we eventually found a number online that got us through to help. The worker said this was the third they’ve had that week with this issue and eventually our car would just die and not start. He sent us a replacement rental to the Airbnb, however there were a few more snafus along the way between the worker forgetting to get our phone number and us having to call back, to the tow truck getting lost. Thankfully, our car issues were resolved and we didn’t have to think twice about our drive the rest of the time. 

Our Airbnb that night was seriously such a cool spot and we were sad we only had one night in this beautiful location. We were staying on a farm south of Selfoss along the ocean in a small cabin where we went to bed and woke up with horses right outside our window. Quinn loved opening the windows in the morning to find the horses. It was just such a special and isolated location.  I can only imagine seeing the northern lights there. Instead, we were visiting in early June and the was nearly 24 hours of sunlight. I was surprised that none of the places we stayed in Iceland had black out curtains! How do Icelanders sleep in the summer?

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Golden Circle

The next morning we had a lazy, relaxed time visiting with the horses before heading into Selfoss for an early lunch, where we experienced our first famous Icelandic hotdog, of which Quinn heartily approved. Still recovering from our red eye, our only itinerary item was making our way around the Golden Circle, before heading into Reykavik to find dinner. Quinn was still unsure about the Gullfoss Falls, but it might very well be one of my favorite waterfalls I’ve ever seen. Quinn favorite part of the Golden Circle was the Geysir. While not as big as Old Faithful, this geysir erupts ever eight minutes or so. Also, you can get a lot closer, which is alarming the first time you see the geyser erupt. We ended up watching it three times as Quinn so thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Still to this day, she will tell you a geysir says “WHOOSH”! We ended our explorations for the day at Thingvellier National Park where we hiked along the continental divide and took in the rich history of this area. We did not hit as many spots along the Golden Circle as we had hoped because the weather was rainy and cold compared to our first day in Iceland.

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Reykjavik

Making it to Reykjavik, we went to 2Guys where I likely had the best burger I’ve ever had. While reminiscent of Five Guys, 2Guys is so very much better. I had a slightly spicy burger with macaroni on it, the Foxy Brown. Seriously so good! We spent the rest of that rainy cold evening walking around Reykjavik, with the Rainbow Road being a big hit with Quinn to the point that the next evening she asked to go run the rainbow again.

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Snaefellsnes Peninsula

Striking out from Reykjavík the next morning, we ventured northwest, rather bummed out about the rainy forecast we were heading into. That said, we were excited to explore an area that promised beautiful views. Road tripping the whole Snaefellsnes Peninsula seemed rather too much to fit in one day, particularly in the rain, so we had decided to take the trip hour by hour and see how far we could go depending on the weather and time. The views along this drive were stunning with breathtaking views of the ocean. At one point, we even went into the Hvalfjörður Tunnel that is over 3.5 miles long and goes underneath the ocean. Finally reaching Snæfellsnes Peninsula, we stopped for a delightful lunch at Harbor Cafe in Grundarfjörður before seeing the Game of Thrones famous, Kirkjufell Mountain. To be honest, we had totally passed the mountain before we’d realized we’d gone too far. I was too busy staring at the small waterfall on the other side of the road before and wondering why everyone was stopped there. The iconic photos are so misleading because there’s a road between the waterfall and the Kirkjufell Mountain. Can you spot the road in my photos?

It was at this point the cold rain and wind set in. We decided to continue exploring the peninsula and it ended up being our favorite part of the trip. Following along the coastal road, we entered Snæfellsjökull National Park, where we were surrounded by a totally unique landscape unlike anything we had ever seen before. We far as we could see, ancient lava structures made it feel like we were on a completely different planet. Due to the rain, a heavy fog significantly hindered our views, but also aided the isolated, unearthly feeling as we were driving through clouds.

One of the top sights of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula I wanted to visit was Djúpalónssandur Beach (Black Lava Pearl Beach). The parking lot was surrounded by the lava structures, with the short walk to the beach being especially memorable as the structures tower over you. Djúpalónssandur Beach is a black rock beach, that still has metal from a shipwreck scattered all over the beach. A British trawler, Epine GY713th, wrecked March 13th 1948 with only five of the nineteen men saved by the neighboring villages. The wreckage, along with the beach, are protected to preserve the loss. We would have loved to explore this stunning beach longer, however with the ice cold rain and firm wind we stayed enough to walk near the water. We didn’t venture too close to the ocean though due to the risk of the highly dangerous sneaker waves

After the Djúpalónssandur Beach we ventured back to the car for a leisurely drive back to Reykjavík. The weather stayed dreary which limited our further exploring. Instead we took in the beautiful views from the car, while Quinn napped.

Exploring Iceland with a toddler and 30+ weeks pregnant limited the number of activities we would have normally gone on such as snorkeling along the continental divide or climbing into a crevasse, but just driving around to explore Iceland was stunning. Additionally, the poor stormy weather limited the hiking we could have done with Quinn only being two. That said, we are so happy we went as months later, Quinn is still talking about this adventure. We loved the stunning landscapes that are so different than anything we’d seen before. Iceland definitely has a piece of our hearts and we can’t wait to come back to see more. 

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