If I Were Going...: Hringvegur Plus #1: The Plan

The famous Hringvegur; AKA the "Ring Road"

In 2020, we cancelled five trips, so once we were vaccinated and travel restrictions started to lift, we started traveling. I have already blogged about some trips, but the big trip started out as a plan to complete a bucket list goal: to visit (and photograph) Greenland.

Photo: Arctic Exposure

We had looked at lots of trips and decided upon a land-based photo safari with a group out of Iceland called Arctic Exposure. It met a lot of requirements, including not being a cruise (I mean, COVID …) and having a concentration on droning, which Scott wanted.

Photo: Arctic Exposure

The trip left out of Reykjavik, Iceland, so, despite having visited Iceland multiple times (three for Scott, four for me), we decided to fulfill another bucket list goal, to drive the Hringvegur (also called Þjóðvegur 1) or, as we say in English, the Ring Road.

The Ring Road

The Hringvegur circles almost the entire country (I’ll get to that in a minute). Coinciding with the 1,100th anniversary of the settlement of Iceland, the road was completed in 1974 when the longest bridge in Iceland, crossing the Skeiðará river in the southeast, was opened.

Bridges are important to the Hringvegur

Before I detail the planned route, a little geographical info: Iceland is divided into eight regions.

Iceland's Regions; Source: Wikipedia

They are: #1 Capital Region (Höfuðborgarsvæði), #2 Southern Peninsula/Reykjanes Peninsula (Suðurnes), #3 Western Region (Vesturland), #4 WestFjords (Vestfirðir), #5 Northwestern Region (Norðurland Vestra), #6 Northeastern Region (Norðurland Eystra), #7 Eastern Region (Austfirðir) and #8 Southern Region (Suðurland).

Iceland's Regions; Source: Wikipedia

Previously, vehicles intending to travel between southern settlements, such as the 170 miles from Vík to Höfn, had to travel three times as far by going north through Akureyri and back down the east coast.

The Hringvegur dramatically improved travel time; left before; right after

Many popular tourist attractions in Iceland, such as the Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss waterfalls, Dyrhólaey cliffs, Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, as well as Mývatn lake, Dettifoss and Goðafoss waterfalls in the north are easily accessible from the Hringvegur.

Goðafoss

The road, however, does not pass through Vestfirðir, which I have always heard was beautiful.

Icelandic Sheep grazing by a fjord in Vestfirðir

It also bypasses the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in Vesturland.

Rainbow over Breiðafjörður on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula

One-lane bridges are common

Hringvegur is paved for all of its length and is mostly two lanes wide, the exception being 32 single lane bridges – Einbreið Brú.

Although on this trip, we discovered that many of these iconic Icelandic features are being converted to two-lane bridges because of the inherent danger that occurs when tourists unfamiliar with the concept mix with locals anxious to move quickly.

Back in 1970, there were 60; by 2033, there will be only 18.

The Hringvegur is generally of considered of good quality, but it does have some steep grades, sharp curves, low-visibility hills and blind curves.

Plus, Iceland has lots of rain and fog, which adds some drama to the road. In some areas, there are tunnels, as well.

Fog and poor visibility are common

The Hringvegur crosses a few glacial plains, such as Skeiðarársandur in eastern Suðurland, which made the original road construction difficult in the 1970s. In addition, the Skeiðarársandur plain is subject to frequent glacial floods during or after eruptions on the nearby Grímsvötn volcano.

A flood twisted this bridge; it is now a sculpture

Bridges and other stretches of road over the plains have had to be rebuilt as a result, notably during the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, when Hringvegur was severed for several days in the south. It's hard to believe it resulted in just a few days of road closure.

Eyjafjallajökull; Photo: Brynjar Gauti/AP

The Plan

All of our previous trips had been concentrated in the west and south, from the Snæfellsnes Peninsula to Höfn. When Caty and I traveled to Iceland in January 2015, we had planned to visit Vestfirðir until we discovered that the roads are rough-to-impassable in winter (more on that later).

Winter is not ideal for driving; photo taken in 2017

So, of course, I added Vestfirðir to our itinerary for this trip. That’s why this blog is called Hringvegur Plus.

Dynjandi waterfall in Vestfirðir

We based the travel plan on using the beginning of the Greenland trip in Reykjavik as the end of the Hringvegur journey. Then, I looked at a number of tour itineraries and developed a somewhat leisurely plan that pinpointed some specific locations, but included lots of time for exploration.

Exploration yielded sights we had not anticipated; this is Hvítserkur

We knew it would be mainly driving without much human contact, which of course was fine with us. We decided to travel clockwise, traveling from Reykjavik in Höfuðborgarsvæði to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula for a whale watch, then taking a ferry to Vestfirðir (you can drive, but I wanted to experience the ferry and see Flatey Island).

Flatey Island

I budgeted a fair amount of time in Vestfirðir because it is known for rugged landscape and not-so-great-roads and because, despite its size, getting around requires lots of driving because you have to zig-zag around multiple fjords.

The beautiful Vestfirðir

Then, we would travel through Norðurlands on the Hringvegur with a brief detour off the main road to Raufarhöfn, Iceland’s farthest north town, and on through Austfirðir and along the coast in Suðurland to revisit places we had seen before.

Suðurland, Austfirðir and Norðurlands

We didn’t originally plan any time on the Reykjanes Peninsula because we had been before and found its volcanic lava landscape interesting, but not worth revisiting.

The Reykjanes Peninsula

We chose clockwise to start most of our travel in new places and because I was hoping to see some birds before they all departed for the winter. We knew that we were arriving literally on the day before the official end of Puffin season, when these adorable birds start heading out to the open ocean for the winter, but we needed to coordinate with the Greenland trip.

We knew it would be late for Puffins

Our plan had us leaving Denver on a direct flight to Reykjavik on Aug. 13 and returning to the U.S. on Sept. 7 after six days in Greenland.

While pricey, it was a nice car

We planned to pick up and return our rental car in Reykjavik instead of getting it at Keflavik Airport, which is about 40 minutes south of Iceland’s capital city.

There were two reasons this plan made sense:

First, we could just drop off the car on the last day of our independent travel and meet up with our Greenland tour. The tour included a transfer to the airport on departure day.

Second, our experience picking up a rental car at the airport the last time we were in Iceland involved crowded buses, lots of people and a loooooong wait at the rental counter. This plan seemed easier. Of course, we had to get to Reykjavik upon arrival. So I booked a (rather pricey) private shuttle to our hotel the first day.

It's a 41-minute drive to town from the airport

I booked our hotels through Booking.com, which I find a great resource for lodging in Europe (and in the U.S., too). I can always find something and the variety is great.

On this trip, our lodging ranged from traditional hotels/motels to a studio apartment with a washing machine to cottages to a shed on a farm.

A few of our accommodations; Right photo: Scott Stevens

Everything was as advertised with no issues (except self-imposed check-in confusion that resulted because I hadn’t checked my email). Cancellations and changes are simple (as long as you pay attention to cancellation dates, which are generally quite generous) and payment is easy. In many cases, we never even had to interact with humans to get into and depart our lodging (another pandemic plus).

Changes

So, everything was set and then stuff happened.

First, a completely unexpected volcano, Fagradalsfjall, started erupting on the Reykjanes Peninsula – you know, that boring place we hadn’t planned to visit. The only part of Iceland (besides the virtually inaccessible highlands) that we did not plan to visit.

Fagradalsfjall; Photo: Iceland Monitor

Fagradalsfjall is close but hard to reach

So, we decided that we would try to visit the volcano while we were in the Reykjavik area at the very beginning of our trip.

After all, we didn’t know whether the eruption would continue throughout our four-week visit (even though the volcano had been actively erupting since March. Fagradalsfjall is fairly close to Reykjavik (sometimes a glow can be seen from the city) and very close to Keflavik Airport, so that plan made sense.

Then, the whole Greenland trip fell through because COVID started re-surging and Greenland decided to extend its ban on tourism.

Photo: Arctic Exposure

We played with a few scenarios. Arctic Exposure proposed putting together an alternate tour in Iceland, but it looked like it might repeat some of the places we already planned to visit. So, we declined that option and they graciously refunded our entire deposit. We hope to travel to Greenland with them in the future.

We still want to go to Greenland! Photo: Arctic Exposure

We explored staying in Iceland for the days originally planned for Greenland (and not changing our airline reservations), but found we were forcing the issue. I didn’t want to have to rebook things from the beginning to stretch out the trip because, by now, reservations were harder to get and what a headache that would be!

And, I didn’t really see spending six additional days in southwest Iceland. So, we took advantage of Icelandair’s no-cost change policy and shortened our trip to return on Sept. 1. I tried to change my rental car to pick up and drop off (one day later) at Keflavik instead of Reykjavik. Nope!

It's hard to believe there were NO cars

Then, I tried to extend the car I had booked by one day. Nope.

I looked at getting a car from a different company and discovered that there were very few cars available and what was left was very pricey ($13,000 for an SUV instead of the less than $2,000 we were paying).

So, we figured we’d just explore Reykjavik and take a shuttle back to Keflavik. Perhaps we could arrange a tour to the volcano.

Photo: Schengen Visa Info News

Then, some of the COVID regulations changed, affecting both our departure from the U.S. and our departure from Iceland.

In both places, we now needed to arrange for COVID tests (rapid antigen or PCR) within 72 hours of travel with a guarantee that we could have results in hand upon departure.

Easy, huh?

So far into the pandemic, you would think so. But, we had a heck of a time finding any place in Colorado Springs that had the right test AND could guarantee results in time.

There were probably tests we could take at Denver International Airport right before we left. But, that’s an additional stresser that is not needed when you travel with an easily stressed partner.

Tests were required to enter Iceland and the US

We checked with our doctor, the Health Department, multiple pharmacies, Quest Diagnostics and several clinics. No luck.

Finally, we found AnyLabTestNow!, a nice facility in Colorado Springs that could do it – for $298. I filed a claim with Medicare, but, it's been months and I have heard nothing.

Lining up a test in Iceland was actually easier (and about one third the cost), but it cut into our final travel day.

So, we made a few more changes. We cancelled our last two hotels in Gullfoss and Reykjavik ...

We originally planned to stay close to Gullfoss, one of iceland's biggest waterfalls

... and booked two nights at the Hotel Volcano (cleverly renamed from Hotel Geo) in Grindavík, the town closest to Fagradalsfjall, which was still erupting and was expected to continue.

Hotel Volcano; Photo: Booking.com

Then, we booked a second car to pick up at Keflavik the day before departure. We would have to take the first car back to Reykjavik, which would eat up about two hours, but at least we would have a car for our last day and the one-day rental would cost about the same as a shuttle.

Finally, Scott had been thinking about another trip to Alaska and had pushed it out because of Greenland. Now, he decided he wanted to go after all – mainly to go halibut fishing and expand our chances to see aurora borealis.

Looks like we would be returning to Alaska; Denali

Now, you may ask, “why would he be worried about seeing aurora when we had just planned three weeks in Iceland?”

Because Iceland has aurora, but it is also notoriously overcast. Odds of seeing a good display are poor. Alaska is usually better.

The search for aurora never ends

So, we planned a trip to Alaska, departing Sept. 7, just six days after we got home from Iceland. At least the packing would be similar.

Then, two weeks before we left for Iceland, Scott’s 94-year-old mother died. Although death at that age is not unexpected, she was actually ill for only a very short time, so it was somewhat of a surprise.

The family discussed several options for a memorial and decided upon Labor Day weekend. So, now, we would return to Colorado Sept. 2, fly to Florida Sept. 3, return to Colorado Sept. 6 and fly to Alaska Sept. 7.