ICELAND – THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

Iceland offers a breathtaking landscape. I went to Iceland in February and had an amazing trip along with my siblings. I wanted to share our experience and give you some tips and location for you, when you are traveling for adventure to the mountainous Iceland nation!

We flew out from Norway and spent three hours to get to Keflavik. At the airport, we already had pre-booked a rental car from “Budget” for five days. We picked up our key and went to an apartment in Reykjavik we found on airbnb. A car is very useful when you visit Iceland and makes it possible to get the real experience with the countryside of Iceland. Self-driving also allows you for the opportunity to travel where you want to go and spend as much at the different locations as you want.

The Golden Circle
We woke up early in the morning the first day to take a common and popular day trip called the Golden Circle. The golden circle covers many beautiful and stunning views in a short period of time. We added a location to the Golden Circle, the Secret Lagoon which is a natural hot spring. You can read more about how to get there if you continue reading this post.

Þingvellir National Park
Our first stop on the Golden Circel was Þingvellir National Park. This sight has a lot of history and geogly and the only UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Icelandic mainland. Iceland is divided by the Mid-Atlantic Rift and this rift is above sea-level. This means that you can walk between the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate.

Geysers At Haukadalur
From the national park we drove to Haukadalur to view geysers. Haukadalur is a geothermal area about an hour drive from Þingvellir where there is two famous geysers called “Geysir” and “Strokkur”. “Geysir” has rarely any erups because of an earthquake changed the flow of boiling water. Luckily “Strokkur” explodes with scalding water shooting 100 feet into the air approximately every 10. minutes.

Secret lagoon
This location is not mentioned in the original Golden Circle, but it’s close by in the area and we decided to add it to our tour. The secret lagoon is a natural hot spring located in a small village called Fludir. This hot spring is not as crowded as the blue lagoon. The Secret lagoon is natural with surroundings and steam rising from the hot spring made the real Icelandic feeling. During the winter period you can even experience a light show of the northern light. above you, sadly we did not experience this but I hope that you will. In the last of this post you will find a aurora forecast (Northern light) for Iceland linked.

Kerið Crater Lake
The final destination in the golden circle is Kerið Crater Lake. We arrived at this location when the sun was sets and got a glow on the red sanded volcano while the vegetation covering the volcanic creator had a light green color glow. The volcano was a typical cone shaped volcano, but when since the top collapsed into an empty magma chamber. The bottom is filled with a deep blue shade of water that sets off the red and green colors on the crater itself. Hiking down to the bottom is a short and quick walk, and a beautiful place to get a picture.

North light map
Another incredible natural thing you can experience in Iceland, is Borealis aurora, northern light. You will need to have the weather on your side, witch we sadly didn’t have. Luckily for you is that you can follow the link below, to see where there is a lot of activity of northern lights. I really hope that you are in lucky with the weather, enjoy!

http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/