I wanted to go to Iceland to tick a few things off my bucket list including the Northern Lights and the Blue Lagoon.

Iceland itself is very expensive so if you are on a budget, I wouldn’t go out drinking and going to nice restaurants. We stuck to eating and drinking cheaply and enjoying the main attractions of Iceland.

Pre-booking your excursions is a must! The trips will be double the price if you book when you are there. In this blog I will talk about the three trips I enjoyed which I booked through the company I work for “Fleetway Travel” in which we book with the supplier “Grayline”.

Grayline are a really reliable coach company who were always on time, spoke brilliant English and all in all we had a wonderful experience with them!

Hotel

I stayed at Centerhotel Plaza which is a very central 4 star hotel in Reykjavik within walking distance to all shops, cafes, bars and restaurants. The rooms were very nice and staff friendly. We didn’t need anything fancy as the location was key on this trip as getting around can be expensive however, all of our trips picked us up right outside the hotel. I really recommend this hotel for a very good value central hotel.

Excursions

Northern Lights

We were picked up for the Northern Lights at 7:30pm, it took around 2 hours to get to the final destination which was located out of the city in a dark area in which the Northern Lights are best seen. We stayed on the coach until the lights were visible as it was freezing outside. It is best to take good boots suitable for the snow on this trip as the ground can be icy. You do not walk a lot but you do need to get off the coach and stand in a spot best for you to have the best view. We could see the lights around 11pm in which to the naked eye they were white however when I took a photo they were green ! We still had a great experience seeing the, but not the full potential. The best time to see them is mainly between November to February although you can see them through to the middle of April. All in all a very good experience and will be doing it again and hopefully they will be green!!

Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is just an amazing experience in itself as you will not get this anywhere else in the world. The water is naturally heated by the volcanic rocks which is lovely and warm. We were given a free face mask and part of the pool had a jacuzzi area and small waterfalls. This is just a really relaxing day and you can stay as long as you like. Our coach transfer went back to the city every hour so you just need to make sure you know what time they go each hour so you can work around that!

Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is a full day excursion with a pick up at 9:30am and a drop off around 5:30pm. I really enjoyed this trip as we gathered a lot of information on the coach whilst driving as well as at each destination. We went to Gullfoss waterfalls which is an amazing waterfalls, great for photos. We also saw the tectonic plates where the earth is moving a couple of centimetres each year. Finally we went to the hot springs and the Geysers which can hurl boiling water up to 70metres into the air. We had great fun here , again lots of fun piccies!