(Part 1 is below in comments, the forum thought part 1 was duplicating my post)
Car/Driving, continued
There is essentially no shoulder on much of the roads. Do not take this lightly - we saw a semi tip over when their front passenger tire went off the road. Other people had stopped and were helping, on top of the driver’s side cab door, on the phone, directing traffic. We drove on, and wished the driver well! Do NOT stop unless there is a pullout. Another experience that is vivid in my mind happened in one of the one lane tunnels. Generally, these are easy: the pullouts are frequent and on one side, and if you see headlights and are on the pullout side, you pull over as far forward in the pullout as you can to allow room for cars behind you. However, in one of those tunnels, we saw tons of lights on a vehicle completely filling the tunnel, and they had the pullout side. We were fortunate to not the be the first car, and followed the lead of the car in front of us to pull over on the wrong side pullout. Four cars packed in, and I watched in disbelief when a double semi went through. I couldn’t believe it fit. This was a 7km tunnel with lots of cars. One lane bridges were easy.
Food/Restaurants
On our long 12-14 hour travel days, I didn’t want to have to count on being in a particular place at a particular time. I had three solutions. I had planned grocery store trips, with number of meals to shop for. We bought skyr for most mornings, and then would often hit a bakery for a treat and coffee. One road meal solution was to buy the premade sandwiches at the bakery (checking pictures in Google reviews to see if they carried them). Another meal solution was the grocery store and buying the prepackaged flat half-round rye bread (flatkökur), and sliced meat and cheese, and making sandwiches. (Butter would have been a nice add, but it was good without.) The third was the quick cafe/soup buffet/hot dog stand type restaurant, or a gas station restaurant.
Money/shopping
We used Apple Pay exclusively, but were prepared with a debit card and PIN for the unmanned gas stations. I took out no cash; the one w/c I paid for took Apple Pay. I had the Currency app on my phone for when I wanted to be sure of the conversion rate. In his book, Rick says a rough conversion is to drop two digits and subtract 25% to get to USD. That’s pretty close.
Sights
We enjoy natural sights and museums, and saw many of those kinds of typical tourist things. Here are some less obvious sights which might be of interest:
- CityWalk tour on arrival day, paying with a tip afterwards. Sign up in advance.
- Staðarbjörg Basalt Columns in Hófsos. Park by the swimming pool and go down the steps.
- Avalanche Defense trail in Siglufjörður. There is parking.
- Driving up to the ski lift in Siglufjörður and looking down the fjord.
- Walking around Kjarnaskógur in Akureyri.
- Stuðlagil Canyon in the east - incredible view, but this road wasn’t trivial or short. It was under construction or being repaired in one spot and was very rough, but it wasn’t great even without that. This was our introduction to sheep standing and not moving on the road. We literally backed up and went around them on other side, but grateful they didn’t behave like deer!
- Úlfseyjarsandur beach in Höfn - drive to the airstrip and park where you can, walk down the strip, and enjoy the beach and view. Better at low tide. There’s a public w/c in town.
- Dverghamrar in the south - a nice 15 minute stop of worn basalt columns.
- Gönguleið um Eldhraun lava field - a few minutes from the above, another 15 minute stop where you can look at the mossy lava field.
- Laugarvatn Fontana on the Golden Circle - park at the spa and walk to the right of the building on the path, and you can see where they “bake” the steamed rye bread (rúgbrauð).
I hope some of this is of use to future travelers!
Dulcey