Once in a Lifetime
When I was in college, my parents took their trip of a lifetime - Hawaii. I remember how excited my mom was to tell me about their trip when I came home on break. And the way her eyes would light up every time the trip got mentioned in conversation over the years. I used to carry in my wallet a photograph they took together in Hawaii. My mom and dad looked so happy. It’s my favorite photograph of them. Now it’s now stained a bit brown from being carried in my wallet for too many years and faded quite a bit, but it’s kept with my few cherished possessions. I don’t expect this trip to be like theirs, no two trips are quite the same, but this coming trip has the potential to be just that, a trip of a lifetime.
I am very aware of how fortunate I am. Nothing but first-world problems, the ability to earn a decent living despite the setbacks of life. The ability to prioritize things in life, to make minor sacrifices to be able to travel to and photograph at places others only dream about. Extended traveling and photographing started not with my love of photography, but from an unexpected three week vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. “Unexpected” because Ann only got the traditional American three-weeks vacation (only because she’d been working there quite awhile) each year (and she had already used up one week) but, as a bonus, her employer gave her an extra week vacation just as we were planning a 10-day trip to Yosemite. With an opportunity for three weeks (if we used all of the remainder vacation time she had), we decided on an extended trip a bit farther away. We discovered we loved getting out on extended vacations (by American standards) and getting out to beautiful places. Thus began our trips - long and short - well documented in this blog over the years. We’ve had many trips that some folks would call a trip of a lifetime. But I’ll admit, I’m a greedy bastard. So I keep striving for more. Not to check off some bucket list, but to explore, to photograph and to experience wonderful and beautiful places.
Many people call Iceland a magical place, and wind up returning over and over again. I can’t say that it won’t be us, but at 65 (for me), I kinda doubt it (though maybe we’ll move there . . . ). For years Ann and I watched YouTube videos of Iceland trips, deciding it just wasn’t the way we’d like to see the place (when we had Beast we checked to see if there was a ferry from the US to Iceland, but alas - no). But as we considered moving overseas, once we found out there is a ferry from Denmark to Iceland, it became one of the primary reasons we moved to Europe. At some point, we were going to take a trip to Iceland and do it our way. It’s taken us 5 years, but now is the time.
We’re doing it. It’s taken a lot of preparation the past couple of years - breaking in the Bimobil, getting the rest of our lives in order, saving up for what will undoubtedly be a costly trip - but we will be doing it our way. In our vehicle. Nine full weeks in Iceland. Cameras in tow. And no need for me to work. It will most definitely be Our Iceland Adventure.
I started the detailed planning on the trip the first weekend we got back from our US trip. I compiled all the materials I’ve gathered over the past 5 years and started sorting through it. There’s been little else done in my free time other than household chores, planning for Iceland, and figuring out how to keep blog posts running while preoccupied with trip planning. My mind is certainly on the trip whenever I’m not having to think about work matters. One aspect or another of the trip comes up during most of our morning walks.
I’m not going to go into all the details of the trip, because as I write this, there is a lot of filling in that still needs to be done (I’m writing this at the end of May (see, I really am trying to keep a stream of blog posts lined up so I won’t have to worry about them as the trip date approaches - you’ve already seen the ones by now that are waiting to be released)), but the big picture pieces are in place.
We’re departing Didam on Sunday July 27 to head up to Hirtshals, Denmark (about a day and a half’s drive). I’ve learned to give ourselves a full free day before departing, because it seems leaving on a trip is so much better when you have a free day before you leave and a couple of free days after you return. Should work get done early, we may leave on Saturday July 26 and spend an extra day exploring north Denmark. The ferry to Iceland departs Hirtshals on Tuesday, July 29. We arrive in Seydisfjordur, Iceland on July 31. The return trip starts on Thursday, October 2 in Seydisfjordur and arrives on Sunday, October 5 in the Hirtshals. Then it’s a couple of days back to Didam.
The ferry takes a bit more than 2-1/2 days (two nights going to Iceland, three nights back), and makes a stop in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands along the way. One of the layover legs is supposed to give us a few hours there; if so, we’ll be hopping off the ship to get a good walk in and swing by a bakery or two.
The ferry is the Smyrl Lines Norröna, where we’ll be able to roll the Bimobil on in Denmark and roll her off in Iceland. I reserved our tickets in mid-January, just prior to our trip back to the States. Our trip to England last year, which involved a ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle with the Bimobil, was a warm up. Lessons learned from that trip were to get a window cabin and to seriously consider upgrading cabins (think premium economy on an international flight), especially if you think you want to spend any time whatsoever in your cabin (i.e., don’t want to feel like a sardine). So we opted for a small upgrade (which is the price of an in-season smaller cabin on the trip back given October is “out of season”).
This will be a trip of three phases. The first phase will be the three weeks from July 31 to August 21. The big picture is we explore northern Iceland for the first two weeks, then take the F35 (the “F” roads are dirt/gravel roads of varying quality for which you are required to have a 4x4 vehicle to drive on - shown in yellow on the maps below) down to Kerlingarfjöll for a couple of days of hiking and photography, then rush down to Keflavik airport to begin Phase 2 of the trip. This is a map of a potential route we’re considering as of May (June update: as one might expect, the route has indeed changed, but the one below is close enough).
Phase 2 of the trip is a 10-day period from August 22 to September 1 where our friends John and Judy are joining us for our adventures. If you can’t read the annotation on the map below, it says “The ‘If you haven’t been to any of the places I mentioned, where in the hell did you go in Iceland’ route.” The answer to that question is, “The southern highlands.” I gave John and Judy a choice of trip routes. The first was a bit of off-road (F-track adventures) and a significant portion of seeing sights on the southern coast where people ooh and aah a lot. Problem there is there will be other people. Possibly lots of other people. The second option I gave them was to maximize the off-road component of the trip and travel on as many “F” roads as possible. Most rental cars are not permitted on F roads so . . . fewer tourists. John and Judy, great folks they are, said that avoiding crowds sounds good to them. So this is what we’ve got coming.
For those who don’t know, John is my army buddy who is game for anything. Short of an Iveco certified mechanic or the overlanding gods of Tom Sheppard and Johnathan Hansen (authors of the VDEG (Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide), the overlanding bible), there’s nobody I’d rather have as my navigator as we head out into the backcountry wilds of Iceland. There will be river crossings and moonscape/unearthly landscapes we’ll be traversing. True 4-wheel drive country. Let’s just say that the Bimobil is getting her annual inspection right now and the folks at Iveco Schouten know of my trip and where I’m planning to take her. Consequently, they’re giving her an extra good look-over. This will be the true adventure leg of the trip. In case you’re wondering, the numbers are the nights of the dates we will be spending at those locations.
After we drop John and Judy off at the airport on September 1. We’ll take that and the next day to clean house, meet up with Ann’s former mathematics class mate Magnus and his family, and set ourselves up for the third leg of the trip. We will have to make a major decision at that point. The big question will be - is there anywhere in the highlands we’d like to return to? If so, we need to do it then because the first snows tend to hit the highlands in mid-September and many of the F-roads will start to close. If there is some place we really want to return to, we’ll head there first and then finish out the trip with wherever we decide to go. Options include the Westfjords, the south coast of Iceland and up the east coast to end up in Seydisfjordur. Here’s a possible route if we decide not to head to the highlands first, or perhaps even if we do - we have a whole month to explore!
As I mentioned, this is a tentative plan. The only things really set are our arrival and departure dates, that of John and Judy’s arrival/departure dates, the itinerary for their portion of the trip, and dinner with Magnus. The rest is, well, a work in progress.
Fortunately, the resources are fairly plentiful and I can really dig into potential routes. I’m trying not to plan it as a day-by-day trip, but more as routes we can explore and possible places to visit. However, there is no, absolutely no wild camping in Iceland (with two known exceptions - which we plan to take advantage of), so every day we need to end up at a campground (fortunately I have several sources for their locations - all mapped!). Every 7 or so days, we’ll need to hit a campground with a washer and dryer. Plus, not only should we anticipate that the highlands are blocked off around September 15, many of the campgrounds start closing on September 1; most that are not open all year close on September 15 or October 1. Again, fortunately, I have a map of the campgrounds that are open all-year. We’ll be making sure we hit those at the very end of the trip.
I’ve got two more months to plan as I’m writing this; less than one month when you read this. Trip planning like this is all in the details and it’s the things you don’t know that can shock you. Like last weekend’s search on what kind of LPG fuel connector Iceland uses (I now have 5 different connectors for different European countries) to pump LPG into an on-board tank. Guess what? Iceland doesn’t sell LPG at gas stations like the rest of Europe. They sell it only in bottles and not even that really, they’re a big propane country. Now I have to figure out if we can live for 2 months on our 60 liter tank ( and can’t figure out how much we used in England/Scotland because the Bimobil is in the shop). I think we’re good based on our usage in Sweden and the UK, but I need to make sure and I’ll have to have a backup plan in case we run out (LPG runs our heat, hot water and kitchen stove). I feel a call to the company that supplies LPG in Iceland may be in order - if there is one place where they can fill up a tank (I would imagine near Reykjavik), we’ll make sure to swing by on our travels. It’s things like that that make you worry that you’ll miss something big.
Yeah, perhaps that’s part of the adventure, but it’s a part I can do without. I like things nice and easy. Problem is, new places are rarely nice and easy.
Well that’s it, the big picture plan for our trip to Iceland. Hopefully while we’re running around having fun in Iceland I’ll be able to do a few short posts - they say internet is pretty good over there. I guess we’ll find out. For now, know I’m plugging away at planning and making sure the vehicle is ready for the adventure. Because as the title suggests, I doubt we’ll be doing this trip a second time.
Postscript: It’s now almost 4 weeks later and still two weeks before this is supposed to get posted, so I figured I should give you an update (from mid-late June). We got the Bimobil back from the shop. Unfortunately (for our wallet) one of the hoses leading into the turbocharger had cracked so we had a NOx sensor warning. I guess replacing a hose is cheaper than the sensor itself, but we’re learning why everyone gripes about Iveco repair costs. The good news was they said they tested a lot of the mechanical connections and everything looked good. I also checked our LPG tank (after looking at my notes and wondering why I hadn’t recorded whether I’d filled the tank up after Sweden - well, because I hadn’t) and realized that our 5 weeks of full cooking-heating-hotwater usage from Sweden and Scotland had used up only about 15% of the tank. That means I’ll fill up before we take off and we should be good on LPG for the whole two months, no matter how cold it gets.
We’ve started prepping the bimobil - gave the top and back a good wash this weekend and re-mounted the spare tire. Next weekend, wash up the sides and the front and then we’ll start clearing out the storage area to create some more space (we’re going to have to move some things into storage when John and Judy are around). We figure the more we get done now, the less the crunch will be before we take off.
Our route planning has continued. I’ve started building a map of points (to convert to KLM files for Ann to add to our GPS system) and it’s looking pretty good.
The Orange pins covers places we know we want to see the first part of our trip, with the interspersed yellow pins being the locations we’ll try and spend the night at (we’re still working on one night . . . ). The purple pins are the overnight locations with John and Judy. And we’ve decided to wing it a bit with the last month we’re there. Ann wanted some flexibility to go back to places we’ve already seen, and I agree with her. We’ll have to do it immediately after dropping John and Judy off if we want to go back into the highlands - the snow will likely be falling within a couple of weeks and the F roads will then close. So I’ve gone through my notes and put pins at a bunch of locations we might want to visit after we’re done revisiting places. With the KLM file for the pins, we can upload them into our GPS and simply press on a location to let the GPS figure our route there (of course with us confirming it on a paper map). I’m starting to think a month may be plenty of time for us to revisit some key locations and still see most of the blue pins. At least I have us covered for all eventualities.
Last, we’ve been watching videos of various Iceland trips - a few from a couple of YouTuber overlanders (one on motorcycle, the other in a vehicle) and a couple from other folks. I’m feeling good because I’m recognizing a lot of the places they’re visiting (though don’t ask me to pronounce them in Icelandic). The research is paying off. We’re getting very excited and feel a lot better about the river crossings and stretches on the F roads we might encounter. We should be fine short of major rain (or snow) storms. Most importantly, folks seem to be driving way more miles each day than we’ve got lined up. That means we should have plenty of time for spontaneous stops and long photo sessions. We’re not quite there yet, but the planning is coming together. We should have an excellent time!