We collected our luggage and got some money converted. Luckily right at the airport we didn’t have to pay any fee for converting currency. When we went to a little shop at the airport though to get food supplies we quickly knew that we had been right in assuming that not only the car but everything was going to be very expensive in Iceland. After the financial crisis the currency got devalued very fast but the prices were adjusted. 1 British Pound roughly equals 200 Icelandic Krona.

With our gear and food we waited for the guy from the car rental service who was supposed to pick us up leading us to our car. However when the friendly Icelander came he informed us that our car had not been cleaned and they were going to offer us a Ford Explorer instead. While this would also have been a more than capable 4×4 it was still not a “Jeep” and more importantly as my friend Sven pointed out to the rental guy this car was going to drink even more fuel without really any benefit for us. So after a quick inspection of our dirty Grand Cherokee we decided to take it anyway. The car was not the most current and had some rust, dents and scratches and I figured this would actually be a benefit because if the terrain we were going to encounter really asked for these kind of vehicles then there also was a good chance of adding to theses little marks on the car. And with so many already on there one or two more would not be very visible. The rental guy even confirmed this saying that since it was an older car they wouldn’t look so closely when inspecting the car upon return. Same goes for the interior which wasn’t a problem for us but it meant that we didn’t have to worry about returning it in mint condition.

Our first stop was going to be Reykjavik. The airport is not actually in Reykjavik so our first trip was getting to the capital.

The weather was cloudy at first but it didn’t bother us at all. As a matter of fact it fit the landscape.

We didn’t get very far on our approach to Reykjavik as we already stopped a few kilometers later to stop at the first beautiful spot.

I have always wanted to visit Iceland. A country that is famous for it’s unique and breathtaking landscape. The Martian looking scarce plains together with beautiful mountains, volcanoes and glaciers, strikingly coloured rocks geysers and beautiful lonely roads are something that in my book sets this little island far apart from the rest of the world on the “wow!”- scale.

Two friends of mine luckily saw this the same way so together we made plans to visit this little patch of land that sits right on the imaginary border line between the Atlantic and the Arctic ocean.

 

The size of Iceland on the map is deceiving. Google maps like most other maps are distorted to show a spherical shape flat without any gaps thus stretching everything on the map a little more the farther it’s distance to the equator is. As a result Iceland is actually smaller than it looks on the map. Circling the country along its coast doesn’t even equal 2000 miles on the road. Yet at the same time it’s a country where you could spend a week on 100 miles alone it’s that breathtaking. As a matter of fact that’s what most visitor do. Most of the individual dramatic sights in Iceland can be found in the south. The farther you go North the clearer it becomes why the northern coast of the country is where the Arctic Ocean begins. For this trip however we decided to stick to the south as there was already so much to cover there that we weren’t even sure we were going to be able to see everything. The three of us were all into photography and videography and we wanted to take all the time we needed to get the footage each of us had in mind.

It was difficult to decide on a particular rout due to the long list of places we wanted to cover but we knew our trip was going to start at the capital Reykjavik and we would go at least to about the middle of the country in the east.

Iceland is know for its rugged terrain and for a little while I played with the thought of accompanying my friends who would travel by car on my motorcycle. That would have meant that I would either have had to ship my bike to Iceland or renting one there. But ultimately it would have made the trip more expensive for all of us and it would not have been the same group experience. So this time the bike had to stay at home. However there was going to be a decent replacement to my half-jeep.

We had read that it was recommended and sometimes even mandatory to have all-wheel-drive vehicles on many roads. After a little research we quickly were convinced that it was no joke. The conclusion was simple and didn’t take us long to decide that it had to be a Jeep. More specifically a Jeep Grand Cherokee. To us one of the most iconic 4×4 vehicles. If a Jeep wasn’t going to get us to where we wanted to go then no other car would.

So we made a reservation for a Jeep Grand Cherokee at the cheapest dealer we could find online. The fuel for this beast was not going to be cheap but we figured it was worth it for this trip and the types of different insurance packages offered on the website reassured us that we had made the right choice getting a 4×4. Beside regular accident protection we could chose gravel and ash (!) protection. Also there was an explicit warning that river crossings were not covered by any insurance.

With all our photography gear packed we just about caught the plane from London to Reykjavik early in the morning, setting foot on Iceland early in the afternoon.