Reykjavik on a Budget?

Well I FINALLY made it to Reykjavik! After many years of dreaming about visiting this remote island in the north Atlantic, the dream became reality last week. Thanks to my good friend Uni (Unnur Lárusdóttir - click here for her blog), I not only had a wonderful place to stay, but I was given the red carpet treatment by a genuine Icelandic native. I recommend to anyone that plans on visiting Iceland to make friends with a native before arriving, it's the best way to see it. Tip: If you don't know any Icelandic people, check out Couchsurfing.com, it's a cool site I found that helps to network world travellers on a budget.

Uni's a rock star! I met her a few years ago while she was attending music school at the College of Santa Fe. She's one hell of a singer! Here's a photo I took of her during a performance she did in Santa Fe. She's got a beautiful voice and I'm convinced she's going to be Iceland's next Björk! Not only can she belt it out like a punk rocker, but she can sing soft and beautiful Icelandic sagas as well, as you can hear on her Myspace page, where she enchants us with a haunting rendition of an old Icelandic song (click on the song entitled "Numarimur I" - the words speak of how she misses her homeland). Go and have a listen... Unnur knows a lot about Icelandic history and has spent time learning some of the old sagas and studying the local mythology/cosmology.

OK, so how was Iceland? Well my first impression is that it is a country with a completely different climate than ANY other place I've ever visited. Reykjavik lies at 64 deg. north lattitude, further north than the southern tip of Greenland and the northern part of the island lies only a few kilometers outside of the Artic circle. Even in mid-April it was COLD. There was snow on the ground when I arrived and the low's where around 0 deg (C), 32 (F). Spring had NOT arrived yet and there wasn't a bud to be seen on a tree anywhere... Despite this, all the locals where raving about the warm weather... What felt to me like the dead of winter in southern Europe was like Spring for the locals. I would definitely recommend visiting a little closer to summer, unless you like cold, rainy weather.

Iceland's climate may be tempered by the warm Atlantic Gulf stream, but it is still sub-arctic in nature. The fact that everyone uses studded winter tires (which were mostly still on in April) and that there are SUV's everywhere attests to the severity of the climate. In fact, Iceland is the only country in Europe where SUVs almost outnumber regular cars (and this despite having some of the highest petrol costs in the world!). There are big monster trucks with monster tires all over the place. I didn't like this aspect, but at least they really use their SUVs as roads get very perilous and there's loads of unpaved roads in the countryside.

Well petrol costs might be high, but Iceland does get almost 100% of it's heating from geothermal energy. The island is situated right on top of the Atlantic rift zone where the N. American and European plates meet and stretch apart. Most of this happens underwater, but Iceland is the result of millions of years of volcanic eruptions and the intesity of the tectonic activity creates an immense amount of geothermal energy which the locals have tapped very well. In every home you'll find that the hot water line gets fed directly from the ground - boiling hot water that stinks of rotten eggs! It runs right to the tap! You can wash with it, bathe in it, even drink it. You can leave your hot water running for a week and it will never run out. In Iceland there aren't any hot water heaters or boilers, the hot spring water is also used for home heating and circulates through the radiator pipes. People in Iceland don't have heating bills, just a small water bill. And btw, the cold tap water is spring fed too, only it doesn't smell like rotten eggs since it's a different source. It's considered some of the purest drinking water in the world, again, right to the tap. The abundance of geothermal energy also means that Iceland has no need for nuclear reactors. It is one of the few industrialized countries in the west without a nuclear energy program.

Naturally, there are great hot springs in Iceland. And despite the fact that you can have a soak by simply filling your bathtub, a trip to the Blue Lagoon is well worth it. While it may be very touristy, it definitely lives up to the hype and is undoubtedly the most amazing hot springs I've ever been to.


Just the scenery you witness getting there is worth the trip. It's a ways out of town, and you have to cross an immense black lava field to get there, much of which looks like the surface of the moon. The pools themselves consist of runoff from the ground and the water is colored blue due to a certain species of algae which lives there. The water is actually quite salty and has a very high silica content. The floor of the pools is made up of black sand and there are vats of white silica/clay that you can use to make mud packs. It's LOVELY, and well worth the trip despite the high cost ($20 entry, or about $45 including transport). BTW, I also went to one of the baths in town which was much cheaper, but nowhere near as nice. Plus they were using chlorine in the hot tubs, so I would much prefer to go out to the Blue Lagoon, it's a treat that's not to be missed.


As for the town of Reykjavik, I 'd have to say I was a little disappointed with it. I have been on the Icelandair mailing list for a few years now and have been reading about how cool and hip a town it was. I was expecting a Nordic version of NYC or London... Not that Reykjavik isn't cool, it's just small, REALLY small! Only about 150,000 people live in Reykjavik and quite frankly, it's just not a very dynamic city. The architecture is a bit frumpy and outdated too, not ugly, but kind of seventies like (although clean and well kept).



It's just a small town with one main street and a small downtown area. The bars and clubs are great, but you can see everything in a few days and it seems smaller than other Scandinavian cities like Oslo or Copenhagen (quite a bit smaller). However there seem to be just enough cool little bars, trendy shops and interesting underground-ish things going on to make it worthwhile.



I think that the biggest draw for visitors to Iceland may be in the nature that you'll find outside of Reykjavik. I didn't get out of town all that much, but I did get to Þingvellir, which was beautiful. This is where the first Vikings used to meet to plan their political affairs.



On the way up to Þingvellir, we went to ride some Icelandic horses, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The Icelandic horses are smaller than normal horses and have an extremely docile and friendly disposition. They are wonderful animals and very easy to ride, even if they look like they are going to break when you sit on them. This was one of the highlights of my trip.


One thing that that I did find great about Reykjavik though is the people. They are really a great bunch of folk and not a bad looking lot either. Here's a shot of my friend Unnur with her best friend Holmfriða, typical beautiful Icelandic blondes...



But not everyone is blonde, here's the bartender from one of the bars on Laugevegur street, Reykjavik's main drag:



And another pretty blue-eyed viking:



And here's Mr. Silly, one of Unnur's friend's. Notice a trend in the eye color?:



The interesting thing about people from Iceland is that almost everyone can trace their heritage to the Norwegian Vikings that first settled the island in the 9th century. Everyone is related if you go back 8 or 9 generations. But that doesn't mean they all look alike... Another interesting thing about Iceland is that it is the only Scandinavian country that stilll uses patronymics instead of last names. A patronymic is a family name based on your father's first name, plus the addtion of "son" or "dottir" depending on whether you're a boy or girl (the English words "son" and "daughter" were borrowed from old Norwegian when the Vikings ruled part of Britain). So a brother and sister can have two different "last names" even though they both have the same parents. Unnur's last name is Lárusdóttir, but her brother's last name is Lárusson, because her dad's first name is Lárus (and of course his last name is different since it's based on his father's...) Seems confusing but it actually works pretty well. There are a few people who don't use patronymics, but the majority of Icelandic people still do, unlike the other Scandinavian countries which dropped the "dottir" ending a long time ago and now keep the last name the same regardless of the father's first name.

Icelandic mythology is quite fascinating and although I don't know much about it, Unnur's father explained to me that when the island was Christianized in the early middle ages they were forced to give up the gods and godesses like Thor and Odin that were worshipped by the early settlers. Still the religion wasn't completely abandoned and much of the mythology went underground, where it still survives in the form of old sagas and chronicles like Snorri's Edda.

Someone who know's a lot about Icelandic mythology and cosmology is Unnur's friend Reynir Katrínarson, an artist and mystic who has studied the subject for many years. He's been researching 13 different godesses which were worshipped in ancient times, apparently the godesses have been kind of glossed over in favor of the male gods in modern historical literature. Anyway, Reynir and Unnur have been creating musical performances based on some of these godesses and the corresponding musical sagas. Here's a picture of me and Reynir in front of some of his paintings. He lives in a small fishing village near Keflavik.



Meeting the locals was one of my favorite things about Iceland and it's one of the best reasons to make some friends there. You'll also want to go out drinking with them because this is one of the best ways to get to know them. Like other Scandinavians, they really open up when they drink, and yes, they do like to drink alot. I guess there isn't much else to do but some of my best nights where spent drunk and partying with the gang and I made many friends this way.




As much fun as it is to drink, alcohol is VERY expensive and a beer at a bar costs a minimum of $8, while outside of bars alcohol is only sold in government shops where it's a little cheaper but still exhorbitantly priced. Some good local beers though are Viking and Thule, but Icelanders also drink a lot of Danish beers such a Carlsberg and Faxe, Faxe seeming to be the favorite import. Did I mention Icelanders like to drink?



So, being that everything costs so much, how can one visit Iceland on a budget? Well, like I said, first make some friends who can put you up. Then buy your food at grocery stores instead of eating out (the cheapest bargain lunch costs minimum $12 - 15). Buy your alcohol at the local store and get drunk with friends BEFORE you go to the bar late at night. Then you only need to order one drink and you're already wasted... BTW, I found the food to be quite good in Iceland. Expensive, but much better than expected. One of my favorite food items is this dried fish they have called harðfiskur. Actually there are quite a few varietes but all of them are yummy and chock full of omega 3 fatty acids. You can taste the delicious and clean arctic water when you eat this fish, I was hooked on it...


I was also pleasantly surprised to see that there are a lot of ethnic restaurants, especially Thai and Indian in Reykjavik. They tend to be a little cheaper and are generally pretty good. Still, a small bowl of chicken curry with rice will set you back around $12. I did most of my food shopping at the local grocery and cooked at home. The one time I went to a moderately priced restaurant and had dinner for two (with 1 glass of wine), the bill was close to $80!

Last but not least, you don't need to spend a lot of time in Reykjavik where money goes especially fast. You can see the whole town in a few days (if not a few hours) but there's much more to explore if you head out into the vast countryside. Icelandair has free stopover flights from Europe to N. America and pretty competitive fares. You can stop over on your way from London to NY for example and not pay anything extra, even if you stay a week. I recommend going when the weather is warm though and maybe renting a car. Iceland gets more than 20 hours of sunlight in the summer months and it's a naturists and photographers dream (actually on average, Reyjavik gets more sunlight than Miami or Sao Paulo, although the winter is dark and dreary). This is a land of beautiful contrasts, striking nature and beautiful people who love to drink and party. Bring lots of money but try not to spend too much. It is possible to maintain a modest budget, just eat out as little as possible and get drunk BEFORE you get to the bars. I managed to stay about 6 days without spending a fortune (but I can't say it was cheap either). I'll be back though, they say that May and August have the best light...