Iceland - summer or winter?

blindman

Shimrod wrote: »

Your prices are pretty similar to what we budget for - we have a Skoda Octavia 4wd booked, which is £408 for 7 days plus we'll need to add an extra driver. We're heading south again so I'll also play it safe and add the sand and ash cover.

We get the car hire from Hertz - it is cheaper to book on Hertz.is rather than .com or .co.uk sites.

When is your next trip?

Shimrod

blindman wrote: »

You have a PM;)

BTW
SavingPennies
I apologise for hijacking your thread but hopefully you've got some good information too. :cool:

Some other links that will be useful:
traffic and weather : http://en.vedur.is/
Direct link to cloud cover forecast! http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/cloudcover/
Northern lights 3 day forecast: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast
Graphical current Northern lights forecast:
http://www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-forecast/

Shimrod

blindman wrote: »

When is your next trip?

We are going in October, and already pencilling a trip for 2016 as well, probably about the same time of year. I want to explore the snaefellsnes peninsula and go to this
http://intotheglacier.is/

Shimrod

blindman wrote: »

Thanks

Sort of got it but the map pans out to just the road 36 with a junction to the 360 :cool:

If you were to stay in Mosfellbaer, you are at the start of route 36 out to Gulfoss. Along the road there are various parking/picnic spots. What you should be seeing on the right is the third of these, a couple of miles before you get to Thingvellir. It provides a good view to the north and its very dark, so a good spot to observe the Northern lights (or milky way while you are waiting)

wazza99

One thing i did notice, while looking at car hire in Iceland its almost impossible to reduce your excess to zero, even if you take sand and ash, gravel and super cdw ! even after all that we still had an excess of about £500, this was with Blue Car rental, though it seemed common in Iceland. So we took a UK based CDW excess policy as well for about £16.

I'm told sand ash is HIGHLY recommended to folks travelling in the South, where high winds whip up the sand and gravel and cause lots of damage to cars paint, certainly while we we're there in November the wind did howl !!!

teezie

wazza99 wrote: »

I'm told sand ash is HIGHLY recommended to folks travelling in the South, where high winds whip up the sand and gravel and cause lots of damage to cars paint, certainly while we we're there in November the wind did howl !!!

Cheers that's good to know that I need to include that. I've budgeted around £250 for our 3-4 day 4WD hire to be on the safe side

blindman

wazza99 wrote: »

Our trip cost around £1400 for 5 days, flights, car(4wd) and 5 nice hotels b+b, we ate mainly in small cafes and petrol stations during the day along with supermarkets.

I think the flights we're about £500, car hire inc insurance £400, hotels around £100 a night...fuel was same as UK and snacks we're reasonable, restaurant prices for evening meals and in hotels can be eye watering !

Your welcome to pictures if you PM me or the hotels and route we took.

Whatever you decide you'll love the place !!

Thanks for the pictures etc.

Just booked the flights this AM

17000 Avios + £28.60 each BA reward saver LHR-KEF new Winter schedule.

Outbound 4th March-Return 11th March.

Covers the new moon on 9th March so potential for dark skies. :cool:

Now need to prise the Wallet open and look for car + accomodation :eek:

Red-Squirrel_2

Summer or Winter? Do both!

I went for a weekend in December, incorporating the shortest day of the year, and while it was dark a lot of the time it was absolutely beautiful to see the long lingering sunrise/sunset that lasts pretty much the whole time the sun is up as it never gets very high above the horizon! Reykjavik is well geared up for the weather, as long as you have decent warm and waterproof clothing you'll be fine.

We saw the Northern lights no less than 5 times on 2 separate trips, one of the sightings was very impressive, the others less so, but still! Personally, I'd be wary of hiring a car in winter, the snow on the ground was like nothing most UK drivers will ever have driven on, and we saw 2 tourist cars having to be rescued by tractors after leaving the road, thankfully nobody hurt but not really what you want! The city is small enough to walk everywhere, and there are lots of hire companies to take you out of the city at reasonably competitive prices.

I'm also going back in a few weeks, on the weekend of 'Culture night' and am really looking forward to seeing the place in a different way and doing some more exploring. I fell in love with the place, the people have a very dry, deadpan sense of humour and are unfailingly kind and helpful but without showy over-politeness or deference. The landscapes are absolutely stunning of course, and like nowhere else in the world.

SavingPennies_2

blindman wrote: »

You have a PM;)

BTW
SavingPennies
I apologise for hijacking your thread but hopefully you've got some good information too. :cool:

No problem, loads of great info :T just catching up on this thread now.