I haven't made any official plans yet, but I thought you'd all be interested to know that it looks like a trip to Iceland is in my future! I'd originally abandoned my plans to see Iceland when Jay said he wouldn't be able to make it, but I've decided to do a small solo trip there this summer. We'll see if some of my friends feel like a longer, more adventurous trip next year.
For now, here's the plan. It looks like I can get a flight on Icelandair direct from Toronto to Reykjavik the evening of August 18th, arriving at 6:25 A.M. local time on the 19th. I would be leaving Iceland at 5:00 P.M. local time on the 27th. Flightcentre was quoting me $736 for the round-trip flight on their website, but was having trouble processing my payment. I believe the problem is stemming from the fact that their website wanted to charge me $687, which doesn't jive with the originally quoted price. I'll just go into their store and see if I can book that in person. Traveller's Tip #896, book in advance so you can be flexible with your departure dates! From what I could tell on the Flightcentre website Icelandair doesn't run from Toronto to Reykjavik on Mondays... at least not that I was able to find. If I'd already locked myself into a Monday to Monday vacation I'd be taking an Air Canada flight to Heathrow in London England and then catching a flight to Reykjavik... same routine on the way back. That would have cost my a charming $3500 round-trip. Yeah, it pays to shop around and be flexible.
Accommodation has been my biggest stumbling block so far. August is a popular time to be traveling in Iceland, and hotels in Reykjavik aren't cheap. Wikitravel, as always, has been a wonderful resource. Also, I'm booking into a 3-day tour (more on that later) and the people I've been in contact with there had some suggestions. Rumour has it that it's become much cheaper to travel in Iceland since their currency the Krona is in bad shape. What you need to watch out for is the fact that a lot of hotels, presumably catering largely to European clientele, list their prices in Euro. Note, as of the time of writing this article the Euro is a VERY strong currency! So hotel prices probably haven't dropped off that much, and they can be STEEP! Something that I'm looking at right now is the Guesthouse, which is essentially a house that's been converted into a small, cozy hotel. There's plenty of them around, and they tend to be considerably cheaper than your standard hotels. I'm trying to get booked into one of those right now, I'll keep you all posted on that.
Another interesting accommodation option that I was considering if all else fails is simply camping. There's a huge campground located right in Reykjavik, and according to their website it can hold 650 campers and there's no need for a reservation. If I can't find a room in my price range I may just show up there with a tent! The great thing about that being that it's 1000 ISK per night, which as of last night was about $9.20 CAD. Not bad for traveling on a budget. I'm thinking that the Guesthouse may prove more comfortable though.
Okay, and now onto what's drawing me to Iceland. Just drop by www.dive.is sometime and have a look at the photos on that site. Now pick your jaw up off the floor and we can continue. The scuba diving looks phenomenal! I'm getting booked in for a 3-day trip that consists of 3 individual day-trips out from Reykjavik. I'm really, really excited about this. In Thingvellir National Park there's a dive site called Silfra which is what really grabbed my attention. It's located at the point where the North American and European continents are pulling apart, and you can dive right down into the fissure that's being formed. It looks incredible! If this all comes together along the timeline that I'm shooting for I will have just finished my PADI Advanced Open Water and Deep Diver certifications. I'm hoping at some point in the summer that I'll be able to do the Dry Suit course as well. The water at Silfra is a constant temperature all year round... unfortunately that temperature is between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius. So the dry suit is going to be a must. The team from dive.is can teach me how to dive in a dry suit, but I'd much rather know what I'm doing in advance of those dives so that I can focus on just enjoying the scenery.
That's the game plan so far. As you can see, nothing is booked yet, but it's all starting to come together. Obviously I didn't want to book anything until I was sure that everything was going to match up, but it's looking like I can get a reasonably priced flight, and I've got a Plan B for the accommodation, so now it's time to start getting everything booked!
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