iceland newcomer 19th-29th

[therearefauna]

hello all,

quick info. just joined, name is courtnay and i am from brooklyn new york, currently traversing our great mother europa. currently i am in helsinki but leave for iceland starting in rekyjavik on the nineteenth of may. i am there for ten days, camping, and have not really picked any other destinations other than rekyjavik and was hoping people had advice, comments, possibly people who are going to be there in the same time period. i know its great and wonderful and blah blah, im looking for really good useful things. let me know if anyone has anything or will be there.
living on the shoestring budget,
-c

[expatben]

Welcome!
I'll be honest and say that in Iceland Reykjavik was the only place I liked. There are lots of natural places there to see like the geysers.
As for living on a budget Iceland is a pretty expensive place as well. No idea on accommodation as I went over with the Scouts and we stayed in tents.

[worldwidemike]

Do the outdoorsy stuff, since you'll be there in reasonably nice weather. Waterfalls, geysirs, "The Thing" political assembly place from history. Sorry that I haven't actually been there yet, but I remember reading the guidebooks back when I was planning on going a number of years ago. I'd circle the island on the ring road, doing your camping thing to save money.

Most people only get a chance to zip in for a few days. You being able to be there for 10 days gives you the opportunity to see so much more than the average visitor...!

worldwidemike

[mbo108]

Yeah, after 10 days you may get voting privileges in Iceland! I was there in November and it was awesome. Outside of Reykjavik, the biggest city is Akureyri . I only left Reykjavik on the bus tour that WorldWideMike was alluding too (Gulfoss, the waterfall, Geysir, the geyser, and Þingvelli, now a national park and the original seat of Parliament hundreds of years ago).

Another thing the locals do is gas up these huge trucks they have with monster wheels and go off into the country side off-roading and whatnot. Maybe if you search around on Couchsurfing you can find some people to take you out? I also made some contacts by joining Facebook's Iceland network.

Finally, I stayed in a hotel but I know that Reykjavik has one hostel, its on the outskirts of town (but still walkable distance to everything).