Iceland in Pictures

electrictreee asked: Hallo! I'm happy to see you answering questions, because I'm moving to Iceland from Toronto Canada this August and it's so hard finding housing sites for a flat. Going to school in Reykjavik and need a 1 bdrm or studio. What's The Best Way To Find Rent!? Thanks.

Yes I had quite a backlog of questions since I’ve been travelling for the past few weeks.

The largest site with rental apartments in Iceland is probably the one run by the mbl.is news site. You can probably find your way around it by running it through Google translate (Interestingly it translates the town of Garðabær as “California”).

If you are studying in Háskóli Íslands (University of Iceland) and you want to stay within walking distance, you should look for miðbær (downtown) or Vesturbær (west town) and perhaps Hlíðar. The University also has some apartments and dorms. Here’s the English website. It is a waiting list system, but recently the general price of rentals has gone down in Iceland and the student apartments are just a little bit cheaper than the free market. Therefor, last time I checked the waiting lists were minimal.

Anonymous asked: I'm looking to travel to Iceland in the summer of 2013 and one of my main concerns is not speaking the language. I speak English and German and have some foundation level Polish, but hailing from Australia I have no exposure to any of the scandinavian tongues. If I want to travel independently will this be a problem? Should I put in the time to learning some Icelandic, or after just one year would I be no better off? Thanks for your help, I love your blog.

Don’t worry about language at all. Virtually all Icelanders are fluent in English.

Still it is possible to learn Icelandic like this guy did. But for you it would be plenty to learn a few friendly phrases. You could also learn “every single word in Icelandic”.

epicdoubletap asked: for the person that asked about buses during Airwaves...I was visited Iceland in 2006 for Airwaves and it was by far the best vacation of my life. There we stayed in the middle of downtown Reykjavik, which made for easy walking to all the venues. We, bought bus passes for the week we were there to get around the rest of the city. Many of the tour companies came to pick us up and dropped us back at our hotel for the day trips. Anyone thinking of going can free free to ask me about my experience.

In response to a question about Iceland Airwaves.

Yes even though Airwaves is out of the main tourist season, the festival is so popular that the city fills up again for a few days. Therefor all the tour companies are on full speed.

I was guiding during the festival a couple of years ago. At times it was a bit difficult to get people going in the morning as they were generally thoroughly hung over. But I can promise you a walk out on a glacier is a very good hangover remedy.

Anonymous asked: whats the general attitude towards religion iceland? or is it a mostly atheist country? basically what do most icelandic people think about the concept of a god and an afterlife?

Officially we are mostly Lutheran, but I’d say we were mostly atheist. I’ve written several posts about religion before that you might want to check out.

I suppose the most optimistic of us are waiting for the never ending slaying and partying in Valhöll.

Anonymous asked: Hello! My fiance and I are traveling around Iceland in September for our honeymoon. We want to remember this amazing trip by getting a tattoo while we're there. Can you recommend a good tattoo parlor in Reykjavic?! Thanks!

I know there are tattoo parlors in Reykjavík, but I’m sorry I know nothing about them.

The Icelandic word for tattoo is really cool though: húðflúr

Anonymous asked: What language do the people spek there

We speak Icelandic.

Anonymous asked: Hi. I intend to come to Iceland for Iceland Airwaves. My question is: are there any buses that still travel at that period ? I don't wanna go just fot the festival...I'd like to go to Vestmann island for example, and I can't find any information on the internet. (I think plane is too expensive)

The private bus lines have different summer and winter schedules and many locations only are serviced during the summer. Often this is because the highland roads are closed during winter. You can try and make sense of the rather complicated network on bsi.is.

However there are plenty of bus day tours offered from Reykjavík all year long, especially during the Iceland Airwaves festival, so it should be no problem to find something other than the festival to do.

Also the Reykjavík public bus system recently began servicing much of southwest Iceland. This means that you can take a normal scheduled public bus from Reykjavík to the brand new Landeyjarhöfn harbour for only 1400 ISK. From there you have a 40min and 1150 ISK ferry ride to Vestmannaeyjar (used to be 3hrs from Þorlákshöfn harbour). You can also fly with Ernir for between 7 and 20000 ISK.

Oh and by the way Vestmannaeyjar is one of the most beautiful places in the world. You could also go crazy and skip the Iceland Airwaves and go to Iceland’s greatest party “Þjóðhátíð in Vestmannaeyjar”. It is a festival with over 10k guests every year. You won’t get the hipster music of IA, but you’ll get classic Icelandic pop bands and a real Icelandic crowd.

Here’s last year’s official video:

allimba asked: I'm going to be hiking in Iceland this summer. Because I'm going solo, I'm going to go into the ICE-SAR office. What your thoughts on personal locator beacons and GPS in Iceland. Is it necessary to have them? I've heard that the cell service and wi-fi is quite good. For GPSs do you know of any good maps? Also what are good camping stores for things like cooking-ware and fuel? And do you need to pay at camping sites for a tent? Thank you!

Hi

I’m glad you are taking precautions. As great as Iceland can be for hiking, it is unpredictable and potentially dangerous, especially if you are solo.

Iceland has as you mention an excellent network of volunteer search and rescue teams (ICE-SAR). Through the website safetravel.is, they offer a leave your travel plan service. All travelers who intend to venture off the beaten track should be advised to post their plans their. Take note though that they don’t follow up on whether you’ve returned or not. That is still up to your trusted friend or family. But I’ve taken part in many ICE-SAR rescues and I can tell you every little piece of information is very valuable.

If you need more support from them they also offer you to come by the ICE-SAR office and get advice. In this case they will also follow up on you.

Regarding PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons) I think ICE-SAR has some to rent or lend. You might want to check that out. In any case, a GPS PLB is a lightweight and cheap safety item. I’ve never carried them, but I have carried satellite phones for the same purpose.

Cell phone service in the mountains has improved a lot in the past few years with the introduction of Vodafone’s long range 3G network. Make sure you have a 3G capable phone as this will give you best coverage. Still, coverage is far from complete and few valley bottoms away from civilization will have coverage. Here’s a coverage map (click the GSM and 3G buttons).

Regarding maps, there are three main sets of maps of Iceland for hiking.

Atlaskort Landmælingar Íslands 1:100.000: The traditional hiking maps for Iceland. Measured and largely drawn around 1910-20, but updated in the 80s. These are my favorite as I’m quite used to them. Available here.

US Navy 1:50.000 The most accurate maps of Iceland, drawn in the 50s. The originals are almost impossible to get, but a more recent mix of these maps and aerial photos is available. These maps are not available for the whole country. I have no experience with the aerial map version.

New Atlaskort 1:100.000: There is a new set of maps published a few years ago. I can’t find them anywhere online, but I know these are great for hiking. They have plenty of hiking routes marked on them.

Specific maps (Sérkort) 1:100.000: For many popular hikes and areas there are tailor made maps. For these areas these are almost always the best maps, with huts and paths marked. I think all of them are offered here.

Reykjavík has a few nice outdoors stores. The most accessible one might be Fjallakofinn as it is downtown. Other good ones are Everest and Útilíf. You can get butane gas cartridges (compatible with MSR, Primus etc. NOT compatible with Campingaz) at most gas stations.

Camping sites usually charge a fee per tent and sometimes per traveller. Here are a couple of posts I’ve written about camping in Iceland.

Flying to Iceland today

Anonymous asked: What can you tell me about human trafficking in Iceland?

That’s a tough one.

Human trafficking as well as prostitution are things that pop up in the Icelandic news and popular debate every couple of years. The debate is usually on whether or not it exists in Iceland. But of course it exists, just as anywhere else. I would suppose it resembles what occurs in our neighbouring Nordic countries. I would think that our small community and Iceland’s isolated location would make things a lot harder for trafficking (you can’t just drive across the border).

A quick google search for “mansal” turns up a handful of news reports, mostly focused around the first research report on human trafficking in Iceland published in 2009. The report claims to have found 59 victims of human trafficking. Another researcher finds faults in the report and believes that the numbers are inflated. If you are doing some research those two reports are probably the best starting point.