Hello guys, gals, and non-binary pals! For today’s blog post, I’ll be discussing what I did during Spring break! During the end of freshman year, one of my close friends randomly looked up how much plane tickets to Iceland cost. We discovered that they were decently affordable and from there decided to plan a Spring break trip to Iceland. We saved up money during the summer and school year for this, and we all worked together to coordinate transportation, plane tickets, and an Airbnb. It was a lot of hard work, but it ended up being so worth it.
On the first day of the trip, we arrived at the Keflavik international airport at around 5:00 AM and then waited in the airport until 6:30 AM when the rental car place opened. From there, we picked up the cars and drove to the Airbnb while watching the sunrise. It was such an amazing view seeing the sun rise over the coastline. After this, we decided to go grocery shopping, since we wanted to make our own food to save money. I ended up finding green chili from New Mexico in the grocery store, which I found very funny since I’m also from New Mexico.
After grocery shopping, we decided to take a nap for a while and then walk around the city of Reykjavik. There was so much street art all over the city and so many cute bookstores and cafes. We took a lot of photos and lamented over how cold it was with the wind blowing
The next day, we went to the Blue Lagoon, a natural hot spring in Iceland. We relaxed in the sauna, tried different skin care face masks, and had a lot of good conversations with each other. Afterward, we went back to the Airbnb and decided to go on a Northern lights tour. We chose to last minute book tickets for a boat tour, so we drove into the city and then got on a boat that took us a few miles outside the island. The lights were absolutely stunning and we even got to see a red aurora, which we learned is incredibly rare. We talked to some other travelers, drank hot chocolate, and overall had a great time. Sadly, I don’t have many photos from this, since my camera doesn’t work well at night.
After this, we went on a road trip, driving from the Western end of the island to the Eastern one. During this trip, we saw a lot of partially frozen waterfalls, black sand beaches, and an old plane wreck from World War II. The whole time we took a lot of good photos, had great conversations, shared music with each other, and ate really good food. The next day, we went thrift shopping and found a lot of really great clothes for a reasonable price. After this, we went to see an active geyser and took a hike around the national park. For the last day, we ended up spending a lot of time cleaning up the Airbnb, and we went to Thingvellir, a gorgeous national park that contains a rift valley formed from the divergent plate boundary that Iceland sits on top of.
During the flight back, I did a lot of homework that I didn’t do during the break, but I was able to get all of the important things done. Overall, it was a fantastic trip, and I loved being able to get closer to my friends. This was the first time I had ever left the United States, and I am so incredibly grateful that I am in a place in my life where I am able to do this and have such a fantastic experience!