Reykjavik to Seattle, 27 Aug 2026
We traveled home to Seattle, but not when we expected to. Also, some reflection on our trip all around Iceland.
Since we needed to get to the airport with enough time before our mid-morning flight, we had set an early alarm. When it went off, I saw that I had a text saying that our flight was canceled. Double-checking email and the airline’s app, that was indeed the case. We started wondering how we were going to approach getting home when a text came in saying that we were rebooked for another flight six hours after the original one.
One thing we needed to do was change our shuttle reservation to the airport. We called, but they didn’t open for another half an hour, so we took a quick nap. After getting disconnected a couple of times when we were supposed to be connected to an agent, the third time was the charm. With the shuttle change done, we went back to sleep for a couple more hours, since we were no longer in a rush.
We already planned on eating breakfast that we had bought the day before, so we did that instead of going to the buffet downstairs. We had bought a couple of scones, and ended up only eating one, so saved the second one to eat on the plane.
We still had over an hour to do whatever, so we headed out for a walk. We had no real destination in mind, so just walked around. We wandered onto a knoll which used to be a farmstead which had a statue of Ingólfur Arnason, who was Iceland’s first settler. It is believed that the farmstead dates back to soon after the first settlement, in the late ninth century. From the knoll we were able to see Harpa, the concert building on the water. We went closer to the water then did a loop which took us back to our room.
After checking out, we walked a couple of blocks to our pick-up location. There were a bunch of tour buses where the shuttle was supposed to be, but since we were early, we sat down on a bench by Hallgrimskirkja church, where another woman was waiting with her suitcase. While we were sitting there, we started hearing the organ, so Melody went inside to check it out. She said it sounded like the organist was practicing, and she thinks he was playing something by the composer Ales Barta.
We sat on the bench until it was a bit after our pick-up time of 11:30, but we knew the shuttle could be up to a half an hour late. That would be troublesome, since the shuttle was supposed to take us to the bus depot, where we would transfer to a bus which was supposed to leave at noon. When the bus was a few minutes late, I took a look and it seemed that the shuttle would be able to get by the tour buses, but another bus was blocking the entrance, so perhaps the shuttle would be going along the street. We picked up our bags and went to the median between the two lanes, and the woman on the bench joined us. Just as we got to the street, we saw the shuttle pull up, so the timing worked out well. As it ends up, we would have been fine, since the driver had a list of everyone who had reservations, and our driver got out to find the last person.
Our stop was close to the last one before going to the bus station, but we were wondering whether there would be a timing problem. Fortunately, we arrived a bit before noon, did a quick transfer, and the bus started pulling out. We got a last look at Hallgrimskirkja as we started heading towards Keflavik Airport.
Because of the flight delay, the airline had given us a couple of $20 vouchers for food. We used the first one for lunch and the second one for dinner which we would eat on the plane, so it worked out well for us.
The rest of the time in Keflavik was uneventful, and we saw parts of Greenland and the Henry Kater Peninsula in Canada on the flight.
After we landed, we did the long walk from the South satellite terminal to immigration near the A gates. It makes you appreciate the train that you normally take. The checked bag took quite a long time to show up, but once it did, all we had to do was walk towards the agent at the Global Entry station, and since he knew who we were based on a combination of the flight manifest and cameras that we walked past, he said welcome to us and we were on our way home.
The only glitch when we got home was that we knew our internet was down, since we got alerts a few days before. I wasn't able to fix it, and it was getting late, so I left it for the next day and possibly calling the ISP. With that, we unpacked and were able to stay up to within an hour of our normal bedtime, which we thought was pretty good considering the seven-hour time change.
Reflection
Iceland had long been a vacation which sounded interesting, but not really high on our list. When we saw that there would be a total solar eclipse, we figured it would be too crowded to try to go. However, when our hiking group leader announced a trip, we were interested.
As a destination, Iceland did not disappoint. After a while, it was hard to imagine that the waterfalls would get much better, but instead, the variety was greater than you would expect. Same for volcanic formations; columnar basalt seems like it would all look alike, but we didn’t expect to see the columns twist and go in all directions.
The landscapes were just as varied. Yes, there are areas where you see green all around you, but it was a treeless green. Even so, there were areas which did have trees, and small groves were starting to form. There were rugged volcanic plains and expanses of dirt.
As for hiking, we didn’t do any really challenging trails (mostly due to time), but there was enough to get a workout. We decided to take our boots and hiking poles, but fortunately, we were used to doing that on flights. We did go pretty light on clothing, and there were only a couple of opportunities to use a washing machine, meaning we needed to do strategic hand washing (doing more at places that had heated towel racks).
The total solar eclipse was, honestly, a bust. When we were in San Antonio a couple of years ago, at least we got glimpses through the clouds even though we couldn’t see totality. We were also closer to the center of the totality path, so it lasted longer and more of the horizon got dark, but this time was still noticeably darker. Besides, as with our San Antonio trip, there were plenty of other activities planned, so the eclipse was just one event, and missing it didn’t ruin the trip.
This was easily the most expensive vacation we have taken. Accommodations were expensive, but part of that was because of either availability or because there weren’t many options in some of the more remote places. We were expecting the food to be expensive, and indeed it was. For example, a pasta dish in Reykjavik was two to three times as expensive as a more generous portion of equivalent pasta in Seattle. And in some of the more remote places, the difference was even greater. We figured that a lot of the food needed to be imported (other than fish and lamb), and transporting around the island must not be cheap.
We really lucked out with the weather. Other than a couple of days in Reykjavik and parts of a couple of other days, we avoided rain. We even had several days which were clear and sunny. Only a couple of really cold days, and one or two days of strong winds.
As far as the itinerary itself, it was a bit more packed than we would normally do by ourselves, but we did get into a rhythm and relished the couple of times when we could get a slightly later start or when half of the afternoon was unscheduled. To lower the number of days paying for lodging and food, it did seem to make sense to have a dense schedule rather than the several extra days we would have scheduled.
The people we traveled with were all great. On the first day, we naturally split between the two vans, and that unknowingly set the tone for the rest of the trip. Our van was pretty lively, and we all had a great time on the road. Melody and I ended up sitting in the back row, which led to us napping pretty often. Also, since our van had no back-up camera, we would be the spotters when the van was backing up and soon were being called the back-up cameras. At least when we were awake.
The times when we weren’t in the vans gave us an opportunity to do things with everyone else, such as on walks or during meals. But spending about a third of our waking time in an enclosed space created a make-or-break situation. As things turned out, it was definitely “make”.
Lastly, the group leader spent over a year putting together the itinerary and spent a lot of time each day checking conditions to see if he needed to make changes. For the most part, we stuck to the original itinerary, and the timing was uncannily accurate. Sure, there were some places we could have spent either more or less time at, but each day had a good mix of activities. We are used to making our own itineraries, so we know how much work goes into it, especially since this was much more detailed and had more moving parts than what we do. It was a job well done.
