Seattle to Reykjavik, 5–6 Aug 2026
Melody and I arrived in Iceland a few days before our hiking group so we could do some sightseeing that wasn’t on the group agenda, as well as giving ourselves a bit more time to acclimate to the area and time change. After landing in the morning, we spent a few hours walking around Reykjavik.
We had a red-eye flight from Seattle, so we tried to sleep as much as we could, knowing it normally doesn’t work out so well for us. We actually did better than I expected. On our way out of Washington, we got great views of Mt. Baker peeking above the clouds, and we also saw a colorful sunrise while flying over the Labrador Peninsula.
We figured there would be clouds and rain when we landed in Reykjavik, and that was, unfortunately, true. It was also over 30 degrees cooler than in Seattle.
After getting off the plane, we made the trek through immigration. While still in the corridor, we started going through many switchbacks, even though there were few enough people that we kept on walking through them. We then got into the immigration room which also had many switchbacks, and a couple more of them were opened up as we were in line. Along the back wall was a series of booths, a few of them which had agents, but taking up most of the room were several dozen self-serve kiosks which weren’t working yet. We all ended up forming lines among the kiosks. Once through immigration, we picked up our bag, bypassed customs since we had nothing to declare, and started looking for transportation.
We were going to take a shuttle bus from the airport to Reykjavik, and were able to purchase tickets not far from baggage claim. When we got to the bus, we just missed the cutoff to get on, but another bus was waiting there, so we got on right away. After the bus was full, it took a while to leave because there was a wife and kids on board waiting for the husband to go back and get the car seat. He made it back quickly, though, and we were off to the city.
We got to the bus transfer station, and after a while, the bus we wanted showed up. After getting off, it was a short walk to where we were staying. Our room was ready a bit early, so we checked in, did some light unpacking, then went out to find some lunch.
We decided to go to a food hall which was in a building which used to be the first post office in Iceland. As you walk in, there is a wall of keys for the original mailboxes. Unlike what you would expect at a shopping mall, you wound through various rooms to pick what food you wanted. We got a paneer bowl which was quite tasty.
After lunch, we decided to do a walking tour of the city. It started at a small square on the remains of a burned-down hotel, which is now a sort of skateboard park. Right next to the square was a gelato shop, so of course we stopped in for some scoops. We then returned to the walking tour.
A block or two away was the original Reykjavik waterfront, even though we were standing a few blocks from the water. A land reclamation project in 1910 moved the waterfront to where it is today.
Just off of Aðalstræt (the first main street in Reykjavik) was a statue of Skúli Magnússon, an 18th century entrepreneur who helped transform the city from a farm to a town.
We then went to City Hall which had a huge wooden relief map of Iceland. Just outside of City Hall was The Pond, a small lake within the city limits.
We then went to Austurvöllur, the city’s equivalent of a parliament square, with the parliament building on one side. We walked around the building to a small garden in back.
After walking past where we had lunch, we saw the building for the office of the prime minister, which was the first building built to be permanent. At this point we were tracing the route we took to get to lunch, but were able to spend more time looking around.
We came to Skólavörðustígur Street, which is also known as Rainbow Street because of the rainbow painted on the ground. Looking up, Hallgrímskirkja church is perfectly at the top, so you could see a lot of people taking photos.
When we got past the end of the rainbow part of the street, we quickly took a look at a couple of stores, one which sells vinyl records, and another which sells Icelandic wool sweaters. Having had a long travel day, we stopped the walking tour there, went to a grocery store to get something for dinner, then headed back to our room to eat and try to stay awake as long as we could (which wasn’t very long).
