Icelandic Road Trip Diaries | Southwest Iceland

Icelandic Road Trip Diaries | Southwest Iceland

• June 6, 2015

Forever 21 Denim Jacket (similar, similar), Urban Outfitters Black Loose Knotted Tee (similar), Black Dress c/o Lulu*s (similar), Urban Outfitters Garter Tights (similar), Timberland Burgundy Authentics

Day number three found us driving all along the southern coast of Iceland, from our airBNB home in the town of Hella to the southern-most town of Vik. Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss, which is a waterfall along the ring road that you can actually walk behind, which was insane to experience. By the time we got back in front of the waterfall, a few of us who ventured all the way down were pretty soaked from head to toe. But dude, absolutely worth it.

As we kept going further down the ring road, we decided to pass on seeing Skógafoss, since some of our group members were tired of chasing waterfalls. Luckily though, it was visible from the road and even driving by it from a distance was glorious.

Speaking of driving though, let's talk for a second about the lack of cops during our entire road trip around Iceland. Living in the NYC/NJ area, I'm used to keeping an eye out for cops around literally every corner and behind every tree; but I guess the fact that only around 320,000 people live in Iceland (which is only about 4% of New York City's population), it's essentially a waste to have cops roaming around. This also caused me to get a little too road happy passing every single car I came across.

One of the coolest things we saw during our trip was definitely the wreckage from the United States Navy Douglas Super DC-3 airplane crash landing. The plane was forced to land on Sólheimasandur’s black sand beach after experiencing severe icing, but luckily all the crew members survived so the abandoned remains weren't haunted. To get to it, we had to drive 10 mph for a good thirty minutes since the unmarked road was covered in rocks and rough gravel (should have invested in that 4WD), but it was worth it just seeing it finally come up over the sandy horizon.

Toward the mid-afternoon, we finally arrived in the beautiful, little Vik, a small city of only around 300 inhabitants. Even though it's such a small city, it's still the largest settlement in the area known for its black sand beaches. We made our way to the beaches to check out Reynisdrangar, which are basalt sea stacks coming out of the ocean.

Icelandic legend says that the stacks originated when two trolls dragged a three-masted ship to land unsuccessfully and, when daylight broke, they became needles of rock. They are also susceptible to lots of penis jokes, and I didn't disappoint in that department, being a mature adult.