Useful Information and Planning

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Getting there

I flew into Keflavik Airport, which is about 50km SW of Reykjavík. I used flybus to get into the city, tickets cost about 25 euro and are available at https://www.re.is/tour/flybus/. The journey lasts about 45minutes and buses are available every 30-45minutes.

From there I took the number 57 public bus from Mjódd bus terminal to Akureyri. The bus is run by Strætó, Iceland’s public bus company, tickets are available https://www.straeto.is or you can buy them at the station on the day. Currently there are two buses a day, leaving at 9am and 5:30pm, both of which take 6 1/2 hours and are around £60. The bus stops at a few places en route and there is the potential to leave food packages at some of the stops if you were doing a traverse of Iceland as opposed to a N-S crossing.

I then spent the night at a campsite in Akureyri called Tjaldsvæðið which was a short walk from the bus drop off point and about £10 a night. The following morning I caught the 79 bus from Akureyri to Husavik, which has 3 departures a day at 8:21am, 12:28pm and 4pm, and takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Husavik is the closest I could get by public transport to the start of the walk, the previous bus service from Akureyri to Raufarhöfn has now been stopped. So I had to hitchhike the last 130km to Rifstangi. This wasn’t easy with a buggy, but luckily I got picked up by an American guy called Chris who took me all the way to the turn off!!!!!!!

FOOD

Some of the food I brought for the journey.

Some of the food I brought for the journey.

Basically I ate terribly for the entire trip as I was trying the save money. I brought almost all my food at Bonus Supermarket, Fiskislóð 2 Grandi. I had enough food for 26 days which was only possible to carry due to having the buggy. Otherwise I would have had to make up food parcels.

  • For breakfast I brought 2kg oats, a bottle of 375g honey and two 500g bags of raisins.

  • Mid morning and mid afternoon snacks consisted of a handful of mixed nuts and a couple of squares of cheap chocolate. For this I brought 10 bars of chocolate and 2 big bags of nuts.

  • Lunch was a packet of noodles, with an added stock cube for flavour, some mash potato powered to bulk it up and a couple of cubes of cheese. For this (and dinner) I brought 20 chicken flavour stop cubes, 4 packets of mash potato powder and 52 packets of noodles!!!!!

  • Finally dinner was exactly the same as lunch.

To be honest I quite enjoyed the poverty diet I subsisted on for the month. I had enough energy for the entire journey and although I lost a bit of weight, I was never hungry. Carrying 52 packets of instant noodles with me was a bit ridiculous, I emptied them all into the same bag which was MASSIVE, but ultimately it kept costs low. A bit of a negative was having to stop to cook lunch, but this just meant I got to enjoy my surroundings for a bit longer and I loved having warm food inside me.

I brought my gas from Iceland Camping Equipment Rental, Barónsstígur 5 in Reykjavík. But most petrol stations sell gas canisters for stoves.

SAFETY

Ideally you won’t need to use emergency services, but there are precautions you can take to ensure that you are as well prepared as possible to avoid accidents.

  1. When in Reykjavik visit the ICE-SAR desk, at tourist information on Bankastræti 2. Here you can tell someone about your plans, find out about renting a PLB if you need one and find out about how swollen rivers are and what different roads are doing.

  2. Download the 112 Iceland App. It has 2 functions, one has a special button for use in emergencies which sends a text of your location from your phone to the 112 response centre. Secondly you can check in at various points along your journey so emergency services have a better idea of where you are.

  3. Submit a travel plan on https://safetravel.is/travel-plan this allows ICE-SAR to know your plans, it also has a trip monitoring service, which means that if you don’t check out from your travel plan they can activate a search party.

  4. Let someone close to you know where you are going and when you expect to be there. Make sure that you give them information on the service to contact and a time frame in case things go wrong.

  5. Ensure you have GPS and either a spot tracker, PLB or Garmin Inreach device.

  6. Get an Icelandic Sim Card. Simmin has the best coverage in Iceland, about 80% of the country is covered. However this is definitely not to be substituted for one of the devices mentioned above. I paid 2900ISK for a sim card that included 5GB of data, it was then easy to top up.

  7. Check the weather forecast before you leave at https://en.vedur.is you can also download the Veður app on google play/the apple app store.

  8. When you reach a hut that has wardens e.g. Dreki, Nýidalur or Landmannalaugar, chat to them. They know the local area really well and can advise on terrain, river and weather conditions. I found the wardens at Dreki and Nýidalur especially helpful. They also messaged one another to let them know when to expect me by.

  9. Have a map & compass. Know how to use them.

  10. Make sure you have the right gear, skills and knowledge for the task. If navigation isn’t your strong point go on a navigation course back home. Iceland’s weather can be incredibly changeable and you don’t want to be stuck in the middle of no where without some idea of what you are doing.

  11. Finally ensure you have a couple of extra days worth of rations. I got stuck near Kistufell for 2 days due to a storm but luckily had planned excess food into my budget.

MAPS AND ROUTE PLANNING

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Below is an outline of the maps, both paper and online that I used. One difficulty with maps in Iceland is that the smallest scale is around 1:100,000. I was used to 1:25,000 OS maps in the UK so wasn’t used to the lack of detail. Therefore I mainly used online maps for navigation.

  • Icelands Cycling Map for 2019. This was used for the general route planning in terms of F roads etc and to get an overview of distances.

  • National Geographic Iceland Adventure travel map. 1: 465,000. This was again used for general planning, and is also waterproof and tear resistant.

  • Iceland Regional Touring Map Series. 1:300,000. Mal og Manning. Central Highlands Sheet. There are 5 sheets to the scale of 1:300,000 in this series but I only used the central highlands sheet. http://www.omnimap.com/catalog/int/ iceland.htm

  • Online maps: I used https://www.gaiagps.com/profile/ this was an invaluable tool, it had all the tiny walking tracks, F roads and contour lines at 10m intervals on. I downloaded the entire route onto my phone and then when I needed to know exactly where I was I could just turn the GPS on my phone on and hey presto I knew where I was. It is paid for on a subscription service.

  • https://www.komoot.com/discover This was another invaluable tool. Again I downloaded the maps offline and I also created my route on it and used the route profile to know where the steep uphill and downhill sections were. Again it is paid for on subscription but worth every penny.

WHERE TO STAY

Below is a list of everywhere I stayed on my journey from north to south in chronological order. I camped every night. I have put a (FÍ) by those managed by Ferðafélag Íslands, the Iceland Touring Association. For 2020 all camping sites managed by FÍ are 2300ISK per person per night, for showers it is an additional 500ISK and to use the facilities e.g. toilets but not stay there is it 500ISK. The others were between 1500ISK and 2000ISK a night.

  • Kópasker campsite 

  • Lundur Campsite

  • Grímstunga Camping Ground

  • Dreki hut (FÍ)

  • Nýidalur Mountain Hut (FÍ)

  • Landmannalaugar Camping (FÍ)

  • Skógar Camping Ground

POINTS OF INTEREST

  • Hraunhafnartangi lighthouse (this used to be the most northernly point in Iceland, but it is still worth seeing.)

  • Dettifoss and Selfoss (Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Europe.)

  • Walking through the Odadahraun Lava Fields.

  • Askja Caldera and Öskjuvatn lake (you have got to swim in the lake!)

  • The views of Urðarháls 150m deep crater.

  • Swimming in the hot springs at Landmannlaugar.

  • Skógafoss waterfall.

USEFUL WEBLINKS

It took a huge amount of planning and research before I felt comfortable walking in Iceland solo. Below is a list of some of the websites and blogs that I found most useful.

Useful Icelandic websites and information:

Blogs from people who have done similar trips: