That One Thing...

When we travel, we all have things that we are willing to negotiate. Some of us need a firm bed, inside a ⅘ star hotel to decompress from a busy travel day. Some of us need a 4-course meal, or they will be incredibly grumpy and not a very good travel-buddy. For me, in Iceland, I didn’t care what I ate, where I slept, or who I was with. The most important thing for me? Get inside an ice cave and take some incredible photos (bonus points if I could touch the walls).

Let me backtrack and tell you that Iceland was not on my list of places to see when I was traveling abroad in Europe. I had already been to 8 countries in the past two months, and was buying a plane ticket back to California to surprise my parents. I was leaving Berlin, and wanted the cheapest flight I could find. I found a ticket with WOW airlines (anyone remember these guys?!) that was going from Berlin to San Francisco for about $400 USD—pretty flipping good! The flight would leave Berlin, layover in Reykjavik for an hour, and then carry on to San Fran.

There’s this great hashtag (#mystopover) for people who take flights just like this, usually to/from North American and Europe. It wasn’t in the plans, but I figured... Iceland is an amazing place to visit, and my flight was already headed there, so what if I simply… got off the plane? And just like that, my one hour layover turned into a one week stay.

I did, of course, need to figure out a few on-the-fly logistics. My go-to for this type of thing? Couchsurfing.

A brief aside on couchsurfing, as lots of people ask me about it. What’s it like? Am I scared entering a stranger’s house? Where do I stay, and why do I even do it? It all adds up to what my priorities are: befriending the locals and making my costs as minimal as possible.

I’ve couchsurfed in 10+ countries, and the “worst” experience was a bit of discomfort I shared with my friend while abroad in Belgium. Tricks I have learned for whose house to stay in are similar to online dating rules. If someone reaches out to me and says I can stay at their place, that’s an immediate flag to do some research on the host and look at their reviews. Try to uncover what their tone was, and since I am female, be sure there are no ulterior motives. I’ve turned hosts down that gave me a wrong “vibe”, or who seemed too persistent for me to stay with them. I’ve also reached out to fellow female surfers to ask about their experience at a host’s house, making sure they felt safe and enjoyed their time there. I understand that couchsurfing is not something that everyone is comfortable doing, and it can be out of your “comfy zone”, but for me, it was only nerve wracking the first two or three times. After that, I felt confident in selecting my hosts and homes, and to this day, I have friends all over the world because they chose the give me complete hospitality while in a foreign country.

Lodging nailed down, it was time for the main event: the ice cave tour.

The tour I chose was through a company called “From Coast to Mountains” (https://www.fromcoasttomountains.com/). I did quite a bit of research on available tours; some tourists believe they can explore ice caves by themselves, but it is HIGHLY advised that you do not. There are many safety factors that people don’t consider before searching for an ice cave, which results in tourists dying all too frequently. The cost of this trip was 29,000 ISK (roughly $240 USD), and it was worth every penny.

The morning of our departure, a lot of tours were being cancelled. There was some pretty bad weather the night before, and a few of the caves had flooded. This company, however, was prepared, and had an alternative cave ready for us to explore and enjoy. We drove out to the glacier, put on our provided cramps, and started up the glacier.

The storm had wiped the glacier clean of any scratches or dullness, and when you looked down at your feet, it revealed the brilliant blue coloring, dotted with bubbles frozen in time. Think of walking on ice, where each step is terrifying, and to secure yourself you had to slam your each step into the glacier. It took a bit to get used to walking up the glacier, and to not be so scared of the sound or cracks with each step, but I will never forget that experience.

Once we got to the cave, we ran into only one other tour group. This allowed the two tours to go at their own pace, and have an almost private tour to themselves. My group had 6 adults in it, plus the tour guide, so it was easy to get photos of an empty cave.