This is IslandHopperTV.

Today we're going to talk about the things to know when visiting Iceland.

Let's do it.

So the first thing to talk about is affordability.

How affordable is Iceland?

Well let me just tell you, the taxis will eat you alive if you don't get a car.

So if you're here, it's better to just rent a Yaris or something and drive around yourself than actually get a taxi.

Because sometimes a rental car might cost you $135 a day, but you can easily get into a taxi and pay $135 just to go within the city limits of Reykjavik.

So it can be a real pain in the butt.

As far as hotels go, I have found some reasonably priced hotels here, but the average price seems to be around $200 on the minimum, on the low side.

Hostels are limited.

As far as food goes, also expensive.

Tours, I have done tours it seems like on average to do a full day tour, about $100.

You can get them from $100 to $200 depending on what you're going to do.

So Iceland is known as the land of the midnight sun and the northern lights, which you get in the winter, the midnight sun in the summer, but also they call it the land of fire and ice because they get the volcano activity out here.

In the Hawaiian Islands, they call it Pele.

Out here, it's just fire.

But anyway, so with that being said, let's elaborate on the hours of the sun in the summer and the winter.

In the winter, you get maximum, in December, five hours of sunlight.

That's it.

Five hours.

Sun comes up at 11 a.m. and it goes down around 3 or 4.

In the summertime, which it is now, it's June.

You can see it's raining.

It's still cold.

I'm wearing a coat.

Even in actually July, it's not June, it's July.

In the summer, it's pretty much light all day.

I don't think the blackout curtains are stopping the light from coming in at any time.

Even though they are blackout curtains, I can still see the light peeking in throughout the night, even at 3 in the morning.

Those peak hours are basically June, summer solstice around June 22nd, July, early July.

As it goes towards August, it kind of brings back the darkness.

Let's talk transportation because we did talk about the rental car situation, but let's actually elaborate on that.

The first thing I want to say is the airport is about an hour drive away.

The airport ride, if you take a taxi, is about $100 to $150.

If you took a bus, like the Flybus for example, you can get down to your hotel in Reykjavik for around $40.

They're about $40 to $50 depending on peak pricing.

Also, the transportation when you're down here, they do have buses and that seems to be the most affordable way because taxis are so expensive.

But they do have a city airport here in Reykjavik that you can take for domestic flights.

Unfortunately, you can't get a flight to London or Copenhagen from here.

You have to go domestic to the north or somewhere else.

But if you're trying to do domestic flights, that might just be your best option, trying to fly out of there.

They have boats, ferries, but they don't really do long-range ferries that I know of.

I've heard some cruise ships come in here.

I did see Holland America in here while I was here, but rental cars seem to be the best way to get around from what I've been told.

If you did do a tour company, you can do the Ring Road.

That's the road you need to know about because that goes all circle around the island.

It's called Ring Road.

And then they have a few different tours that you can do that tour companies offer, but you can do it in your rental car, like the Golden Circle.

They also have the South Coast, which is considered the best.

Let's keep going.

Let's just touch on the money real quick.

You don't really need to have the local currency on you, although it does come in handy at times, but everyone's going to take credit cards, debit cards for the most part.

It's 50-50 with Amex, but I've noticed MasterCard and Visa, they do work good here.

The currency is not the Euro.

It is called the Krona.

So you would notice that around 2,000 Krona is around just about $20.

Let's talk about the people here.

So I would say around 20-30% of the residents here are immigrants from other places.

That means about 60% are Scandinavian descent ancestry with a little bit of mix from other

European countries because remember, Iceland is part of the EU.

One of the largest demographics for immigrants from the EU is Poland, so you'll meet lots of Polish people.

Overall, the people are very friendly here.

Probably the most difficult people that you're going to encounter on your whole journey across

Iceland is going to be the tourists.

That's at least been my experience.

The tourists are usually the ones who are pushy, they get in the way, they're rude, they want it their way.

They have no respect for the locals really, at least that's what I've been told.

So if you're a tourist coming here, try to be respectful of the people who are living here and working here to serve you.

I think we all need to hear that every once in a while, right?

So what are some activities that you can do while you're out here?

You might see the Northern Lights, that's winter only.

Also, are you guaranteed to see a volcano?

Well, it's Mother Nature.

Nothing is guaranteed and if the volcano is not going off, then you won't see it.

But if it is going off and you decide to go over there, you will see the volcano.

Lava flowing.

They have a few volcanoes here, because remember, fire and ice, right?

So it's always interesting to see volcanic eruptions in the middle of a glacier or something that has snowpack on it, right?

With that being said, glaciers.

There's also fjords, the fjords, F-J-O-R-D-S.

They're like these canyon islands and you'll notice that there's some history to be told because that's supposedly where the original inhabitants actually were living.

Like Eric the Red or Lieferd Erikson, Lief Erikson.

We know him as Lief Erikson, but some of you may know him as Lieferd.

That's what they call him here.

But yeah, the fjords are very cool, whale watching also, and many tours.

Waterfalls are common all across the island.

There's many streams, rivers, I would mostly call them rivers, and there's of course the

Blue Lagoon, the Sky Lagoon, which just opened up.

And then one of the other hacks that a lot of people don't know about is there's many different pools, like hot ponds, hot pools, that you can go to that are where the locals go, not where the tourists actually go.

The tourists go to Blue Lagoon and there's a waiting list, or they go to some of the other popular lagoons that just opened up.

And I would say, from what I've been told, just going to one of the regular local lagoons across Reykjavik, you'll have just as much a good time without the crowds.

Weather, even in the summertime, you will get gray and cloudy skies.

You also could get an occasional blue sky day, like I got my second day here, totally blue skies.

But I heard also you can get blue sky days in the winter, although it would be a lot cooler.

Now, people assume that it's extremely cold in the wintertime.

They say it's actually not that bad, but the problem is they get a lot of wind in the wintertime and that's what makes it unbearable.

So just keep that in mind, but even in the summer, you can come across cold temperatures, so bring your jacket.

That goes on to the next thing, what to wear.

Okay, so what to pack.

I would pack a pair of hiking boots, boots, okay, that are probably weatherproof.

You're probably going to want to bring those.

So if you can get an all-terrain, all-weather boot for hiking, that's recommended.

Also a light raincoat, because even if it is raining, it might be 50 degrees, yes, but

I found that if I'm walking or hiking around, I actually start sweating.

So I have a light raincoat, but then I also have a light shirt underneath right now in the summertime, but I might actually need an undershirt that's, you know, an underlayer that's thick and warm in case it does get cold.

So maybe a pair of long johns, especially if you're coming in the fall, winter, or spring.

Summertime, that's up to you, depending on if you go do some hikes to the glaciers or whatever.

But also, maybe even consider a hat, because I did notice the sun is bright, so bring in sunglasses and a hat with maybe sunscreen.

I saw people lathering on the sunscreen yesterday when it was blue skies out with lots of sun because the sun, for whatever reason, it is bright up here.

I did want to elaborate on the tours a little bit more.

For example, they do have these six-day, eight-day tours, multi-day tours.

You can do a three-day, you can do a six-day, you can do an eight-day, and it just depends on how slow the pace is to get around the whole of Iceland or what area or region you're checking out.

Exploring one of those, if you're coming for over a week, might just be the way to go.

They include the food, the hotel accommodation, and it's around no more than $2,500 per person.

So for eight days, $2,500 to see and do all of Iceland per person might just be the route to go.

Ah, some of the tour companies that I went on or would recommend, Trolls, they're called

Troll Ice, Troll Is, that's their website, Troll.is.

So look up Troll Excursions in Iceland.

Those are the guys that I went with who have a whole bunch of different tours you can look at.

Iceland is actually known for its nightlife and loud music, nice loud music.

You can see we've got a pub there, a pub there.

Everyone's indoors, they're not outside, but you go inside one of those pubs, you'll see it's ruckus, lots of people in there.

Some of these pubs and clubs, they really get going.

I've seen it myself.

So if you're coming here for a good time, you'll definitely find it guaranteed at night.

It's a great time.

People come out after the bar's closed at three, you'll see a party in the streets with the midnight sun still going.

People don't even know.

They're like, oh, it feels like it's 6 p.m., but it's really like three in the morning and they're just out there partying it up, even though the bar said you got to go home.

All right, so I'm going to show you guys an example of some cuisine.

This here is the restaurant's name, Siskelgaded Fish Company.

I don't know if you can look them up, but they've got lots of fish, okay?

Nice food.

That's the name of this restaurant right here in the city center, but here's some local cuisine.

Lots of lamb, salmon, herring.

I've had both salmon and herring while I was here.

They also get cod, and then they have a hot dog here that most people really like to gravitate towards.

It's like an Iceland hot dog, but I've had great food here.

I had like maybe one breakfast that was okay.

It was a buffet.

The buffet was okay food, but when it's really good, it's really good, and when it's really bad, it's just really not that good, but here's an example of one of these places that'll be open at 12 o'clock at night.

I ate here.

This is right here in the city center.

At 12 o'clock at night, I was like, oh, man, I need something to eat.

Came right over here to the city center, and there's the hot dog right there.

Well, I just wanted to show you my hotel room, even though it is messy because I was just taking a nap, but it gives you an idea of what kind of room you get.

The bed is super comfy.

This hotel is called the City Center Hotel, okay, and it's right in the heart of it all, and they give you one of these maps, and you can see there's all the good stuff on the map right here, right in the heart of the city, and then you can see, I just look right out my window here, right over there is the city center and the English pub, so you're right here in the middle of it all, right at the city center at this hotel, about $200 a night.

All right, everybody, that's going to conclude this episode of Island Hopper TV from Iceland.

Hope you guys walk away from this feeling more educated on Iceland, and we'll see you on the next one.