(No caption)
The writer, a Detroit freelancer, is a former Detroit Free Press reporter.
By Michael Betzold
You probably know someone who knows someone who’s been to Iceland in the last year or so. It’s cheap to fly directly there from DTW (and many other American cities) on Wow Airlines. When I went there in October, I found it’s so unlike Detroit that it’s bewildering. Where are the muscle cars? Where are the dive bars? Why are people sitting in hot tubs outdoors in 35-degree weather? And especially, where are all the vowels hiding?
The whole country is geared to tourism. There were few places on the island, no matter how remote, where you couldn’t hear conversations in German, English, Chinese, or some Scandanavian tongue. Tour buses fan out from Reykjavik to the popular attractions within easy reach of the capital, spectacular but accessible—and so packed with visitors I can’t imagine what it’s like in peak summer season. (Maybe like Belle Isle on a hot summer Sunday—but the Scott Fountain is a geyser?)
Everything you want to do and see can be packaged for a price. But for those of you, like me, who prefer to rent a car and explore on your own, some words of caution are in order: It ain’t like daring to cross every mile road in one day. Iceland is gorgeous but not for the fainthearted. Traveling on your own is a real adventure—exciting but daunting.
You must drive with your lights on at all times (for good reason) and watch for conditions you’d never encounter here: two-lane main highways that squeeze onto one-lane bridges, blind hills and corners, narrow roads (even the nation’s main “Ring Road”) that wind up and down precipitous mountainsides with no shoulders or guardrails. Add weather conditions that can change drastically in minutes from wet snow to blinding sun—and almost always strong winds.
Roads get worse the further you get from the capital. In Reykjavik itself, you must contend with a narrow warren of crazy-quilt streets packed with buses, ubiquitous traffic circles, and main roads that suddenly switch from what looks like an American freeway to stoplights and congested roundabouts. You never know what awaits up the next hill.
We drove around the entire island and racked up more than 1,300 miles in seventeen days—which doesn’t sound like a lot. But 100 miles may entail three or more hours on the road. You can spend a good portion of your driving day white-knuckling it. Don’t let your attention wander to the spectacular scenery if you’re behind the wheel: a sheep may step out onto the road, or you may have to brake judiciously on wet pavement to avoid accelerating to 100 miles an hour on a steep corkscrew downhill. I found it incredibly challenging—but then, I imagine Icelanders would be just as freaked out driving I-94 through Detroit.
If you’re up for it, it’s bracing and exhilarating. Incredible scenery looms in vast expanses around every turn: volcanic masses of sheered-off rock bluffs and snow-capped, fog-shrouded mountains, magnificent seaside vistas, charming little villages and expansive sheep and horse farms. Parts look like the American West but with the added spectacle of volcanic immensities, lava fields, steaming vents, and an otherworldly moonscape beyond all imagining.
To cushion the culture shock, I’d suggest staying in or near Reykjavik and taking mostly day trips. That can give you a taste of almost everything Iceland has to offer—including hikes in an ice cave and a lava tube, majestic waterfalls, and geysers. But instead of ponying up to dip in the $100 Blue Lagoon, you can get the same experience of geothermal outdoor hot tubs in the affordable municipal pools in the cities and small towns. Stay in Air BNB’s—which are plentiful, reasonably priced, and often gorgeous—and buy groceries and cook your own meals, limiting costs at the expensive restaurants. If you do that, you can easily limit your food and lodging costs to $125 a day—and if you book a cheap overnight flight, you can take a spectacular two-week vacation for less than $2,000.
Don’t forget you won’t see the Northern Lights if you go in the summer, because it’s never dark then. But even in the spring or fall, it’s not nearly as cold as you might fear: it rains, the sun comes out, there’s a rainbow.
Reykjavik is a very cool, cosmopolitan, clean, and ultramodern city. It’s as hard to find a piece of litter on the streets as it would be to find a coyote on the sidewalk here. Oh, and don’t miss the Iceland Phallological Museum—it’s both extremely educational and hilarious (I bet you’ve never imagined how big a giraffe’s appendage is). But wait until your last day to visit the Volcano House in the capital—because once you see their films about recent eruptions, you’ll want to get the hell out of the country immediately before another one blows.
Icelanders have enormous respect for nature—they have to. Being in a place where spring water comes out of the tap and buildings are all kept warm with natural geothermal heat is a wonderful glimpse into a future of compatibility with the environment. But after a trip there you won’t retain any illusions about how important you are in the scheme of things.
And when you return, you’ll love how flat and boring Detroit’s landscape is. Not to mention that you can fill your gas tank for less than $50 agai
