DAY 1 ICELAND♥ Messy day + What's in my bag? (05.09.2015)

Hello everyone,

This is Day 1 Iceland blog. We stayed 12 days in Iceland. My husband and I suddenly decided to go to Iceland instead of going to Croatia again for our summer holiday trip. Iceland was on my husband's travel list for a really long time. We found out the plane tickets' prices were affordable.(EASYJET: CHF447 for 2 people and both ways) We booked the plane ticket on Monday and left on Saturday. We didn't have much time to prepare as my husband needed to work, so I planned and booked the hotel for Iceland. We mainly followed the plan given in Guide to Iceland 12 day Self Drive Tour. I wrote down the check points, hotel details and draw a simple map on my planner. I only booked 2 nights hotel at the beginning of our trip in the case of a plan change. I think September is not the most popular period to go to Iceland, so hotels are generally not so full and not hard to book. But since I needed a private bathroom and toilet ( I don't like shared ones), the choice was limited and prices were higher.

For the car rental, my husband booked on Nordic Car Rental (Euro 925 for 12 days incl. full insurance and GPS). Compared to other companies, this one is quite cheap and they didn't check the car carefully when we returned the car which is good because we heard that some companies do thoroughly check and charge for damages on the car. Probably because we bought the full coverage insurance, they didn't need to check in detail. One thing I need to complain about is the GPS we rented, the battery connection was not good. Most of the time, we had to restart the GPS and had to hold the cable in a precise way so that it works. We tried to use some plaster to fix it but it didn't help much. However, in overall, we were satisfied with the car and the company.

For the 1st night hotel, we stayed at Reykjavik Hotel Centre, Family room with private bathroom and toilet, which was CHF 93. But this hotel's check-in time is only 2 hours from 4p.m-6p.m, we missed the check-in time, and when we arrived the staff already left. (Following story check out my vlog) This hotel's style is like a school camp guesthouse. The hotel was not our preferred one in this trip but it was still acceptable. We booked all our hotel rooms via Booking.com. I highly suggest to download their app on your phone, you can save your booking details on your phone when it is offline (No internet). No need to print out the booking detail papers, especially since you hardly find any printer during the trip.

We both bought a pair of sport shoes and one backpack for this trip. I only wore the nike sport shoes during this trip and I didn't bring other shoes. I highly recommend to wear sport shoes because there is quite a lot to walk in Iceland. For the bags, I brought the Longchamp bag, Chanel mini & woc with me. But I didn't use the woc in this trip. And most of the time, I didn't really carry any bag with me, I put my phone and camera in my jacket pockets.

As you know I like taking photos and filming video blogs, I brought 4 cameras(Panasonic GF6-vlog+photo, Olympus Pen Lite 7-photo, Casio Tr15-selfie, Sony Cyber-shot waterproof-didn't use) and a camera stand.

Iceland is so different than other european countries, there is so much untouched nature and landscapes are breathtaking. We saw a lot of things that we have never seen before. We can feel the power of the nature and sometimes feel like we are on a different planet. We loved Iceland and we definitely will go there again. Follow my vlogs and my blogs to discover Iceland together!