Blue Lagoon & Reykjavik

Day 1 Iceland Road Trip

BWI to Keflavik Airport

Rachel and I met at BWI Airport in Baltimore and immediately felt reconnected like no time had passed since we’ve seen each other. Pretty cool to have friends like that. The flight was about 5 hours or so, an overnight flight. I tried to sleep but probably only was able to for 2 hours of it. Other than that I read some pages of my book, Thomas Jefferson’s biography. When we got to the airport we were hungry for breakfast but inside the airport right off the plane was for departing passengers only. Weird! Instead we had to go through border patrol, collect our luggage, and then went through customs to find a convenience type of store before we left the airport. We met this lady named Candice who looked to be in her early 40s, with a very heavy amount of makeup on, and expensive luggage and outfit. All of the tables were filled except for hers. She had a lot of luggage so we thought the rest of her table was taken. I decided to ask her if the seats around her were taken and she said they were not; turns out all the luggage was hers! She was so nice and we had a good conversation talking about our travels. She has been to 70 countries and even went to Antarctica. This time, she was headed to Greenland on a cruise.

Blue Lagoon

For our first destination on this road trip around Iceland, we got on a bus at the Keflavik Airport headed to the Blue Lagoon, a popular touristy spa destination near the airport. It was so luxurious and a great way to start the trip! We got a free cleansing mask and a free drink with our standard entry ticket. It was great! We even had a little history lesson about the Blue Lagoon and of Iceland in general as they have a storytelling event everyday in the afternoon. This lagoon was our favorite part of the day.

Reykjavik

Next up we took a bus to Reykjavik (pronounced Ray-kya-Veek). The bus stopped about a half a mile from our hotel so we walked the rest of the way with our heavy luggage in the not-so-city streets! Reykjavik felt like a bigger-small town. The streets were clean, the view from the harbor was sprawling, and the little row-like homes were mostly brightly colored. The weather was dreary and cold but as we kept saying, “manageable.”

Explore Iceland | BMore Rosie — City Streets in Reykjavik

We walked to the rental car location from our hotel, which was about a mile away through the heart of the city. We passed by Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran Church founded in 1945 and opened to the public in 1986. It was amazing to walk by. After we picked up our car, we had to relearn using a stick shift! At this point it was getting pretty late. We needed to get snacks and water for our road trip so we went to Costco. It was so interesting to see lots of small families in there with children who were not throwing temper tantrums, and who were just genuinely being good and obedient. Definitely not a normal scene in the mainland U.S.! We had our first hot dog here and we can say this was our favorite; but maybe because we are used to the taste. If you didn’t know, Iceland is known for their hot dogs.

Where to Stay

Hotel Fron

We stayed at the Hotel Fron, a small European-style hotel in the middle of the downtown area in the center of the city. The facilities there were just OK but you can’t beat that location with the ability to walk right out the front door to the main pedestrian street. It was great! We thought it interesting that the window in our room was cracked open but the heat was still on. Maybe this was for air flow. The other noticeable part was the foul smelling sulfur water from the shower and the sink. We learned this was the case in some of the hotels around the country. They also had a complimentary continental breakfast, but we later learned that all of our hotels included breakfast for us. This was possibly due the tour we were on, so be sure to check for this first when you book the hotels.