Ryan and I love to travel and it had always been on both of our bucket lists to visit Iceland some day. When we eventually decided to book the trip with his parents and sisters I had no idea just how amazing this trip would be. First of all, Iceland is a beautiful country. However, the biggest surprise of all was waiting for me at the end of our trip and needless to say, I had NO idea it was coming!
We rented a 9 person van to drive around for our entire trip. Most people who visit Iceland stay in Reykjavík and then just take day-trips out from there. Others will travel along the Golden Circle, which hits most of the main tourist sights. However, we are not like most tourists and we wanted to see it all! So we decided to drive the entire Ring Road, which encompasses the perimeter of the entire country. This meant we would only stay in the same place for more than one night once the entire trip. BUT it also meant we got to see sights that most visitors miss.
To start our trip, we hit one of the most popular spots in Iceland. The Blue Lagoon. It is a natural geothermal heated pool with pristine, pale blue water that honestly kind of looks like paint water because the minerals cause the water to be opaque! It is beautiful and comes with a complementary facial mask and a swim-up bar with wine and cocktails. It definitely gets busy, but it is worth it to experience.
One of the things Iceland is most known for is the plethora of waterfalls all over the landscape. You can’t drive more than 20 minutes without seeing one. Some of the ones we visited were Seljalandsfoss, Bruarfoss, Gullfoss, Dettifoss, Skógafoss, and Goðafoss – my personal favorite ;).
Even though the time of year we went was supposed to be too early for the Northern Lights, we did manage to catch them one night! We were staying in a hostel that evening and after dinner, one of the other guests came running in shouting “You can see the Northern Lights! Everyone come look!” So of course we all ran outside to see and I scrambled to get my camera and tripod set up to capture a photo. To my dismay the lights had faded before I could get a good shot. I was so bummed thinking I’d missed my chance. But, as luck would have it, 15 minutes later they re-appeared! This time I got set up faster and was able to grab a few quick shots of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The entire time we were driving around it almost felt like we were on a different planet because I had just never seen anything like it! There were vast expanses of rock and desolate landscape, beaches with geometric rock formations and black sand, and some of the bluest water I’ve ever seen.
Iceland is not necessarily known for their food because it all honesty, it’s not the easiest terrain to grow anything. They primarily eat fish, livestock and something called geyser bread, which is bread cooked underground! Despite, the lack of discussion about their food, we had some of the best food ever! And surprisingly enough our favorite meal was pizza and fries from a local Icelandic pizzeria haha
All throughout our trip Ryan had been saying he wanted a really good family picture with all of us in front of an amazing waterfall. We had been into lots of gift shops with postcards and magnets, etc displaying the most famous waterfalls. At one point we saw a postcard of Goðafoss and decided it would be the perfect backdrop! Two days before our trip was over, we made it to the waterfall and hiked down to the bottom. I set up my camera and captured this photo.
Once I took the picture, he said we should grab a couple of just us two so I set up the camera and handed it over to his sister Chelsey who ended up capturing the biggest surprise of my life. Ryan got down on his knee and said “I’m so happy you could come on this trip with us. I hope you’ll go on many more adventures with me in the future. Will you marry me?”
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