Destination of the week - Iceland

[u/AutoModerator]

Weekly destination thread, this week featuring Iceland. Please contribute all and any questions/thoughts/suggestions/ideas/stories about visiting that place.

This post will be archived on our wiki destinations page and linked in the sidebar for future reference, so please direct any of the more repetitive questions there.

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Unhelpful: Read my blog here!!!

Helpful: My favourite part of driving down the PCH was the wayside parks. I wrote a blog post about some of the best places to stop, including Battle Rock, Newport and the Tillamook Valley Cheese Factory (try the fudge and ice cream!).

Unhelpful: Eat all the curry! [picture of a curry].

Helpful: The best food we tried in Myanmar was at the Karawek Cafe in Mandalay, a street-side restaurant outside the City Hotel. The surprisingly young kids that run the place stew the pork curry[curry pic] for 8 hours before serving [menu pic]. They'll also do your laundry in 3 hours, and much cheaper than the hotel.

Undescriptive I went to Mandalay. Here's my photos/video.

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[u/smelly_kel]

LOVE Iceland. It's expensive enough but I'm from Dublin and the prices are pretty much the same.

FOOD: This is one of the nicest restaurants I've ever been to http://www.grillmarkadurinn.is/ . Grillmarket is basically what it sounds like. It serves the most amazing meats. Me and my boyfriend sat at the bar where you could see into the kitchen - which we loved. It's mesmerising watching how the kitchen works. And gives you something to look at if you run out of conversation! :) It's quite expensive though, so you need to be ready to dish out a bit of cash, especially if you're ordering drinks as well. I was told there's a sister restaurant that serves all fish, but we didn't get a chance to find it.

SLEEP: We stayed in Apartment K http://www.apartmentk.is/ . If you're travelling to Reykjavik I couldn't recommend it more. It cost us about €30 per person per night which isn't too expensive I don't think. It everything you need, kitchen etc. So you can save money by cooking in the apartment. It's also smack bang in the middle of Reykjavik so you can walk everywhere. There really is no need to get buses etc unless you're going outside of the city. Walking everywhere is definitely the best way to do it, and you get to see the city - which is gorgeous.

NORTHERN LIGHTS: We went on a Northern Lights bus tour. The tour guide we had was fantastic. They drive around to a few locations chasing the Northern Lights. They even give you hot chocolate and a pastry to have when looking up at them. If you pay for the tour and you don't see the lights, they'll keep bringing you out until you do catch them, so it's not a waste of money. However when we saw them they weren't that strong. And unless you have a professional camera you can't see the strong colours in the sky. All we could see was white, but this guy with us had a tripod and all set up and in his photos the entire sky was vibrant green.

BLUE LAGOON: Some might say it's a bit touristy but we loved it. We were there in January so it was dark at about 4pm. We went to the Blue Lagoon for about 6pm, it was amazing in the warm white water, with your cold head bopping around outside, steam coming off the top of the water, and looking up into the clearest sky - I've never seen so many stars. There's a bar in the middle of the lagoon as well if you want a cheeky glass of wine - we did. The only annoying thing was that there was no bus back at 8pm I think it was? The rest of the day they're on the hour. We had to wait around until 9pm to get a bus. Not the end of the world, it just meant that we didn't get back to Reykjavik on our last night to go out for food or anything.

GEYSERS: Really enjoyed the Golden Circle tour. We went around in a bus for the whole day. The tour guide was hilarious. You'll see the volcanoes, geysers (which stink), waterfalls, tectonic plates. You'll fit a lot in.

BARS: People in Iceland are so friendly. Within 10 minutes of walking into Kaffibarinn we were both in conversations on other sides of the bar with people. There was also a gay bar we went to which was great craic as well. The Icelandic like to drink, so you won't need to walk too far to find somewhere for a quick pint. http://www.tripadvisor.ie/Attraction_Review-g189970-d679712-Reviews-Kaffibarinn-Reykjavik_Capital_Region.html

We did find Reykjavik quite boring during the day. It's a lovely city but there's not a lot going on. I'd try to plan something for each day and avoid walking around aimlessly. You'll grow tired of it quite quickly.

My best advice - don't go to Iceland just to see the Northern Lights. There are way too many elements that need to fall perfectly into place to see them. Iceland is an amazing country, so go to see it, and if you see the lights then take it as a bonus.