THE PLANNING BEGINS… 2023
No sooner had we gotten back from Patagonia we started planning our next adventure- these things take some time! Because of some flight changes and rebookings from our last trip we had quite of bit of credit that we needed to book by March 2024 so we needed to start making some decisions.
Our first thought was to go to Panama- it’s on our list of potential home bases if we decide to go full time expat. But we’d still have money on our credit that we might not be able to use and we hate to leave money on the table like that…so we started looking further…and for more adventure!
So we decided that our next trip would be Iceland. I think it’s on every adventurer’s bucket list and it certainly is on ours! We decided on summer so we’d get to see the most of the country, even though we probably wouldn’t see the Northern Lights (also on our list). So dates were chosen and tickets were purchased. A good step one.
Like Patagonia, we thought about a planned tour with a rental car and hotels pre-booked for us, but ultimately we really like having control over our schedules and destinations, and the flexibility to alter them on a whim. And the best way to control our adventure is the way we know best- rent our own RV and do whatever the heck we want to do.
You need to know that Iceland- while much more developed then Patagonia- still has a lot of very rugged roads called “F” roads. The name F-road comes from the Icelandic word fjalla, which means “mountain”, and they require 4×4 vehicles to access them- there are fines for driving on them in standard cars, probably because of the difficulty and cost of rescue from them.
Iceland seems to have a well developed rental RV business, and mini-vans, cartop tents, large vans and traditional RVs are readily available. Not cheap, but available if you begin planning early. 4×4 vehicles on the other hand, are harder to find and more expensive when you do find them. You also need to think about which F roads you want to drive and the difficulty of those roads- there are some that any 4×4 can manage, but there are others that require a heavy duty off road vehicle capable of river crossings and very rough terrain.
We, of course, wanted to get a small 4×4 camper. Not a super heavy duty one, but one that we could take up some of the less difficult F roads for some exploring- we’ve heard the interior is just gorgeous and we want to see it. So in February 2024 we focused on finding one that was still available. It took a while, with many emails back and forth with different companies, but ultimately we made a deposit with Camper Iceland for a “turtleback” camper similar in size to Ferdinand the RV we used in Patagonia. No bathroom but we’re ok with that. It will cost more than a 2WD RV, but we felt like we got a good price for the added adventure experience we will get. So the dollar/experience ratio is great!
More details to follow as we get them- itineraries and costs and whatever comes to mind, so check back in!