If you know us, you know we LOVE traveling with our friends! We believe that traveling with cool people can be an awesome and exciting experience and we are always encouraging our friends to come with us. Welp, some of them finally called our bluff so and we decided to plan a trip with ten – yes TEN- friends to Iceland! Are we insane? YES!

We were all excited to visit the Land of Fire and Ice and we had a great time… but we also learned a few lessons along the way. In total, we spent about a week in Iceland and were based out of Reykjavik. While that wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, it didn’t give us an opportunity to spend a lot of time anywhere else.  For those that don’t know, Iceland is not heavily populated and though Reykjavik is the biggest city, it really has more of a small town vibe….. like run-into-your-cute-tour-guide-at-the-bar small (ah, shucks). Because of this, it would have been nice to see some other parts of the country. On the flip side, what you do get is an ability to find favorite places and visit them more than once, which can be nice. Iceland is NOT a cheap place, so unless you are traveling with P Diddy (is he still a thing???) definitely do a little preparation and planning in advance. Read on to learn what we did and how we would do it differently.

Lodging

What We Did:
We ended up staying in four separate apartments in the same building. It was nice being close together, but if you can get a house, that is preferred (at least in our minds). The disadvantage to ten people in different apartments is no common space that really fits everyone. However, from a getting ready perspective, it was ideal (you feel us ladies?!?)! And the location was great as well, just a few blocks from the main thoroughfare – Laugavegur. Reykjavik is pretty small but we suggest looking for a place to stay near where Laugavegur meets Laekjargata (yes, those are street names, good luck with that English speakers).

What We Suggest:
We actually feel like a house would be better for a large group-to have more common areas to hang out in together. Some of the greatest things about traveling in a group come from those shared times after a long day. In this scenario we missed out on that some. But the location where we stayed was perfect and it was nice to have extra getting ready space for everyone.

Eating and Drinking

What We Did:
Iceland is a pretty expensive place to be – like $15 for a beer expensive – so you have to be prepared for that! To help with this, we bought ALL the wine, liquor and beer at the duty free shop in the Reykjavik airport. DO THIS …you will see locals doing the exact same thing! Most Icelanders end up pregaming at home prior to going out for a night on the town to help manage the costs. We downloaded an app called “Reykjavik Appy Hour” to help us track the best happy hour deals. We also suggest buying snacks and waters from the local grocery store – Bonus. It is a “discounted” grocery store and you can find some pretty cool and yummy snacks to stock your room. Reykjavik only has about 200K residents and you can tell this by the size of their restaurants. Most of them are pretty small – we often shocked the staff when asking for a table for 10 people. We did make reservations a for a few nights and other times we just had to split up in to smaller groups. As a side note, while it is quite expensive the food was really good! If you are brave enough, try the fermented shark. You’ll have to let us know what you think, that was a hard pass for our group. 

What We Suggest:
We actually think we played this pretty right! We tried to find the best deals we could while still experiencing the local restaurant and bar scene. One thing we could have done was bring more snacks from home to help with cost. If you have a larger group (more than 4 people) consider making reservations for a few meals so that you can all sit together.

Day Trips

What We Did:
From Reykjavik we did small-group day-trips. Typically we like to do private tours, but the prices in Iceland are pretty ridiculous and even with ten it cost a bagillion dollars wasn’t affordable. And renting cars for 10 people was just not feasible. The good thing about small group tours was the price, the bad thing was the inability to customize the tour. There were a few times when we definitely felt corralled around, which is lame, but we did get to see the top sights. Tourism in Iceland has basically exploded over the last five years and their infrastructure has not caught up yet. The roads are fine, but the “rest stops” are usually ill equipped (we are talking one or two  bathroom stalls per stop – ladies, you already know how that goes!) and making stops along the way really takes up time because of this.

What We Suggest:
Our day trips included the Gullfoss and Skogafoss waterfalls, Vik black sand beach, geyser, fault lines at the Thingvellier National Park, glaciers, snowmobiling and the Blue Lagoon (wow that sounds like a lot!) We also had a planned night trip to see the Northern Lights but we don’t want to talk about that….stupid clouds, stupid atmosphere. It’s fine. Really, it’s fine. We enjoyed the destinations and Iceland has some amazing natural sights, but we all agree if you can rent a car to explore on your own do that. P.S. We already outlined the best way to enjoy the Blue Lagoon for you- just click here to read more! 

The other advantage of having a vehicle is the freedom to stop at spots that simply look cool as you drive by. Icelanders are very nice and super helpful and the entire country feels really safe. It would also give you an opportunity to go to some of the less touristy spots and hot springs that we, sadly, did not get a chance to explore. You could even stay the night in another little town! If you do get your own vehicle, you really only need a day MAYBE day and a half to explore Reykjavik.  Pro Tip: If you rent a car do some research on gas stations along your route ahead of time and plan that out. It’s not like other places where gas stations are plentiful!

Overall we loved our time in Iceland and would recommend it as an easy, safe and fun destination for anyone, especially groups.

Have you been? What would you recommend?