Okay...now that I've browsed through my photos I remember that we called it the Black and White Island. I must admit that we weren't very lucky with the weather most of the time. However there's still something magical about the place, even with bad weather.

Most touristic places are pretty much next to the road. If you go a little further you might be surprised by the beauty around the corner.

A quick selection:


Iceland overview by Jan Paalman, on Flickr

So basically:

  1. Some random boat in a place in the East/South East, still have to check Google Maps and try to pinpoint my photos to the right location
  2. A beach near Vik I believe. Black sand/grind, seriously heavy wind and rain. Do watch out for sneaker waves! It's like waves in Iceland don't follow rythm
  3. Same as 2
  4. Diamond beach...again bad weather. Only small Ice Blocks and loads of tourists. At the other side of the road is the glacier lake (Jökulsárlón) where all the big icebergs are drifting. I personally found it more interesting. But this really depends on the weather and tides I guess.
  5. Svartifoss, I really enjoyed the hike to this waterfall. It's a one of a kind waterfall. Hard to take decent photos though. It's high and not that wide.
  6. Strokkur/Geysir, part of the Golden Circle. We had great weather this day, loads of wind though. It doesn't get more touristic as the Golden Circle, but still I enjoyed it quite a bit. Seeing a geysir is something really cool. Also Gulfoss is amazing, I loved it. All of the Golden Circle stuff is next to the road. You barely have to walk.
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  9. Some church we spotted somewhere down the road during the Golden Circle trip.
  10. Pingvellir national park. I quite enjoyed walking around here. The area is really beautiful. There's also a nice "small" waterfall and there's some Icelandic cultural history. You can also scuba dive here the water is crystal clear.
  11. The Kerid crater. Some go here during the Golden Circle trip. It's next to the road. It's an old vulcano crater filled with water with ice on it. I thought is was a great sight.
  12. First encounter of Northern Lights, somewhere in the South.
  13. A little later during the night at our apartment next to this farm. It was quite cloudy unfortunately, but we definitely had our first real experience with Northern light. We also checked Seljalandsfoss at about 2300h. You would be amazed how many other tourists try to take photos of the Northern lights at touristic hotspots. Unfortunately the waterfall is being lit by (too strong) lights. There's a very difficult contrast to take good shots (at least in our case)
  14. This is actually at Skogafoss...well...sort of. Skogafoss at ground level is very crowded with tourists, a nice view though. However if you climb the ladders to the top of the waterfall the amount of tourists shrinks down already. Up top is cool. However if you take some time you can hike really well from the top, following the river upstream. Lots of rapids and waterfalls in a valley like scenery. I personally think this was absolutely worth it. Muddy though in our case.
  15. This was also an unforgettable day. Just before sunset I checked a map and saw this road that would lead to the feet of a glacier. We decided to drive into a road and had a little walk. We came at this glacier and could walk straight into and onto it. It was amazing. It makes you feel really small. Be careful though. My friend and I followed two other tourists taking photos between the ice in the glacier. I took some photos of my friend, then looked upward and questioned the stability of a big chunck of ice (about 2 sq Meters I reckon). We decided to get away there. Another couple were about to come to the same place when we were just leaving there. I told them my concerns and they decided not to go further. Five minutes later we walked about 100m further on the glacier when we heard a big crash. The ice chunck actually fell down, the glacier looked completely different. I don't my friend or the first couple would have survived it if it happended when they were standing there. Watching from "higher" ground is a "pro" tip Name of the glacier: Sólheimajokull, at the end of road 221 is a parking place.
  16. Solheimasandur, the crashed DC3 Planewreck. Also a very touristic spot. Unfortunately we had bad weather again. It's a boring walk of about 40 minutes over a gravel road. Perhaps the view is better when the weather is good. My father took me to every airshow in the area when I was young, so this one took my attention. I really wanted to go. Afterwards I don't think it was worth it walking to in bad weather. I reckon that this will be a hotspot for Northern Lights photography as well.
  17. Reykjadalur. This was the best hike we did. It was extremely muddy, knee deep at some parts, but with really good views. At the end you come at this hot spring creek where you can take of your clothes and take a nice warm bath in nature. There's also quite some geo activity to take photos of. Normally it's an hour walk, I believe we did it in almost 2,5 hours with photo stops. When we were almost back at the car there were some American girls who started the hike on sandals...we tried to explain it was a long hike, but they thought they could do it faster by running. Never heard of them again
  18. This was one of the views on our way back from the creek.


Well... I just have to add this photo in big format...just check the size of the people in the photo. And the guy is actually taking photos of the chunck of ice that later fell of. It's about 5-6 body lengths to the left of him.


Solheimajokull by Jan Paalman, on Flickr