10 Things to Know BEFORE You Visit ICELAND! | Ultimate Iceland Travel Tips 2024 🇮🇸

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what's up YouTube welcome back to my channel it's Chu here from choose to explore where I teach you guys how to see the world and save a dollar so we just came back from an amazing trip to Iceland and this is the first time that we've been to Europe in years and while we had an amazing time we want to give you guys 10 things that we wish that we knew before we went to Iceland so stay tuned you don't want to miss this one so the first thing that I want to talk about is Iceland is an amazing destination to do a stopover if you're from the Northeast and you want to head to Europe and this is really because of its location and where it is it's really in between the Atlantic Ocean between the east coast of the United States and Europe from New York it was only about a five and a half hour flight and it's so worth it because the Landscapes and everything that Iceland has to offer is so beautiful but most importantly it's a lot cheaper to fly to Iceland than it is to go directly to Europe and Airlines like Iceland Air and play Airlines have free stopover programs where you could fly to Iceland stay as long as you want and fly to Europe and it's all included there's no extra cost so for example my wife and I we flew to Iceland with plate Airlines and our round trip ticket was 275 US dollars per person now that is seeing the world and saving a dollar so we just touched down in Iceland and the first thing I wish I knew the airport is actually about 45 to 50 minutes away from Reykjavik and we are in cavalovic so it's still not so far away and most airports aren't directly in the city but I wish I would have knew that before I came and the airport is really modern so we got here at around five in the morning and all the stores and the restaurants inside are open so you don't have to worry about things being closed it's open pretty early also duty-free is open so be sure to come here and stock up on things before you go so you can actually take a bus us into Reykjavik instead of taking a taxi which could end up costing you about a hundred dollars more than a hundred dollars so taking a bus is much cheaper colors per person with one of the bus companies and you'll see that right here on the screen another good thing about this location being in kevlavik is actually it's so close to Blue Lagoon which is one of the 25 wonders of the world so I think Blue Lagoon is a perfect place to either start your trip or end your trip just based on the proximity of it to the airport and Iceland actually is not that populated as a country and majority of the people live here in rectory now the next thing that I want to talk about is when is the best time to come and visit Iceland so we did a lot of research to try to figure out when we wanted to come now if you guys have been checking out our Channel we usually go to a lot of tropical destinations and let me just say Iceland is not one of those in actuality Iceland is pretty cold year round so I'm going to talk about the different seasons so you can determine when is best for you to travel because Iceland has Beauty in both seasons but it just depends on what you're looking for with your Icelandic experience so the first one that I'm going to talk about is the winter so as you guys could comprehend the winter is very cold there usually is a ton of snow ice and unpredictable weather here in the winter I mean even in the summer the weather is not predictable but especially in the winter it has a lot less sunlight and there are days where you have three four five hours of sunlight this is definitely in the low season so there are a lot less tourists in the winter time also in the winter in Iceland it's one of the best places in the world especially to see the Northern Lights so I've seen the Northern Lights is important going into the winter will give you your best chances to see it also something that I like is the winter is a lot cheaper and another thing to consider is driving in Iceland in the winter is very difficult because the roads can freeze over it snows there's not a lot of people out and it gets dark really early so you guys could decide if that's worth it or not now the complete opposite of the winter is the summer so we were there in the end of April and they actually said that that was summer now summer is the high season if you don't want any tourists it'll be really hard for you to go in the summer and not see any so during the summer season is High season for a reason and that's because mid-june the Sun never sets it goes low and comes back up so if you're somebody that needs your beauty sleep and you want to go into summer bring some blackout curtains or an eye mask to block out it because it'll be really difficult for you to sleep when it's light out old hours of the day it's actually will be really confusing also in the summer time a lot of wildlife come out so if you want to do any whale watching if you want to go see any puffins if you you want to see some of the purple lupins summertime is the best time to go see that and even though it is summer generally speaking the highs are usually around 50 degrees Fahrenheit so it's really not that warm and like I said the weather is unpredictable so you still can have rain you're still going to have high winds and it's really challenging to plan for weather in Iceland now personally my favorite time to go and when we decided to go is the shoulder season and that's in between winter and summer so sometime March April even early May is the show this season in the same regards September October will be the shoulder season as well and you get the best of both worlds because you can still see the Northern Lights you still may see some snow you still can see some animals you still can see a lot there in Iceland so you really determine what you want to do and what you want to prioritize in your Iceland trip when we were there in April the sun set at 10 pm and it actually Rose at like 5 30 a.m so it was crazy because we were out all day and we got a good night's sleep but I like having long days like that because you can see so much in a day like we did a glacier Trek or an ice cave tour where we actually went inside of the cave in the first day of winter so so shoulder season and even in the summer time in Iceland you still can do some of these winter activities so the next thing you need to know is a rental car in Iceland equals flexibility and affordability so we got this rental car for four days for 120 so it's gonna take us all over Iceland so we'll see as much as we can and by having a rental car we can go at our own pace you can see what we want to see spend as much time as we want your destination not worry about crowds not worrying about tours and do the things that we want to do here in Iceland also at 30 for the day it's a lot cheaper than taking buses taxis and any other sort of Transportation so that's a must here in Iceland if you feel comfortable driving the next point that I'm sure you guys know if you did any research on Iceland is that Iceland is expensive but even though it is expensive there's still a lot of ways you can save so here in Iceland food is very expensive as well but the way you get around that or try to is by grocery shopping yeah so we're here at bonus you can't miss it has a great big pink pig on the outside and we're gonna try to save some money back getting some food here so the thing with this store is that it's not open 24 hours but this one that we're at right here is literally right next to the airport so it was a quick drive about less than 10 minutes from the airport so highly recommend coming here as soon as you get here so even though bonus is the cheapest Supermarket it still is relatively expensive when you compare it to American prices but it'll still save you some money new grocery shop so when we say everything expensive we got the car but you got to put gas into it so the cheapest place to get gas on Iceland is Costco so our American Costco card works here I just filled it up and a lot cheaper and save me some money so another way people end up wasting money in Iceland is by buying bottled water so the water here comes straight from the glaciers and it's really refreshing really safe to just drink like that it has a lot of flavor and in New York I buy Icelandic water every day not every day but I buy it often so why would I come to Iceland and buy water like I'm drinking the street from the glacier here so saving money and drink it straight for an attack so there's a lot of different ways you can save on your accommodations so usually the hotels are going to be really expensive but you can get a hostel which are a lot cheaper you can get an Airbnb and what is really popular in Iceland are these Camper vans now the camper vans they double as accommodations as well as getting you around so you have the freedom and flexibility and you can spend the night there as well another thing that I'd recommend to save on accommodation is if you have a car or you plan to drive around not staying directly in the downtown area in Reykjavik so if you stay oh like 10 minutes 15 minutes outside of downtown and just drive in you can get parking and you can save a lot in accommodation costs and in our Icelandic travel guide we give you guys a ton of accommodations places to eat experiences and ways to save money in Iceland so if you guys want to save money in Iceland please be sure to look at our Icelandic travel guide Linked In Our description also know that alcohol in Iceland is very expensive so I would recommend if you are going to get liquor to get it in duty-free the next thing that was really good about Iceland as an American is that everyone really speaks English so even though we stayed mostly in the southern coast everyone that we encountered spoke English so we didn't have any language barrier but the only thing that I would say is that the Icelandic language reading it is very difficult but it wasn't an issue because everybody spoke English and this is why as an American I would highly recommend Iceland as a great solo travel destination or somewhere that you can go and be safe the next thing to know is that Iceland has some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen in this world and I've traveled to so many countries already Iceland has so many beaches Ice Caves waterfalls glaciers unique animals whale watching Hot Springs volcanoes and even geysers also I love the black sand beaches here just driving around you get blown away by the landscapes one tip that I would say about these Landscapes is the weather here is unpredictable so sometimes you may get a lot of rain or it may be clear but you're going to get some rain again so always bring waterproof gear and jackets also bring rain boots boots and those will be linked in the description the next thing that I'm going to talk about Iceland is that you can use your card everywhere so if you guys can see on my wall every person I go I collect the bills and in Iceland I didn't even get a bill because I didn't need it I couldn't even put a bill on my wall because everybody accepts cards you don't even need to exchange your money or take out Icelandic currency there's only one instance where we did actually need Icelandic currency and and this was when we were in runalog and this was an off the beaten path kind of private hot spring and it was an owner there who only accepted cash so we actually did have US Dollars and we gave her the US dollars but I would just recommend converting maybe ten dollars twenty dollars just so that you can have it for instances like that or just take back home but with the card I highly recommend getting a credit card or debit card that has no foreign transaction fees because using your card everywhere it will definitely add up if you have to pay these foreign transaction fees the point that I'm going to talk about Iceland is that even though it is expensive a lot of the nature is free and that's what I love now some things require a tour such as doing whale watching because you don't have a boat and you don't know where the whales are but a lot of the nature such as seeing the waterfalls or going hiking are just free you literally just get out the car and you walk literally just driving on the highway you can see so much beautiful nature that you don't even need to park and hike and this was something that I know my wife likes because even though she loves going on these trips with me hiking is not her best friend sometimes and this is especially good if you go in the winter because you may not want to get out and hike and then in the snow and then have to find where the car is and it'd be covered in snow or just really be an unsafe unfamiliar terrains and while I say that a lot of nature is free there are some things that you have to pay either admission fees or parking fees and I'm going to give you guys a tip to save money on some of these as well so in place this is like the waterfall cilantro Force I believe it's called where you can go behind the waterfall you have to pay a parking ticket here's a tip if you see somebody leaving ask them for the for their plane ticket and from my experience all of the tourists were very eager to give those away because those parking tickets are good for 24 hours and you're only going to be there for an hour two hours at most the only thing that I'd recommend is if you see somebody at the payment kiosk and you have a parking ticket don't let the pay for it give it to them and keep passing on and this will help you save on those parking tickets as well and my last tip about Iceland is the vat tax refund so as an American you don't have to pay taxes on everything in Iceland so if you do buy Icelandic products and you keep the receipts right at the airport they have a vat tax refund where you can get reimbursed for a lot of those things if you do buy them in Iceland and there you guys have it 10 things that I wish I knew before I went to Iceland as an American are you guys surprised by any of these let us know Below in the comments so thank you guys so much for checking out our Channel please be sure to like comment and subscribe and stay tuned because we got a ton of dope content coming with Iceland so you don't want to miss this so we'll see you on the next one [Music] thank you

Channel: Chews to Explore

Views: 166,261

Keywords: travel, travel tips, black travel, travel inspiration, iceland, iceland travel, what to do in iceland in summer, iceland travel guide, travel tips iceland, first time in iceland, advice for iceland, iceland itinerary, things to do in iceland, iceland road trip, iceland travel vlog, ring road iceland, best things to do in iceland, iceland travel tips, iceland for beginners, travel vlog, iceland vlog, tips for traveling iceland, iceland ring road trip, land of fire and ice

Id: -rkfV_RTu3g

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023