STOP Sabotaging your Iceland Itinerary

trip planning is no joke and it can get really overwhelming when you consider all the factors that go into it which sites do we want to see do we want to take any tours where do we want to stay how do we fit it all in one day all of the things and on top of that everyone's travel preferences are different finding the right balance between all of these things is ultimately what's going to make the perfect trip to Iceland so that's why I wanted to talk in this video today about how to structure a perfect day in Iceland now I want to make sure that you're not making any mistakes or forgetting anything when it comes to putting your itinerary together hey my name is Jeannie and I have been helping people plan trips to Iceland for the past eight years and I'm going to tell you right now that copying someone's itinerary online is not the way to plan a trip to Iceland there are too many factors that can affect your day-to-day which season you're coming in so many things so today I'm going to help you fix those mistakes let's get into it all right hands down the biggest factor to consider when planning your itinerary to Iceland is the daylight hours and the reason why is that the number of daylight hours that you have available drastically changes throughout the year meaning there's way more daylight hours in June compared to February so therefore you can fit way more into your itinerary if you're coming in June compared to February so definitely look at this first before you start planning anything else so many times I see Travelers making this mistake their neighbor told them to go here and their friend told them to go here and they saw this on Instagram and they just want to go to all the places so they're just going to cram all this into it doesn't work that way because if it's dark as in in the winter it's like dark from 4 P.M to 10 a.m all of those hours you don't have available for like seeing a thing just keep that in mind so the next thing you need to consider in structuring your day in Iceland is the pace or speed that you want to travel at when I plan people's trips one of the first questions that I always ask them is what speed do you want to go have them rank it on a scale of one to five one meaning very very slow take our time don't need to see all the things all the way up to five which is like turbo speed going going going non-stop less sleep need to see all the things so ask yourself where you fall on that scale do you want to make sure that you can get to everywhere possible or are you okay just seeing a few things having a little bit more laid back itinerary possibly coming back another time to Iceland hint I really recommend that option so this is not only important in like how far you're traveling like how much you're driving every day but it also affects how long you're spending at each stop so if you are arriving at a waterfall and you're only giving yourself you know like 10 minutes until you have to go to the next place to see the black sand beach like that's all going to play into the pacing of your trip two more really important things to consider in like considering your your speed or your pace is number one what are the physical abilities of your group so say someone recently had like knee surgery and you know they're not able to walk as fast as the rest of your group so how is that going to play into your time at each site or your ability to go on a hike or take a tour things like that and then also do you have kids I love traveling with my two-year-old like he is the best he loves traveling he loves going to see new places but we have to travel a bit slower these days than we did in the past so knowing like the Dynamics of your group and the physical abilities of your group will help you and obviously like force you to have a certain pacing of your trip now before I get to the next step skip the hassle of trying to figure out how much you can do in a day and grab one of my pre-written itineraries I have laid out exactly where to go what to do where to stay and organized them by the time time of year so that you can make sure to maximize every day and organize them by the time of year so that you can make sure to maximize your time in Iceland I'm going to link to them in the description box below now let's get back to the tips the next tip is easy to overlook but impossible to leave out and that is planning time for breaks down time and the light so a lot of things fall into this category but one of the main things is eating and using the toilet this sounds really simple and it's almost funny to say out loud but it can be really easy to get excited about all the places that you're going to go and all the tours that you're going to jump on and everything and then like you're accounting for driving time but you forget that you need to eat you can't just keep popping from one place to another you need to be aware of what the food situation is are you okay with like grab and Go gas station sandwiches right or are you going to just like grab a loaf of bread and peanut butter and like Mega PB and J in the car on the way to your next place or do you want to like stop what you're doing like in the middle of you know sightseeing and actually sit down and enjoy a meal and like experience the foodie culture and have that be a part of your trip there's like all kinds of Travelers but the thing is we gotta eat right that's what keeps us going and that takes time so knowing what kind of traveler you want to be and how the food fits into your schedule super important to calculate in terms of time in your day the other thing is toilets now I have docked in other videos about the toilet situation in Iceland that they are not everywhere there are no rest stops when you're driving around not all of the sites have toilets it can be a challenge I've marked all the toilets on my maps because it's actually like been such a relief for people to have that when they're traveling is like looking at the map that I made and they're like oh my God there's a toilet coming up next that takes time right it takes planning and time like I have to go to the bathroom where can we go so when you're structuring your day alerting you know just looping that in your plans and then obviously like relaxing or just having down time at the end of the day maybe having some solo time like all of that especially if you're going in a bigger group of people that's all important as a factor of how to structure your day so you know some people are like they want to get up in the morning and like get going and really fast and like cram it until the the sun goes down and then get up and repeat and some people don't want to travel that like Compact and would like some a couple of hours at the end of the night at the hotel plan for it all right so all in all you know all those things considered here is what I would suggest as a general way to structure your day so when when you're thinking okay I'm going to Iceland I have seven days and these are the areas like say you've considered all those things here's what I usually do when I'm planning someone's trip the first thing I do is I start with where is the starting and endpointing of that day this is going to allow you to calculate your driving time so if you're starting in Reykjavik and you're driving to Vic you have two and a half hours of driving time right then from there you're going to say what am I doing in this day am I going to this waterfall this beach am I doing this tour are we going to go on this hike and then from there knowing how long each of those place takes you now you can map those places out stretch out your timeline now you have X amount of hours that you're going to be committed to each day right so you're like okay this tour is going to take three hours this waterfall will take an hour this waterfall will take 30 minutes we're going to do this hike and that's an hour so okay now you have a day that starts starting to look like a day right then you're not going to forget where are you eating so now you put in meals and you're like okay that means we're here we need to eat around this area mark it on your itinerary eat at this now your time is expanded and lastly where are you staying where are you sleeping at the end of the night so then just to make sure you're there at a certain time and then also obviously accounting for being Somewhere in Time for dinner so all of those things that's what the general overlay like if I'm gonna sit down and plan someone's trip that's what I'm going to do as a general outline every single day seems basic but also maybe it's not basic for everyone so the goal of this video was teach you how to structure a day in Iceland now that you've learned how to do that the next thing is to learn what to avoid when planning a trip so make sure to watch the video that's popping up on the screen where I teach you five mistakes when planning a trip so that you can have the best trip over alrighty my friends thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next video but until then happy planning foreign [Music]

Channel: Iceland with a View

Views: 11,646

Keywords: Iceland tips, iceland advice, iceland itinerary, first time in Iceland, first Iceland visit, iceland for beginners, visiting iceland, going to iceland, advice for iceland, travel tips iceland, tourist iceland, Jeannie, Iceland travel guide, Icelandic, iceland with a view, iceland trip, travel planning, iceland travel mistakes, itinerary planning, iceland maps, how to plan a trip to iceland, iceland outline

Id: FOUI7UPIZbE

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023