Friday, June 28, 2013

In Iceland "off the beaten path" is everywhere you turn

In my last post, I talked about the most visited tourist destination, in Iceland, The Blue Lagoon and made a case for why you should visit even though a lot of tourists go there.

This post is about the secluded, off the beaten path places we found while we were in Iceland.

As I mentioned in my last post and also in my Thoughts from Places video, even the "crowded" places weren't crowded compared to other popular travel destinations I've been to. So pretty much every place you visit is going to be very laid back without much scrambling to get your perfect picture because there are too many tourists in the way.

The places we discovered where practically no one was there were still a treat for us, the first being a glacial lagoon called Fjallsarlon. As with pretty much all the secluded places, it was down this rickety dirt road the eventually led to this amazing view:


The same was true of this stunning gorge known as Fjadragliufur: we drove down a treacherous dirt road, hiked a little ways, and our jaws dropped when we came across this:
In the two hours we hiked in this area, we saw four people the entire time. 
So if you're someone who prefers to travel to places where there aren't hoards of tourists, I highly recommend Iceland. As  I said before, even the crowded places were pretty empty compared to "tourist trap" standards. I told my husband how un-stressed I felt when visiting all of these places because I felt like I didn't have to compete with others for a spot on a viewing platform or to find a place to get a picture where there weren't people in the way. Personal space is abundant and plentiful when traveling in Iceland.

1 comment:

  1. I have become a bit enchanted with Iceland through books. I would love to visit, and I hate crowds, so I think it's perfect for me. Gorgeous photos!

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