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.

Iceland's Blue Lagoon: a destination for travelers and toursits alike

When my husband and I were planning our recent trip to Iceland, we wanted to make sure that we set aside some time to spend at The Blue Lagoon. Even though it is the most visited tourist destination in Iceland, and from what I read during my trip research, Icelanders don't really go there, it was something we were both dying to experience.

But you know what? Sometimes places that are deemed as tourist traps are still worth your time. And The Blue Lagoon was one of those places. I know that an unwritten rule of calling yourself a world traveler is to avoid the places where all the tourists go, but sometimes you've just gotta follow the crowds. Hey, if Anthony Bourdain, who on his first season of No Reservations said "be a traveler, not a tourist," went to the Blue Lagoon when he was in Iceland, then I think everyone should go there, whether you're a traveler or tourist.

So what exactly is The Blue Lagoon anyway? It's described on their website as a geothermal spa, but what does that mean? Well essentially Iceland is rife with geothermal energy and they decided to harness all that energy by creating power plants that use that energy to power homes and businesses. Since geothermal power is clean energy, the runoff from these power plants is just really hot water. And The Blue Lagoon was the result:

We spent about 3 hours at The Blue Lagoon on a cold, gray day and it was by far one of my favorite moments of our trip, mainly because the water was so warm, and the weather in Iceland during our entire trip was in the low 50s/high 40s and windy. So The Blue Lagoon was the warmest I felt the entire week. And it was during my time there that I realized why I tend not to spend a lot of time in pools: because I'm always cold and the water in pools isn't 102 degrees Fahrenheit, that's why!

So if you ever take a trip to Iceland, ignore what people tell you about skipping The Blue Lagoon because it's a tourist trap. Sometimes you just need to follow the crowd. And honestly, Iceland is still kind of off the tourist radar anyway so tourist trap here does not equate to tourist trap in, say, Italy or France. There are plenty of other opportunities in a country of only 320,000 people to find off the beaten path places (which I'll talk about in another post). You can go to one place where there are a lot of tourists and I promise you won't regret it.

Thoughts from Places: Iceland

I've always enjoyed John Green's "Thoughts from Places" videos and so when my husband and I took a trip to Iceland for our tenth wedding anniversary, I decided that I would try my hand at creating one when I returned home.

I've already done one "Thoughts from Places" my last day in my classroom, and I also wrote a post about our food adventures in Iceland, but I thought I'd try my hand at more video editing and separate narration. This was a fun project and I hope you enjoy!

Food adventures in Iceland

My husband and I just recently celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Iceland. Since I generally don't like seafood, to say I was worried about what I would eat while I was there was an understatement. But I needn't have worried. We had many memorable meals during our time in Iceland, starting with a little nondescript hotdog stand on our first day that is apparently one of the best places to get a hotdog in the whole of Europe. Icelanders are wild about hotdogs, and Baejarins Beztu Pylsur down at the Reykjavik harbor has been serving hotdogs since 1935.

These babies are topped with mustard and a remoulade sauce with fried onions on the bottom

My husband Johnathon savors the yummy Icelandic delicacy known as the hot dog :)

Other than hot dogs, there is another traditional Icelandic "delicacy" that most people read about before traveling to Iceland that I refused to try and that was the rotten shark. Yes, you read that right. Rotten shark, otherwise known as Hakarl. The meat is toxic if you eat it before fermenting it, which apparently drains all the toxins. Traditionally you eat Hakarl and then do a shot of brennivin, which is an 80-proof liquor made from caraway seed, but we just decided to do the shot of bennivin, sans putrefied shark:

Brennivin is actually pretty good and doesn't burn going down nearly as much as other liquors such as Greek ouzo or Italian grappa. Though given that you're supposed to drink it after eating Hakarl, perhaps it would be better if it had burned going down. I imagine many people need their taste buds to be burned off after attempting such a feat of culinary bravery (or stupidity, however you prefer to look at it).

I also tried some Icelandic beer, which was also pretty tasty. This blond beer had a hint of orange in its flavor. It reminded me a bit of oberon ale.

Moving from the traditional to non-traditional, believe it or not, the best meal we had the entire time we were in Iceland was at an Indian restaurant in Reykjavik:

In fact, I'm going to be so bold as to say it was one of the best Indian meals I've ever had, eclipsed only by Vij's in Vancouver.

I ordered the Kozhi Mappas, which is a chicken dish with garam masala, coriander, turmeric, and coconut milk. The sauce was the perfect combination of savory and sweet and had the most pleasing viscosity of any Indian sauce-based dish I have ever eaten.

 It's one of those dishes I will crave for the rest of my life, not unlike the torta ahogada at Xoco in Chicago.

On our second trip to Austur Indiafjelagid (yes, we ate there twice), my husband ordered a tandoori dish (which is not a sauce-based dish, but comes out in a sizzling cast-iron skillet on a bed of onions very similar to Mexican fajitas. But this is way better than fajitas). His dish was called Margh Rajasthani and it was also a chicken dish that is marinated in ginger, garlic, cardamom, cumin, cloves, white pepper, and I'm going out a limb to say turmeric even though that wasn't listed on the menu because I can't imagine what else would give this dish its golden hue:

I loved that you could taste the flowery cardamom but it didn't overpower the dish because that is one spice that can get overwhelming quite easily.

For dessert, we shared the pistachio kulfi, which is pistachio ice cream flavored with saffron

And as you can see by the look on my face and the empty plates on the table, I am one happy diner:

In fact, I'm going to be so bold as to say that I would return to Reykjavik just to eat at this restaurant again. It was that good.

Another memorable meal we had was in a tiny village about 50 kilometers west of Skaftafell National Park called Kirkjubaejarklaustur (try saying that 5 times really fast). What was so memorable about this meal is that (1) the restaurant was very modern and had a fantastic menu for such a small village and (2) the menu had a nice variety of dishes but was still sophisticated and small. This is no easy task in a big city let alone a tiny village. The restaurant was called Systrakaffi and I will make sure to recommend it to anyone traveling to Skaftafell on their trip to Iceland.

My husband ordered the pan fried Arctic char and for someone (me) who doesn't like seafood, I found myself actually wishing I had ordered this dish because it was so meaty yet had a delicate flavor. You could absolutely tell it was fresh and had been fished in nearby waters.

Overall I have to say that I was pleased and surprised with the number of fantastic meals we had in Iceland, but I have to put the disclaimer out there that it would be extremely difficult to be a vegetarian there as 60% of their produce has to be imported and the other 40% of their produce that's grown in greenhouses even has to have soil imported from other parts of the world because theirs is so useless. Needless to say, I was starting to crave a giant salad by the time I left Iceland and even had to stop at Panera on my way home from the airport to order an Asian sesame chicken salad so I could get some green veggies in me. Still, I will look back fondly at my culinary adventures in Iceland, especially because I made sure to steer clear of the rotten shark.