Oh, we have been so many places and I can't pronounce any of them! We are in Akureyri right now and tomorrow we fly back to Reykavik for 3 nights before we go home. (With tours out of Reykavik two days, then a day to shop!) We have stayed in 5 different places in pretty remote areas so now we feel like we are in the big city (pop 18,000). We have been on 2 boat trips, one white water rafting trip, climbed a crater, seen lava fields, so many farms and quaint churches, a LOT of driving, and have seen about a million sheep! Oh, and the Blue Lagoon on our first day, which was great! Off to dinner...will tell you more when we get home.

Have a wonderful time, and prepare to give us a full debriefing when you return!

Absolutely gorgeous! Hope you are having a wonderful time. I'm so jealous!

Oh lovely, thanks for sharing them. Now I need to go to Iceland to see it myself. My husband will be very excited to hear this latest development.

Nice! We were in Dalvik, just a few km north of Akureyri along the fjord. I know what you mean about the unpronounceable names, it's kind of comical. Sounds like you are having a ball, good job!

Gorgeous pics! Dh was there on business years ago in the winter. Not quite the same. ;)

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing!

So beautiful and peaceful. Are the Icelanders as nice as they say?

You know what -- I can't say that anyone has been remarkably friendly. Pleasant and pretty laid back, but I wouldn't say "friendly." Our white water rafting guides were the friendliest, but they were from Nepal and Sweden!

Thank you for the pictures, Sueb20, they are great!! My Scottish musician friend is touring Iceland now but is either too busy or lazy to post pictures :-)

The countryside is beautiful.... I haven't been there in about forty years but I am daring to say it looked very much like that in 1974, lol!

Thank you so much for sharing! Your iPhone photos are great, hopefully we will get to see some from the camera as well.

How gorgeous Iceland must be. What is the food like? With all those sheep, I'm imagining you'll pick up a beautiful wool sweater or two.

Oh, wow! Thanks for sharing! Enjoy the rest of the trip!

Gorgeous! Now I really want to go!

Beautiful!

Bring home an Icelandic pony, how adorable!

I'm reading a book about Scandinavians and it suggests that early Icelanders were scots, so perhaps that explains...something, I don't know what.

Are there any TREES in Iceland? Or are they just camera-shy?

Beautiful Sue. A friend of mine from Iceland used to visit the GW, IceLady. It's a gorgeous country.

Hi Sue. Glad you are liking my country, I'm sorry you are not finding us friendly but we tend to hold back until we get to know people, I'm also glad you are getting good weather. Hi Justgotabme. Bpathome, there ia a saying in Iceland if you get lost in the forest just stand up. We have trees but have been planting like crazy since 1950 or so.

Oh, so very beautiful! You're giving me the travel bug! Hope you continue to have a wonderful time!

Breathtaking photos. Can't wait to see more. You got a puffin!!

Ice, I'm glad to see you post here. Back on old GardenWeb you gave me some great advice about visiting Iceland. You suggested bungalo.is for renting cabins. That was exactly the tip I needed and we rented two different places from there and it worked out perfectly. They were economical, situated exactly where we wanted to stay, and we could cook and do laundry. Thank you ever so much for the perfect advice!

We had an absolutely amazing trip. We found the Icelanders to be very warm and welcoming, and they seemed genuinely interested to hear if were were enjoying ourselves (which we were!). It had been 20 years since I'd been to Iceland but I fell in love with it the first time and I fell in love with it all over again. That place has a special charm. And as it turns out, the skiing is world-class. We didn't expect the terrain and snow to be so, so fantastic! We're already counting the days until next year's trip.

A few pics, but I don't want to hijack SueB's thread and I am looking forward to hearing more from her adventures!

I'm glad your trip was good Karin. And we also love using Bungalo.is

Thank you so much for your kind words. These are photos from Trollaskagi right?

Right! Dalvik and Siglufjordur. What an impressive landscape that is.

Wow! I'm totally impressed & awed.

Well, when we were in the more remote areas we found the people more reserved, but having just stayed in Reykavik for 3 nights -- people there were very warm and friendly!

Some more pics from my phone. We have had a fantastic trip and are at the airport now waiting to depart.

Anita -- lots of seafood (cod, salmon, seafood soup) and fortunately for my kids, plenty of burgers! We had some really great food especially in Reykavik. I did buy a sweater, and a blanket.

Bp -- very few trees other than in certain areas.

Karin -- wow! Amazing photos!

Absolutely gorgeous pictures! What an amazing trip you had!

SueB, those are wonderful photos. You captured Reykjavik in such an appealing way. And that cutie pie seal, now that is a superb sighting, lucky you. And the waterfalls, the effervescent geysir, icebergs, terrific!

I hope you are having a nice flight home (with those cool northern lights flickering on the airplane, did yours have that?).

I don't see a lot of people in your photos, but I read that tourism is increasing. Did you find it to be crowded? That's probably a relative statement for a country that is generally empty, but I'd love to hear your impressions.

"Not now, Mr. Arctic Puffin!!"

Sorry, couldn't resist the "Elf" reference. It's a beautiful place, and I'm sure you're having a blast!!

karin -- not crowded at all! In the more remote towns, it was very quiet. We drove along without seeing any other cars for 20 miles at a time, sometimes! None of the hotels seemed full. When we got to Akureyki (spelled wrong) and then Reykjavik, there were more people, but we were always able to get a table for dinner, for example.

It was a little weird to come home last night and see darkness for the first time in almost two weeks! We never once saw dark skies...I believe it was only dark from 12:30 am or so until maybe 3 am? We were always sound asleep then. One of my sons was up later at least one night and he said it wasn't even completely dark.

For the record, that puffin was being held by our tour guide to that "bird island" and he had just rescued him from a giant hole in the ground (the guide climbed down on a ladder) that the puffin had flown into and got himself stuck. Poor little guy.

This may have been our best family trip yet (Switzerland was my other favorite). Our kids are very different ages and very different personalities and they ALL had a great time. We had one day when DS #2 (age 19) complained about the day feeling "repetitive" -- we were in the car for a LONG time with DH stopping to take photos of every little thing -- and another day when DS #1 decided to skip the second bus tour we had scheduled, which was fine (he is 23). Otherwise -- very harmonious for 12 days, which is not always the case! DD, who is 14, pretty much loved everything. We were always able to find restaurants that had "acceptable" food for everyone, and we had good hotel room setups. Unlike in the US, where it can be tricky to find hotel rooms/suites for our family of 5, almost every hotel we stayed at had this arrangement: one room with a queen bed plus a twin bed, and a second room with two twin beds. Worked perfectly for us -- boys in one room and DD with DH and me. Every hotel we stayed in included breakfast, which varied in quality but at least it was there, and easy!

Some of the hotels or B&Bs we used in the small towns were QUITE rustic but we all brought our sense of adventure with us. ;) One looked really bad at first from the outside, but the rooms were immaculate and comfortable (though basic) and it was on a farm with horses, cows, pigs, etc., so that was fun. One was an "apartment" in a different building from the main hotel, on the second floor over a storefront business, and it was pretty sad but DD liked it because she had her own room. Another was basically a concrete bunker with a gravel yard out front. By the time we got to the Radisson in Reykjavik, we felt like we were at the Four Seasons!

I loooved seeing sheep everywhere. We must have seen a million sheep. So cute. On our last day, I found a ceramic sheep in a gallery so of course I had to get it and it is now on my mantel. (Have to mention since this is GW.) We also loved all the pretty farms and the churches. I think DH took a picture of every church.

Our biggest adventure was white water rafting. It scared the heck out of me, because I am a baby about the water at times, but it was definitely one of everyone's favorite days. Our raft had our guide, our family, and a couple from Denmark. No one fell out of the boat except ME...when the boat was standing still! Duh.

Already talking about next summer's trip. Last summer we went to the Galapagos, and the summer before we did Sedona and 3 national parks, so it's time to do something a little more urban. We are thinking about Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver.

Sueb, thanks so much for the travelogue and pics. Iceland is near the top of my to-do list. Was it easy enough to get around without a guide? Did you drive?

I have never considered going to Iceland...until seeing your pics and now it's at the top of my list. (Switzerland is also one of my favorite vacations). Surprisingly it's only a 7 hour flight from Portland. Speaking of Portland, I think your family would really enjoy the PNW. If you have the time, I'd also add flying to Calgary from Vancouver and seeing Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper. (p.s. I love seeing your family vacations over the past years :-))

Oh, what fun! Loved seeing these photos! Really like the one with the church and the ram. I want to hug the seal.

Breathtaking! Thanks for sharing.

Marlene, DH really wants to go to Banff, Lake Louise, etc., but I think that would have to be a separate trip.

Ded, DH is a map lover so he did a lot of studying before the trip, and each night to plan for the next day. He did all the driving. The car rental place gave us a big hardcover map book the size of a bible! Some of the driving was scary because so many of the roads were windy and pretty narrow, some very close to the edge of dropoffs and almost NO guard rails. Just these yellow metal posts maybe every 10 feet? Oh, and a lot of the roads we traveled were unpaved. DH was a bit stressed at times! There weren't very many signs so sometimes we'd travel for miles crossing our fingers that we were going the right way.

We gave up the car when we got to Reykjavik, and from there we did 2 bus tours -- one of the golden circle, which was about 6 hours, and one to the south coast, which was 12 hours. I wouldn't do the 12 hour one again, but the golden circle tour was definitely worthwhile. We generally aren't bus tour people, but the guide on our first one was very good and the stops were interesting.

Hmm, sounds like the driving might be more than my traveling buddies and I can handle. Bummer.

No one fell out of the boat except ME...when the boat was standing still! Duh.

If nothing else, you provided your kids with a shared memory they will laugh about, at your expense, for years.

Sue....your pictures are wonderful. I would love to go there sometime. So glad you had a wonderful trip. Had to laugh...your DH is like my DH....taking pictures every five minutes. Sometimes it's forever getting to our destination because of all the stops for pictures.

Happy to see you are still here ice1.

Sue, wow! Great shots. I really enjoyed seeing them.

Thanks for sharing your experiences SueB. I'm glad it's still nice and empty, that's great to hear.

Agreed about the driving, it is white knuckle at times, but that's all part of the charm I guess. There is an (unintentionally) hilarious cartoon video about driving hazards on the airplane. Our rental car still had snow tires on it (in May) and we were super thankful for that. We ended up doing a few 'unconventional' moves on some of the tiny farm roads.

The Swiss Alps are a close second to Iceland for a vacation spot, I agree!

And of your next round of choices, I vote Vancouver. Went there last fall and was totally impressed.

Love the pictures and stories of your trip! I wanted to put Iceland on my list but husband was not keen. About a week after that discussion my son's ex-girlfriend asked if I was interested in going with her. I got the fish eye from husband so I guess it's not to be. So, I am content hearing and seeing things from your vacation. Glad you had a great time!

Add me to the list of people who would like to visit Iceland. We have had several students from there, and I have an undergraduate now. Great photos! Thanks for sharing.

Great pictures! The waterfalls look incredible!

Great pictures! Rekyavik (sp?) looks like fun, and I hadn't even really thought about anything but seeing nature in Iceland. Show us what you bought?

I hear you about accommodating five people! Its tricky, but at least now they are old enough that it neednt be adjoining.

We need to do the Pacific NW, too. That's one part of the US the kids havent' done.

Really spectacular photos. I'm going to have to add it to the list of countries to visit. It's been in discussion, but the nature shots are very inspiring

Mtn, here's what I bought.

Wool blanket. Looks beigey in the pic, but it's green and black.

Little ceramic houses, because I loved all the farmhouses and churches.

A necklace -- right from the artist's little studio.

My sheep guy.

The requisite shot glass.

And tiny church.

I also bought an Icelandic sweater, of course, but I'm too lazy to go get it from upstairs. DH and DS bought jackets. DH also bought wool socks! DD got a sweet dainty bracelet and a stuffed Puffin. Oldest DS got a small Viking figure made of brass.

DH is still going through his pics, thought I'd share a couple funny ones.

My kids with a mysterious stranger.

And...why is DH wearing sunglasses here? We are standing under a pretty intense "massaging" waterfall at the blue lagoon.

I love the "sheep guy." And I laughed out loud at the pic of your kids with the mysterious stranger!

Cute photos! What a lovely family. You look good wet, Sue, LOL! (I mean most of us look awful with wet hair!)

Nice haul. Love the sheep but especially love those cute lil' houses!