Escaping the Heat

Posted by travelingapplejax on June 10, 2013 · 1 Comment 

A few weeks ago when I revived my blog, I mentioned that the revival was in honor of an upcoming trip. I needed to warm up to the task ahead and give credit to the awesomeness of the past year and a half. I’m now halfway through my Top 10 Adventures Countdown, so this seemed like a good spot to provide you with a teaser of what’s to come.

Drum roll, please . . .

Mike and I are going to Iceland!

I’m so excited! The first question everyone asks is “Why Iceland?” Here are a few reasons:

• I don’t personally know anyone who has gone (at least not that I know of), and I like to go to unusual destinations.
• It used to be very expensive, but since Iceland’s economy collapsed a while back, it’s not as pricey as it used to be. We figure we’d better go before the economy recovers too much and the exchange rate is shit again.
• It’s best known for its wilderness (and apparently its parties/drug scene, but we’re going for the wilderness), and Mike and I like outdoorsy places.
• While we’re relatively young we will go to the cheapest, most demanding, most rugged places. When we’re older (and hopefully somewhat better off financially), we’ll go to luxury destinations.

We’re bringing our bikes and our tent, and we’ll be roughing it more so than we did in Southeast Asia and Central/South America. Soon enough I’ll be going from biking daily in 110 degrees to biking in 55; the temperatures in Iceland will literally be half what they are here. Accommodations are a little more expensive than the $5 or $10 we used to spend on rooms in Honduras, so the tent will be our home for much of the trip. There are lots of official and unofficial camping areas in Iceland. There’s one main highway called the Ring Road that encircles Iceland, so we’ll probably be on that for a lot of the trip. I’m sure we’ll take many detours, and we might not even cover the whole ring, but I mapped that highway on MapMyRide to get an idea about distances and elevation. Here’s that map, in case you’re interested: potential route. We’ll probably post our actual route after the fact.

We’ll be in Iceland for a while (almost 6 weeks), so we’re going to take our time and soak it in. You might be wondering what exactly we will soak in; I’m wondering the same thing. We’re not big planners. There are a few things we want to do and see, sure, but we have no itinerary. At the very least we’ll soak in a few of the famous hot springs.

Our good friend, Rob, will be holding down the Phoenix fort while we’re gone. We are very lucky to have flexible schedules, few responsibilities, and amazing friends. We’re living the dream!

Before we leave, I’ll be finishing the countdown, so you can look forward to five more Top 10 Adventures posts in the next few weeks. Thank you for reading! My posts have done exactly what I wanted them to do since they have already convinced one cousin to visit and participate in an adventure! Laura will be coming from San Diego this weekend to join us on a canyoneering/camping trip, and I’m very excited! I’m still waiting for the rest of you to visit sometime . . .

Until then, please continue to vicariously join me on adventures!