Iceland: Day trip at Blue Lagoon

EUROTRIP? hell yeah! my gadgets were all spread out! and after a year, hello diary!

 

ohh and first stop? cue music in *…Ice ice baby!*

Iceland! When I came here in Europe, the first place I want to see is the land of ice and fire- not Paris, not Amsterdam, not even Spain but Iceland! With the northern lights in my dreams, I planned thoroughly my Eurotrip last December break 🙂 It was the first part of the trip and to be honest, I spent half of my budget here.

Iceland’s population is only over 300,000 for a land mass of 103,000 km^2 comparing to the Philippines with almost 300,000 km^2 but a population of 103 million! see the difference? it’s like the number interchanged! Anyway, Iceland has only few flat lands for people to live in and has more glaciers and volcanoes!

After waiting overnight in Barcelona, we arrived around 1 pm at Keflavik International Airport. Then, we waited for our bus to come around 2 pm since I also booked the Blue Lagoon daytrip and the flybus from the airport to the resort and from the resort to Reyjavik to our hostel for the night. Note: we took the FLY BUS KEF-RYK Roundtrip with the selected dates and a Blue Lagoon daytrip at  €130.96. You can choose to go before or after your trip and we booked ours using Reykjavik excursions (click here!) #notsponsored lol.

BLUE LAGOON WAS REALLY AWESOME! Okay, it was touristy but, it was amazing. I thought it will be just ‘okay’ but it exceeded my expectations! Blue lagoon is a man-made hot spring by the way and it is quite expensive to be honest.  However, here are some photos enjoying the hot spring after a long flight!

In Iceland, since there are a lot of volcanoes and you can really find a lot of free and natural hot springs, which in my case I do not have the chance to see: first I am on a restricted tour, second, I do not know anyone from Iceland to have my own, free itinerary, third and the most important thing is I DON’T DRIVE, and even if I am capable, I cannot drive in WINTER as I am from a tropical island! make sense? but if you have the chance to go on your own, I recommend to do so! I have seen vlogs and it is really cool to go with your own itinerary 🙂

In my case, with a limited budget to do free itineraries, I tried minimizing my expenses in food and hostels. I also thoroughly checked all the possible tours available but, Iceland has a very fair pricing and most tour companies offer the same prices. And since it was winter when I visited Iceland and I don’t have any means to go around but to avail a tour, I chose Arctic Adventures for a 5 day tour for €1,103.1 which includes the following:

Iceland	Fly to KEF from BCN El Prat
	Eat Lunch, Wait for Fly bus to Blue Lagoon
	Board Fly bus to Blue Lagoon
	Arrive at Blue Lagoon, ENJOY!! *€4 bag storage*
	Continue to Reyjavik ~45 minutes ride
	Check-in to Hlemmur Square (Bus drop off #10)
	After check-in, go around town, buy food, have dinner in Hostel
DAY1: West Iceland	Pick up time for Arctic Adventures 5 day tour
	Deidartunguhver hotspring, Reykholt spring pool, Hraunfossar and Barnafoss (Borgarjorour), Gerouberg basalt columns, Hunt for Northern Lights; Check-in the Hotel provided
DAY2: Snaefellsnes Peninsula	Breakfast; West part of peninsula: Arnarstapi fishing village, Hellnar village for lunch, Djupalonssadur black pebble beach, Mount Kirkjufell, Northern Lights!
DAY3: Golden Circle	Pingvellir National Park, Haukadalur valley and Strokkur geyser, Gullfoss (Golden Waterfall), Hekla Volcano, Seljandsfoss, Skogafoss & Eyjafjallajokull, Reynisfjara black sand beach, Reynisdrangar basalt peaks, Stay at Vik, hunt for Northern Lights!
DAY4: Ice Caving and Jokulsarlon glacier	Vatnajokull glacier, Jokulsarlon glacier & lagoon, Diamond Beach, Northern Lights! *ice cave conditions depend on weather!!*
DAY5: Glacier Walk and South Shore	Vatnajokull glacier hike, Falljokull glacier tongue, Southcoast

It was really expensive to be honest. I squeezed in all my budget just to not spend more than I alloted since I will travel to 7 more cities after. Anyway, I did not regret a single day! the only thing that made me frustrated was that I never saw the northern light. too much badluck! I hope I can see it on some other place next time.

Well, I will try to make a series of blogs for Iceland in the upcoming days. I think I need to write again to start my anger management program lol!! removing stress and relieving the memories only. Sometimes you need to remove certain elements in life to be stress-free, but by removing it all, means confronting it all at first. Once done, I know I can keep the peace I have in me. ohhhh, drama. Of course, this is just my side hobby cos I’m on thesis mode for a year (>_<) [excuses!!]