Planning - Iceland with Kids

February 17, 2016 By Eric 4 Comments

7 tips for using AirBNB

A tiny seaside Airbnb cottage by Kristen Sloan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

For our trip to Iceland, I started by looking at hotels. Many were already sold out for the summer, or the rooms were too small. And getting two rooms would be prohibitively expensive.

Then I started looking for cottages and apartments to rent, and ended up at Booking.com. You can see my post about tips for using Booking.com.

But then I landed on airbnb.com, and ended up making more than half of my lodging reservations there. If you are traveling with kids, renting an entire house is very appealing. Here are some tips and tricks I learned along the way.

UPDATE June 2016: The Icelandic Government has passed a new law aimed at limiting Airbnb rentals. Homeowners in Iceland will only be able to rent out their properties for up to 90 days a year, unless they purchase a license. I believe this Icelandic article says the rules go into effect starting in 2017.

We’ll be watching to see how this impacts the market for home rentals. Presumably, though, if you find a place you like on Airbnb, you shouldn’t have any problems. But it may limit availability.

1. Don’t expect the same level of service with Airbnb.

First and foremost, remember that you are dealing with an individual person renting out their property to you. Property owners are referred to as “hosts.” Airbnb is just a platform that connects you to individuals who want to rent out rooms or houses to you. [Read more…] about 7 tips for using AirBNB

February 11, 2016 By Eric 11 Comments

Do I need a 4WD / AWD / 4X4 car in Iceland?

“Colors of Water” by Ulrich Latzenhofer is licensed under CC BY 2.0

A surprising number of tourists get themselves into trouble while driving in Iceland. They blindly follow their GPS to destinations 6 hours the wrong direction. Or they follow their outdated GPS onto closed and dangerous roads. Or they cause accidents by stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures. (Remember that in Iceland, hazard lights are for hazards!)

Hundreds of tourists are rescued every year by ICE-SAR, a group of volunteer responders.

I’m not telling you all of this to dissuade you from driving in Iceland. You just need to use some common sense. No matter what kind of car you rent, you shouldn’t think you can drive to any location any time of year.

Suppose you are in Vik, in south Iceland. And you read about a really cool hike up to the top of Sveinstindur. (The picture at the top of this post is along the route to Sveinstindur.) So you look on Google Maps and find out that it’s only about a 2 hour drive: [Read more…] about Do I need a 4WD / AWD / 4X4 car in Iceland?

February 6, 2016 By Eric 1 Comment

9 tips for using Booking.com in Iceland (or anywhere)!

Guesthouse Milli Vina in Hvitarbakka by Maedi. is licensed under CC BY 2.0
(Link to Milli Vina on Booking.com.)

(This is not a sponsored post- I have no affiliation with Booking.com.)

If you are planning a trip to Iceland this summer, you probably started looking at hotels. At least, that seems to be the default option when traveling. Hotels offer an excellent level of service, and many hotels in Iceland include breakfast. But there are a few reasons why you might want to look beyond hotel options:

You want more space. When you have kids, the novelty of all being in the same single hotel room quickly wears off. You can get 2 connecting rooms, or at least 2 rooms next to each other, but that can get expensive.
There aren’t many choices for families with kids. Very few hotels in Iceland have rooms that hold more than 4 people. When you search for a family of 5, the options all seem to have “apartment” or “guesthouse” in the name.
You can hardly find any hotel rooms at all this year. Many hotels are sold out, or selling out quickly, especially this summer. Indeed, “According to managing director of Nordic Travel, tourists to Iceland have increased so enormously that finding accommodation for them all this summer could be very difficult. … bookings started really early and if all hotels are booked up by the summer, some people may have to cancel their flights to Iceland.” Source: Iceland Monitor

January 20, 2016 By Lora 16 Comments

Should I bring my child’s car seat to Iceland?

One of the struggles of travelling with children is lugging car seats everywhere you go. So the question is, when you travel to Iceland, do you bring your own child car seats? I think, for the most part, the answer is NO.

As you would expect, Iceland has its own rules about car seat safety. While they are similar to what is in effect in many US states, the rules are not the same. The Icelandic Transport Authority publishes an English-language brochure on Child Safety in Motor Cars that you may wish to read. The main difficulty is that the US organization that certifies car seats has different (not necessarily better, not necessarily worse, but different) standards than the European one. There is no exception in Icelandic law for visitors, so car seats in Iceland are required to be approved by the European rules, not US rules. [Read more…] about Should I bring my child’s car seat to Iceland?

January 16, 2016 By Eric 102 Comments

Rental Car Insurance in Iceland

Camuflaje by Andrés Nieto Porras is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Update December 2017: Worldwide Insure, my favorite excess rental car insurance company, no longer offers excess car rental insurance in Iceland. I recommend them for coverage in other countries, but you’ll have to go with Roamright or someone else for Iceland. See all of the details below.

Car rental insurance is baffling, and it seems to be even more baffling in Iceland. CDW. Super CDW. Grand CDW? Premium CDW? Sand and Ash? Gravel?

Note that, while the information below is customized for Iceland, much of the information can apply to other countries as well. Especially the credit card insurance options.

Almost all rental car companies in Iceland include CDW

CDW stands for “Collision Damage Waiver.” So it’s not really insurance at all- it’s a liability waiver. The rental car company agrees to not charge you more than a certain amount of money for any damage to the car when you return it. How much can they still charge you? A lot. I took some of the more promising companies from our post about rental car companies, and compared their CDW limits:

January 1, 2016 By Blaer Leave a Comment

Icelandic With Blaer 1: Pronunciation

If you’re planning to go to Iceland, it might be useful to learn a bit of Icelandic first! A lot of Icelanders speak English, but you’ll be able to go to more places and learn more things with at least basic knowledge of Icelandic. I don’t know much Icelandic yet, so I’m going to be learning as I post!

I have found Memrise, an online flashcard and memorization tool, to be useful for language learning (my favorite is Duolingo, which doesn’t yet offer Icelandic). I have made an account here and will hopefully be posting Icelandic flashcards as I go.

Here‘s the link to the course for this post, in case you don’t want to read the whole thing. And here are some resources if you want more information:

Omniglot, Mylanguages.org, ielanguages.com, learn101.org