lodging

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

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