We finished up our last couple days in Iceland and have now met up with Joann's family in Amsterdam.  We're getting ready to board our cruise to Norway, but wanted to share our summary thoughts on Iceland now that we've left.

Our Last Two Days in Iceland
We ended our trip doing the famed Golden Circle route and spending some time in and around Reykjavik.  Some highlight pics are below and our route for the last two days is at the end of the post.

Thoughts on / Tips for Iceland
Overall, we left as huge Iceland fans.  If we were to travel here again (and we will certainly try), we'd definitely plan more time here (I think over a week for sure, maybe two weeks) and driven the whole island.  For those of you thinking about a trip and who are fans of nature, be generous with time - there's A LOT to see.

Most of our tips/views are probably fairly generic (i.e., amazing scenery and wildlife, extremely tourist friendly, very good food).  A few more idiosyncratic tips though for those who are interested, with some pictures:

Consider Under-Researching
This may be heresy for modern travelers like us who want to be 100% sure to see every one of the best things in a new place, but there is something kind of magical in having no idea what is coming on your route, and this was certainly the case for us on a good part of the trip. Iceland is a good place to do this because it's so easy to get around, and pretty much everywhere you go is drop dead gorgeous. See here for a little Icelandic guide that will help you decipher the signs for what you can see at each stop (e.g., words ending in -foss are waterfalls). 

Definitely, Definitely Rent a Car and Drive Yourself
Despite our challenges with Babe the 20-year-old rental car, we couldn't have imagined experiencing Iceland any other way. Since a couple of you asked - we rented our car from SADCars, which has a whole slew of hilarious slogans related to the dilapidated state of their fleet (i.e., "Sad cars, happy drivers"). There are, of course, slightly more expensive options like your average Avis where you don't have to fear for your life so much.

Go beyond the Golden Circle
Don't get us wrong, the Golden Circle is amazing and full of natural wonders. But we actually loved our first couple days driving around the southern and eastern coasts much more. It left much more room to be surprised, including by the amazing food and beer. The langoustines were as good as we'd heard at Humarhofnin in Hofn, the farthest we got from Reykjavik. They also had a local beer called Vatnajokull made from the local icebergs and flavored with local thyme growing in the valleys nearby. Greg loved it.

That's all for now, though we'd be happy to share more thoughts for those of you planning trips​. Thanks as always for reading!  We've had ~700 visitors so far, which is super fun, and we hope we you'll keep coming along our journey with us!

- GK & JC

On Monday, Greg and I left San Francisco, our friends and family and most of our worldly possessions and started our journey around the world. Our route started with a redeye from Seattle to Iceland, which unfortunately we had trouble sleeping through, although the views from the plane were incredible:

Happy and jet-lagged, we landed in Iceland and were promptly introduced to our travel companion, 'Babe.' (Greg being a bearded Midwesterner, the allusion to Paul Bunyan really isn't far off.) Babe is our blue 1995 Subaru Legacy rental.  He has ~170K miles under his belt and has already added quite a bit of color to our trip... 

Babe's back bumper is falling off, he occasionally refuses to allow his trunk to close and he completely blinds you if you try to use his windshield wipers in the rain. His Check Engine light turns on and off often and unpredictably, and roughly nine out of ten times you try, he refuses to let you take the key out of the ignition. Suffice it to say that he is as much of a POS as he looks. And we kind of love him, because Babe has taken us safely(ish) to some amazing places over the last couple days.  

We drove out from Keflavik airport along the southern coast of Iceland and up the eastern coast, stopping our first night at a farm stay on Seglbudir sheep farm.  

On day 2 we started to head up the eastern coast of Iceland where we saw gorgeous landscapes and sights including Skaftafell, a glacial & mountainous park, Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon & black sand beach, and Laufskálavarða, where visitors since 894 AD have stacked rocks in little piles for luck. 

Towards the end of Day 2, Babe brought us to back to Dyrhólaey. It has a sheer cliff covered in bright green grass that looks out onto a black sand beach. Arctic terns swoop around, seagulls nest in the cliff and eider ducks waddle adorably along the beach. But most importantly, there are PUFFINS! The adorable birds - basically flying penguins - were all over, and a pair hung out about ten feet away from us and modeled for our photos.

What else can we say?  Iceland started for us as an extended layover, not somewhere we had really planned to stop on our trip.  It's been absolutely stunning on all fronts and also very easy to travel through.

Yesterday (Day 3) we hit up Iceland's famed golden circle, and today we're in Reykjavik - we'll post pictures / thoughts once we have them gathered together.  More to come!​

​- JC & GK

Hello, world!  We are about to start a four-month trip around the world.  We'll hit four continents and twelve countries, including many of our top "bucket list" destinations.

Folks have asked what our itinerary will be, so without further ado, the approximate itinerary is:

June 7-10 - Iceland​
June 10-12 - Amsterdam
June 12-19 - Cruise to Norwegian Fjords​​
June 19-21 Amsterdam
June 22 - July 25 - Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda 
July 25-29 - Thailand 
July 29-31 - Singapore 
Aug 1-13 - Indonesia 
Aug 13-16 - Philippines 
Aug 17-23 - Palau 
Aug 23-24 - Philippines 
Aug 24 - Sep 14 - New Zealand
Sept 14-22 - Fiji

​We'll have more in depth posts about the game plan for each country, but as you can probably tell from reading the list, our bucket list countries were heavily weighted towards nature and diving destinations. Expect lots of pictures of beautiful landscapes and amazing wildlife from around the world.

We can't wait to kick off the trip and can hardly believe that it's just a few days away. We hope you'll join us on our adventures through the blog!

- GK & JC