Our Trip to Iceland | Part 3 | The Southern Coast

It’s here!! My final recap from our trip to Iceland!! The whole trip was amazing but this is the day that I had been waiting for the entire trip. We saw such a variety of landscapes on the Southern Coast and there were so many moments that absolutely took my breath away. Like this one!

Y’all. This photo was taken at Iceland’s version of a rest stop. Seriously. Have you ever been to a rest stop that looks like this?

We were so lucky with weather this entire trip. Iceland is known to have pretty unpredictable weather and that is definitely true! On our day exploring the Southern Coast, it rained (or snowed) almost the entire time we traveled from stop to stop. But the second we hopped off our little bus, the rain stopped and held off for the entire stop. It was crazy!

Our first stop of the day was Skogafoss Waterfall. It was SO big! And you can get unbelievably close! Although you would get pretty wet if you went right up next to it, and since this was only the first stop of the day, we kept our distance.

Another really cool part about this day was the difference in color of landscape! We saw lots of snow and ice on our first two days in Iceland but this day was almost all green! There were times I definitely thought we had landed on the set of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones!

I started taking pictures of the ground/my feet at some point during the trip because I was so amazed with how varied the ground and soil was everywhere we went! Especially on this day!

Our next stop was a bucket list stop! We headed all the way down to the southern most tip of Iceland and the little town of Vik. While we were there we went to Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach. Between the black sand, the basalt columns and caves, and the giant rocks shooting out of the ocean, you definitely feel like you’ve found another planet!

This sand was unbelievably hard to walk on. It was probably because we were wearing winter hiking boots but wow. Talk about a work out!! The tide was also super aggressive! At one point we were trying to take a picture halfway up the beach and it almost washed us away!

Remember how I said even the rest stops are breathtaking in Iceland? Here’s another shot from that same spot!

The next spot on our Southern Coast journey was a stop at Solheimajokull Glacier. I’m not sure how many more times I can say this place is incredible and breathtaking but this stop definitely was. Out of all of our stops, this was the only one I found myself wishing we had more time. It was just so quiet and peaceful and natural – the way Earth was intended to be. If we head back to Iceland at any point, there will absolutely be more glacier explorations! (And yes, that’s more black sand/dirt! – our guide explained that it looks a bit “dirty” right now because it was just the beginning of winter and wind and rain causes the black dirt to blow up and on to the glacier.)

The last stop on our Southern Coast tour was Seljalandsfoss Waterfall! To be in tune with our first day of stops, it was the stop we had the harshest weather of the day but that didn’t matter too much because we actually walked BEHIND this waterfall and got soaking wet so I guess the rain was no big deal!

This was the only shot I got with my actual camera because we didn’t want to expose it to the rain and waterfall but you can check out my instagram stories for a peek at our iPhone footage from behind the Waterfall!

Thank you so much for tuning in each week to read all about our trip! If you’re thinking about traveling to Iceland, GO! But honestly, if you’re thinking about traveling anywhere, GO! We are such big proponents of traveling, whether for the memories it creates, the respect and knowledge you gain for different cultures, or the thrill or excitement of seeing something totally new to you, traveling is something I hope to do forever!

Stay tuned for next travel Tuesday when I take a look back at some of the highlights from our trip to Japan earlier this year!! XO