Driving Through a Dream: Six Days on Iceland’s Open Road

Even the views of the island from the plane were breathtaking: dark but calm waters gave way to craggy landscapes stretching far out into mountains and valleys enveloped in the whites of snow and the browns and blacks of earth. Iceland is a dream destination for many travelers, and there I was gazing at it from my window seat, just minutes away from stepping foot on the country for the first time. I got chills that had nothing to do with the air conditioning blasting from vents overhead.

The first step after collecting our luggage was to pick up our rental car. Traveling with seven other people is always a crapshoot; there’s always the possibility of tempers flaring and heads butting over the most inconsequential of things. But it does have its advantages, not the least of which is the fact that bills could always be split eight ways. That includes accommodations, food, and, yes, transportation. With countless guidebooks and online resources all extolling the virtues of renting a car to explore the wonders of Iceland, that’s exactly what my group and I did. And splitting the cost among eight people drastically lowered the expense. It was a no-brainer.

There had to be a designated driver for insurance purposes and that person ended up being me. Having taken the wheel in various other dots in the map—Thailand, Singapore, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, South Africa, and others—and the fact that I was one of the two-person committee who organized the trip, it only proved logical that it was me that was in the driver’s seat. I didn’t mind, of course. Not only have I done it before (I drove the same group from Salzburg, Austria to Bled, Slovenia seven years prior), I’ve yet to reach the point when driving feels like a chore. When there’s a need for someone to take the wheel, I’ll always happily volunteer.

It was a five-minute walk to the rental place; the air was crisp and had just enough bite; it was the kind of cold I was looking for as someone who has spent his whole life in the tropics. Our unit was a Toyota Proace. It had to be a van because we needed a vehicle big enough to fit eight people and just as many pieces of luggage. It had automatic transmission, a dial-type gear shift selector, and double sliding doors. We also paid extra for a pocket Wi-Fi because we knew we’d need it to navigate (and upload evidence of our adventures on social media, sometimes in real time).

I slid into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, and listened to the gentle but satisfying roar of the engine coming to life. It took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings, but by the time I picked up the rest of the group waiting curbside at the terminal, it felt like I’d been driving the Proace for years.

Google Maps said our destination was an hour away. I thought: no big deal. That’s shorter than my daily commute in the traffic-clogged streets of Manila. But what I wasn’t prepared for was that one hour meant driving straight through desolate terrain: treeless, rocky hills; patches of ice; and mountains touching clouds and mist further into the horizon. It was around 5 p.m. when we left the airport, and the sun was hanging low in the sky. It was one thing to drive through heavy rush hour traffic in your home city, quite another to coast through an endless highway at dusk in a foreign country. I concentrated on keeping a steady pace, not going over the speed limit, and navigating through roundabouts (there were a LOT of roundabouts).

When I thought we had been driving for a while, I turned to my navigator Toni, who was sitting beside me, and asked her how much more time before we got to our AirBnB. I was surprised when she said it had barely been 15 minutes since we started our journey. That was my first realization about driving in Iceland: time moved about as fast as the glaciers that blanketed its landscapes.

We had the car for six days—the entire duration we were in Iceland. From our base in Selfoss, a town south of the capital Reykjavik, we used it to run the Golden Circle: Thingvellir National Park, known for sitting right on top of the mid-Atlantic Ridge where the Eurasian and North American plates meet; the Great Geysir, which spews hot water and mist every few minutes and from where the English word “geyser” gets its name; and the spectacular Gullfoss, a two-level waterfall surrounded by ice that is truly a sight to behold.

The journey took one whole day and by the time we pushed back into the driveway in the house we were renting, we had covered roughly 140 kilometers (about the distance of a drive from Manila to Tagaytay and back). It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re driving straight through with hardly any stoplights (just roundabouts), it felt like it was much longer and further away.

The next day we woke up to frost on the windshield of our van, a sure sign that temperatures dropped below freezing during the night. It was then that I understood why there was an ice scraper and brush in the driver’s side compartment of the rental unit. While everybody piled into the van for another day of sightseeing, I was diligently scraping the ice so there wouldn’t be any troubles.

The day took us to the small town of Vik, which was further down near the southernmost tip of the island. It was the meeting point of a 4x4 ride and tour of the Katla ice cave we had booked to really experience the “ice” in Iceland. Afterwards we had just enough time to drive up to the highest point in Vik, where the popular red-and-white church stands tall with sweeping views of the seaside town; and Reynifsjara black sand beach, where towering basalt columns looked more like they were carved by humans rather than Mother Nature herself.

Another thing I learned about driving in Iceland is that while attractions can be free (like visiting the black sand beach), parking is not. There weren’t any human parking attendants, so payment is through cashless terminals located somewhere in the lot. There also weren’t any car barriers to get through, only security cameras, so the assumption is that you pay your fee before you head out, otherwise, Icelandic parking police will charge the rental company, which will then pass the charges on to you, with added penalties.

The drive back to Selfoss felt much faster than our journey out that morning. About 20 minutes from the city, my carmates suddenly, excitedly, whipped their phones out and pointed it at the night sky to our right—the elusive Aurora Borealis decided to make an appearance. Wispy green in the inky black night, it glowed faintly at first and began to stretch and glow brighter just above the horizon. It was difficult to capture it from a moving vehicle on a two-lane highway, and so, at the first sign of a turnoff—which turned out to be a long driveway into what looked like a big group of houses—we stopped in near total darkness, with just the van’s headlights providing illumination, to snap photo after photo of the stunning light display.

I didn’t know what the temperature was, but it had to be below freezing because it didn’t take long for my fingers to go numb after I took off my gloves. It wasn’t lost on me that we all didn’t feel we were in any danger despite stopping in pitch black surroundings on a deserted road off a lonely highway in a strange country. If there was any place in the world to do this in, Iceland would be it.  

It turned out, we didn’t need to stop, because the lights followed us all the way home and were still visible from the backyard when we settled in for the night.

On our third full day, we finally drove up to the capital, Reyjavik, encountering heavy fog that limited visibility to only a few meters. Our new apartment in the city was near the center, and luckily, parking was available right out front. It was only a few minutes’ walk to one of the country’s most iconic landmarks—Hallgrimskirkja, or Hallgrim’s Church. For once we didn’t need the car and were able to get a small taste of city life in Iceland on foot; walking along the so-called Rainbow Street in between various shops that sold local crafts, jewelry and other souvenirs, casually stumbling onto the famous Icelandic hotdog stand called Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, and sampling it for ourselves (it was…okay); and capping the night with a drink at 12 Tonar, a vinyl record store that also served coffee and beer (I had a stein of a local brand).

Our last full day in Iceland was reserved for a tourist staple—the Blue Lagoon. The geothermal spa is world famous and images of guests soaking in its milky blue waters while gazing out into black volcanic fields are likely some of the first you encounter when you Google “top things to do in Iceland.” It was incredibly pricey, but the fear of regret won over any budgetary concerns, and, after a 50-minute drive from our AirBnb, we changed into our bathing suits, walked shirtless into the frigid Icelandic open air, and plunged into the mineral-rich water. The feel of the warmth of the lagoon enveloping your body while your head is exposed to the freezing air, coupled with steam that lightly blurs your vision of the unreal surroundings, make the Blue Lagoon experience truly unforgettable.

I felt a bit drowsy after the dip in the warm waters, which made the drive back to Reykjavik a bit of a challenge. But we made it in one piece and spent the rest of the day walking around the city and buying last-minute souvenirs. We got up before dawn to pack our suitcases, load them into the van, and drive to Keflavik International Airport to catch our flight out of Iceland. I had deja vu when I dropped my friends off at the curb so I could return the Proace back to the rental place; it seemed so long ago that I was picking them up as if I was welcoming them to Iceland.

As our plane taxied down the runway and lifted into the dark Icelandic sky, I stared out the window and tried to make sense of how time had passed here: slow and unhurried one moment, then suddenly slipping away the next. Driving across this stark, ethereal landscape had stretched hours into something quieter and fuller than I was used to, yet the trip itself felt as if it had ended too soon. I realized that Iceland altered my sense of distance, of pace, of scale, and of time itself. And as I left the island behind me, one thought settled in with absolute clarity: I couldn’t wait to go back.