Free Rental Car in May
So we have a May winner for the free car rental too. Congratulations to Daniele Lattanzio and her friends with this fantastic video. A very fun video they shot while driving around Iceland. Danielle & co are from Spain, Italy, France, Austria and they united for this adventure in Iceland. Together they made this video of the Great Auk looking for loooove! 🙂 Just love it guys. Thanks! Here is their video and the regular interview!
For how long had you planned your trip to Iceland and who was on the trip with you?
We are actually a group of five international students who met on their year abroad in Bristol, England : we wanted to take a trip that would be a definitive highlight of this amazing year and we decided to go explore Iceland with a Spanish and two Italian guys, as well as an Austrian and a French girl – a truly international group ! We started brainstorming about a month before we left for Iceland and gradually became way too excited about the trip; staying in the library all day studying became really hard as we were counting down the days before hopping on the plane!
Tell us the route you chose to drive and how did you come down to exactly that trip?
As we were leaving for a week of travel, we decided that driving around the whole country was too much for this rather short period of time and then concentrated the itinerary on the south of the island. We departed from Keflavik airport and mainly took the road nr.1 all the way to Höfn, and even a bit further northwest to try and see some wild reindeers – which we did! Halfway through the trip, we headed back to Reykjavik while seeing all the landscapes that we did not have time to visit on the outward journey. In the end, we also went to the beautiful peninsula Snaefellsnes in the west, the northernmost place of our trip!
Tell us about the best part of the trip.
We actually have three: seeing wild reindeers crossing the road just before our eyes and being only a few meters away from them, walking behind Seljalandsfoss at sunset and then seeing it from the hill and feeling on top of the world, and a wonderful sunny afternoon at the Jökulsárlán glacier lake, watching an artist and his photographer doing an environmental art project there.
Was there anything on the trip around Iceland you didn’t like too much?
Just to make something clear in the beginning: the things we are going to mention are not really things we didn’t like because in general they turned out to be quite funny. For example, we bought some way too expensive ordinary take-away pizzas in the capital because were starving, we had just arrived and this shitty pizza place was the only thing that was open at this time of the night. Then the girls experienced some issues with extra-dry hair for days after having swum in the Blue Lagoon and its mineral water. And the best of all: we discovered the existence of fish sausages. We quickly noticed the weird relationship that Icelanders have with their fish sausages, but being eager to immerse in the local culture we tried them anyway, and it was not exactly convincing – without mentioning the smell the said sausage had after a few days!
When you initially were handed over the Great Auk, what was your response?
We fell in love with the two Great Auks we received right away and enjoyed fooling around with them quite a lot. However, I don’t think that we initially planned on taking part in this competition. But then things changed dramatically at Skaftafell. One of us lost the very expensive camera she had borrowed from a friend for taking pictures in Iceland. Oh what a disaster this was! Being on a student budget this was a total catastrophe! But then one of us had the idea of taking part in this competition in order to win back the money for the car and thus saving our friend from going bankrupt. And so all of us got really excited about our new project. Funny note on the side: we found the camera in the car later on in our trip. But by then we were already so enthusiastic about creating this love story that we just couldn’t stop.
Did you know about the Great Auk competition before you booked your car?
No.
What advice do you have for people coming here to drive around Iceland?
1. Get the extra gravel insurance! It’s definitely worth the money! The gravel in this country is crazy and unlike any gravel you have experienced before. It will ruin your windshield before you know it.
2. Girls, choose the times you drink water/soft drinks/alcoholic beverages wisely! There are like no public toilets in this country. I repeat: NO PUBLIC TOILETS. And although we (the female party on this trip) normally quite enjoy having a wee in nature, it can be quite tricky in a country without trees. …and I haven’t even mentioned the strong wind yet.
3. Be prepared for everything! Driving in this country is one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had. One day, for example, we felt like we were driving in the clouds…and we are not talking about the usual driving-in-the-fog experience. We thought we were lost in an actual fluffy cloud. Pure magic!
Was there anything that you were surprised to discover here?
We were surprised to discover how the idea of good weather in Iceland differed significantly from what we had considered good weather so far! When we met the guy from the car rental he said: “You are lucky, you’ve got good weather today!” But it was actually cold, rainy and windy (but maybe good for Icelandic standards?) He also recommended us not to open all of the car doors at the same time during the windy days. He told us that we would otherwise have a really hard time closing them again!
If you could do the trip all over again, what would you do differently?
We wouldn’t change anything. But we would (and probably we will) come back in a different period, either during the winter to watch the northern lights and the beauty of the Icelandic snowy landscape, or during the summer for experiencing the midnight sun and a warmer weather.
Why Iceland and why in the spring when the driving can be quite tricky and the weather can be unstable?
Iceland because we were curious to discover this exotic place in the Arctic Circle, which is far from central/southern Europe where we come from. As we studied in the UK last year we were almost halfway up and so we decided to go on this big adventure together. And we could not have made a better choice. Every landscape looks like a postcard, and wherever you go you can feel a sense of peace all around you. We decided to go in May because we had a lot of days off from University. So it was just the best time for us to go.
PS: We would like to thank GoIceland for choosing us as the winners of the May competition. Sadly, our year abroad in England has come to an end and we are now back in our respective countries (Spain, Italy, France, Austria). Winning back the money of the car rental will allow us to meet again and to do more travels together! For this we would like to thank you, GoIceland!
Again, congratulations and thank you all guys for your video. We love it. Great to hear you found the camera again. Now you can come back to Iceland!
The Great Auk competition is still going strong so be welcome to enter wen you come here and get your rental car.
Drive safely out there! #GoIceland