Tag: planning

Iceland trip planning: Packing list

It took me long to prepare this post about my Icelandic trip. I thought it would be useful for others to share a detailed list of all the stuff I carried with me. It was my first long trip, so I had no idea of what I was going to need and made the list by guessing and asking people. I obviously ended up missing many things, and carrying many more that I didn’t need.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any proper gear or many of the things I needed, so I had to buy them for this trip. The good side is that I can tell you what I paid for almost every item.

I have divided the list in sections to make it more manageable, and I include comments based on my experience. Those items I don’t make comments about, it’s because they served their purpose and I was happy to carry them.

Motorcycle gear

Adventure gear

I made quite an investment in good gear, but I think it was worthy. I’m not going to repeat what you will read in most reviews in the Internet. My only complain about the Sidi boots is that the plastic doesn’t protect the spot where I touch the shifter, closer to the tip. The leather is getting worn there, so I bought a cheaper pair of enduro boots for my day trips.

I can’t tell whether the neck brace was worthy, I only saw one rider wearing a much smaller model. I wore it attached to the jacket with the connection kit. This made the jacket bulky and slightly more difficult to put on and off. It’s one of those things you better never really need.

I hope I find the time to write a post about all my gear some day, then I could tell you more.

Clothes

Here is my first big mistake: I was warm with the motorcycle gear, I was warm sleeping in the bag, but I was freezing in the morning and evening with these clothes. It was July and I needed, at least, a better sweater.

A friend told me that I only needed three changes of clothes; I took five, and he was right. The thing is that it’s very difficult to dry your clothes in the Icelandic humid weather, specially during the night. So you better have just one change of drying clothes per day, meaning that you must wash yesterday’s clothes every day. Thus, you don’t need more than three changes.

Another good advice from the same friend was to use gym tights as underpants. That way you can change your trousers out of the tent without being in underwear. There had been occasions in which I had to stop anywhere and take my motorcycle trousers off to put or remove the Gore-Tex layer.

I didn’t use the merino wool tube scarfs. The cheap tube scarfs that I had for riding were enough.

Camping

  • MSR Mutha Hubba NX 3 tent (469 €).
  • Terra Hiker Sand tent pegs, pack of 12 (10 €).
  • HelSport Alta sleeping bag (139 €).
  • Exped Airmat Lite 5M matress (70 €).
  • WellPur Volda pillow (10 €).
  • Small broom and dustpan set (2 €).
  • Head torch (5 €).
  • 20 meters of 2 mm rope (9 €).
  • Set of 12 clothespins (1 €).
  • Viltpose Småvilt 75×50 net bag (5 €).

If you are riding a motorcycle, you want to keep your gear out but protected from rain. Mine did the job, but a smaller tent with a bigger vestibule would have been better.

The broom and dustpan were a recommendation to keep the tent clean. It was useful, but bulky to carry despite it was a small hand set. I’m not sure if I would take it again.

The rope did its job to hang the clothes, but now I think I should have taken something shorter and stronger that I could also use to pull the motorcycle in case I needed it.

I used the bag to carry my wet clothes, hanging in my back from my neck brace. Quite useless for drying them, but at least they stayed ventilated and the rest of my stuff didn’t get moisted.

Carrying wet clothes in Iceland

Utensils, drugstore products

  • Camping cutlery set (4 €).
  • Tupperwares. One of 1.8l, two of 1.2l, 5 smaller ones (12 €).
  • Roll of 20l plastic bags (1 €).
  • Toiletry bag (8 €).
  • Mirror (2 €).
  • Soap bar (3 €).
  • Wet wipes, 2 packs (4 €).
  • Personal hygiene items.
  • Washing machine bag (2 €).
  • Insect repelents and kill sprays (26 €).
  • Antihistamine and painkillers.

I only needed the three bigger tupperwares. The roll of plastic bags and the soap bar proved to be very useful, I used the later to wash myself and my clothes. The washing machine bag was an alternative when I didn’t know what to do with my wet clothes, but I only used the other bag. I often got my hands dirty, the wet wipes were very useful but I only needed one pack. I also took too many medicines. Insects are an issue in Finland but not in Iceland; I left the repelents and kill spray in a guesthouse during the trip because they were just a big waste of space.

Trekking gear

I was planning to do some several-hours trekking some days, but at the end I never had that much time and I chose to ride the motorbike to places instead. I only used the binoculars and the flask.

No matter how you plan to travel and what you plan to do, binoculars are a must in Iceland. They will give you a better view of mountains, glaciers, cascades, birds…

I used the flask to carry water when riding. At the beginning I also carried a 1.5 liter bottle, but 1 liter is enough to make it to the next free source of water. Actually, considering the temperatures, I didn’t really need a thermo flask. A plastic bottle would have been enough.

I didn’t use that compass, but I still want to fit a compass in the motorbike in a place where I can always see it. It would have been useful when my phone broke and I didn’t have GPS.

Electronics

For a long time I considered taking my older phone as well, for back-up. At the end, I didn’t because I thought that the odds of the new one breaking were minimal. And, in the middle of the trip, the Google phone started failing until it stopped working. I think it was because of me taking pictures under the rain, together with the humidity of the night. The phone was moisted every morning. I later discovered that my sleeping bag had an inner pocket, I should have kept the phone there. In any case, having no phone means no GPS, no Internet, no way of calling emergency services; it really made travelling difficult and risky. Next time I will definitely have a second phone.

Transferring 64 gigabytes from the camera to the phone over WiFi is slow, and so is uploading the videos to the cloud. I had to delete many of the videos I took, just to make space to record new ones. I still haven’t figured out a good solution for this.

The camera bars and clamps were meant to mount the camera in the motorbike in a way I could record myself driving, but I couldn’t find a way that made me confident that I wasn’t going to loose it. So I just used a small mount that comes with it, stuck on top of the visor of my helmet.

The earbuds were for listening to music under the helmet, but it takes many attempts to put the helmet on without them falling off. I wanted to buy a Sena 10C EVO bluetooth system, but it didn’t reach the market before my trip. The watch was useful, specially when I had no phone.

The e-reader was good for the tedious 48-hours ferry trip between Hirtshals and Seyðisfjörður, but I didn’t have much time to kill the rest of the trip.

Motorcycle spares and accesories

From the toolbox, I only took the tools that fitted the bolts and screws of the motorbike. They fitted nicely in the toolbag.

The fire extinguisher was a safety measure when I thought I was going to carry 10 liters of gasoline in external containers. But that didn’t happen, so it was a rather unnecessary weight. I didn’t see a extinguisher in any other motorbike.

The lock is perfect for locking the helmet to the handlebar. Maybe too much for a country like Iceland, but something I still use at home.

I used the bungee cords to strap a bag to the rear rack, and now and then for other things. I think it’s worthy to carry a set of different sizes, they are handy.

The cable ties and duct tape were for emergency repairs.  As you know, the former served their purpose. Fortunately I didn’t need the tyre repair. I was often in lonely roads far from any town, it could have saved me in a bad situation.

Considering my motorbike has double headlight, I think I shouldn’t have taken any spare lamp. I could have managed with any broken lamp until the next shop. The vibrations and bumps could have easily broken any of the spares. I didn’t need a new set of fuses either, I later learnt that the bike had spares and where they are located.

So, enough about the preparations. From the next post, I will finally start telling you the actual trip.

Iceland trip planning: Route

After marking the spots with pins, I linked them with a elastic rope and I got the first version of my route. The main issue of that route was that it included doing Möðrudalur–Sprengisandur–Varmahlíð, and that was 400 kilometers off-road between gas stations. Too risky even with extra fuel, so I abandoned that idea and had to redo the whole route.

Using Google Maps, I calculated all distances and times on the actual roads to obtain the average per day. It looked like an easy plan that would allow me to rest some days.

To spare me the high prices of accomodation in Iceland, I will camp with my own tent most of the nights. I realized that if I always move forward, I would have to plant and remove my tent everyday. Also, I wouldn’t have many chances of washing and drying my clothes. Once again, I modified the route to travel in loops and stay in every place as many nights as possible. Another advantage of the loops is that if I get too tired or there is any issue, I can cancel them and still be on schedule for the next stage. So now it looks like this.

The downside of the loops is that they make riding distances and times quite longer. I recalculated this, and also reviewed the Lonely Planet guide once more to add the time that I would stop in every place. It turned out to be too much, so I shortened some routes and removed some sights from the plan.

Iceland trip route planning

At the same time, I decided where I’m going to stay every night. It’s not so easy as dividing hours by days, because in Iceland you may want to make it shorter or longer and stay in a place with good services. In the Highlands, there are a few places where one is allowed to camp at all.

I ended with big differences between days, so I’m still doing minor adjustements trying to balance them. But the plan is pretty much defined and I have already done most of the bookings. These include the hotels in which I will rest now and then.

You know I don’t want to share the all the details before the trip, but here are some numbers:

  • 5400 kilometers in total.
  • 95 riding hours in total.
  • 260 kilometers average per day.
  • 376 kilometers the longest route in a single day.
  • 335 kilometers the longest route between gas stations.

I hope I haven’t gone too crazy. I’m sure Vacaburra can’t do 300 kilometers off-road loaded on a single tank, so I’ll fit Rotopax containers and other parts that I will show you when I get them.

By the way, the snow is gone and the motorbike is ready to be taken from storage. It’s still quite chilly, but I will start the season very soon.

Iceland trip planning: Things to see

I would like to share some plans for my Icelandic trip, hoping it helps someone in the future. I also appreciate feedback and tips from experienced travelers.

I chose Iceland because it will be my first motorcycle trip and I thought it was better to start in place where I could easily communicate and get help and services. I’m already thinking where I could go next…

Iceland is a very popular and growing destination where you need to book things way in advance. Accomodations are already geting fully booked for this summer, but I plan to camp most nights and book rooms as an occasional treat. This urge to book requires a detailed plan to know where I’m going to spend every night.

The first thing I did was reading and underlinig the most interesting parts of the Lonely Planet Iceland guide. Then I went through the underlined parts to come up with the list of things I want to see, which I share at the bottom of this post. You may notice notable abscenses like Hornstrandir or Vestmannaeyjar. I don’t want to trade time on the motorbike for multi-day hikes or excursions to places not that different from what I’m going to see anyway.

Then I marked the spots with pins in a map of Iceland. I also wrote some notes and marked the first and last petrol stations when crossing the highlands. You can see this in the picture below.

Iceland trip planning

I’m currently linking the pins with that orange elastic string to define the route. Of course, I will be taking as many dirt roads as possible. I think I will need extra fuel cans to make it through the highlands. The part that worries me the most is crossing rivers.

Once I have the route I will use Google Maps to measure distances and times and decide how far I will go and where I will sleep every day. I have a total of three weeks, so I expect plenty of time to enjoy the locations and rest.

For privacy and security reasons, I won’t share much information regarding the route, dates and times before the trip. But I will tell you about the gear, equipment, costs, etc. After the trip, you will get every detail including pictures and videos.

So, here is my list of thins to see in Iceland. The pictures look better than anything I have seen in my life before. Again, feedback is appreciated: