Isley Reust

This is the third time we have used Kimkim to plan a trip and it was, as usual, extremely helpful. We wouldn’t have had such an interesting and easy time of it without their assistance. The local agency, Iceland Offbeat, arranged for a rental car, provided us with route information and booked all our hotels/guest houses. They also gave us good recommendations for things to do/see and some places to eat. They booked some specific activities that we requested such as a glacier hike, whale watching, and horse back riding and we were impressed with the quality of the outfits they booked us with. In addition, we also made a reservation for the Viking Sushi Adventure that goes out of Stykkisholmur, which we really enjoyed. We loved being on our own schedule, traveling independently.

We had two weeks to drive the entire ring road around the coast and I can’t imagine doing it in less time although some people do. The roads are narrow and windy and the scenery is spectacular so you have to take your time. Also, we were on dirt roads at times that had a lot of potholes. If you rent a car be sure to get something with good suspension and tires. They originally reserved an economy car for us but we upgraded to an SUV with 4x4 and all season tires and we were glad of it - the extra expense was worth it. The wi-fi coverage throughout the country is amazing. We had one of those wi-fi gizmos that plug into the car and were able to follow the google map directions they provided quite easily. Although, I do recommend that you also purchase a full road map of Iceland so you can cross check names and numbers of the roads - the signage is sometimes confusing.

The only glitches we ran into were because we had a couple of changes in our itinerary during the planning process. Two of the guest houses that were originally reserved didn’t provide breakfast so the reservations were changed for us. We got a revised itinerary with the new locations and vouchers, however, the changes didn’t get made in the google map directions so one night we drove up to the wrong place. Fortunately, the correct guest house was only a few km away and we were alert to that problem for the future and didn’t make that mistake again. Also, at one place, there was some confusion about payment but they were able to phone the contact number on the voucher and it got worked out fairly quickly.

All in all, we had a fantastic trip to a unique and amazing country thanks to the kimkim team.