The Iceland Adventure Begins: First Day in Reykjavík

Some holidays go exactly as planned. Iceland wasn’t one of them. Months before leaving Australia, we thought we’d done everything right. We watched more YouTube videos than I’d like to admit, read guidebooks, compared itineraries, studied maps and checked weather statistics from previous years.

Early April seemed like a good choice. Winter would be starting to loosen its grip, the days would be getting longer and there was still a reasonable chance of seeing the Northern Lights (though that wasn’t a deal-breaker for us).

It didn’t take long for Iceland to remind us that it really doesn’t care what your itinerary says.

Roads closed overnight. Strong winds forced us to rethink plans. Rain came at us sideways. Snow appeared on days that had looked perfectly fine in the forecast only hours earlier.

And plans we’d spent months putting together sometimes changed over breakfast.

We quickly learnt that travelling around Iceland requires a certain amount of flexibility. You plan, check the weather, check the roads…and then quite possibly make another plan.

The funny thing is some of those unexpected moments became our favourite memories.

Overlooking Reykjavik from Hallgrimskirkja Church

Over eight unforgettable days, we drove Iceland’s famous Ring Road anticlockwise from Reykjavík, passing waterfalls, glaciers, lava fields, black-sand beaches, tiny fishing villages, snow-covered mountains and steaming geothermal landscapes before eventually making our way back to the capital.

One of the biggest hiccups happened before we’d even reached Iceland, when we discovered—while standing in the passport-control queue at Copenhagen Airport—that our connecting flight to Keflavik was boarding in minutes. Not several hours later, as we’d thought. Minutes.

Then there were moments at the complete opposite end of the scale: standing quietly beside a glacial lagoon watching icebergs drift past, driving through enormous landscapes without another car in sight, or looking up at a waterfall that seemed to disappear somewhere into the clouds.

Iceland was dramatic, unpredictable and occasionally a little exhausting. And we loved it.

If you’re planning your own Iceland road trip, I hope sharing our experience helps—whether it’s somewhere we loved, a mistake you can avoid, or simply a reminder to leave a little breathing room in your itinerary. Because if there’s one thing Iceland taught us, it’s this: Don’t get too attached to the plan. Iceland has a habit of changing it for you. And sometimes, that’s where the best memories come from.

Day 1 — The Flight That Nearly Never Was

From Brisbane to Reykjavík, via the Fastest Sprint of Our Lives

After what felt like an eternity in the air, we were finally approaching Europe.

Our luggage had been checked all the way through from Brisbane via Singapore to Copenhagen then finally Keflavík. When we landed in Copenhagen, we were feeling relaxed. According to our itinerary we had hours before our connecting flight. Plenty of time. We joined the passport-control queue and, while we were standing there, one of us casually looked at the boarding pass. Our flight wasn’t leaving at 2:00 pm as per our original itinerary. It was leaving at 7:50 am. In about fifteen minutes.

There was a moment where we just stared at each other, trying to understand how we’d managed to get something quite so important quite so wrong. It was our fault – when we were handed our bundle of boarding passes in Brisbane we didn’t think to look at them again until we were ready to board each connecting flight.

Panic set in.

We apologetically worked our way towards the front of the passport-control queue, explained that our Icelandair flight was about to leave and, once we were through, ran through Copenhagen Airport with absolutely no idea how far away our gate was. Not exactly the calm beginning to our Iceland holiday we’d imagined. But luck was on our side – we reached the gate completely out of breath, slightly frazzled and probably looking as though we’d just competed in an airport-based obstacle course. But boarding was still underway. We’d made it. Barely. And we hadn’t even reached Iceland yet.

Flying into Keflavík gave us our first proper glimpse of Iceland. And immediately, it felt different.

As we started descending into Keflavík, we saw snow. So much snow. Coming from Queensland, Australia, where seeing snow is obviously not part of everyday life, it was thrilling to see huge patches of white covering the landscape below us. It wasn’t the sort of snowy landscape I’d imagined. There were hardly any trees. Instead, there were these enormous open stretches of land, with black volcanic rock poking through the snow and mountains sitting way off in the distance.

Everything looked incredibly empty. As we got lower, we could see roads cutting through the lava fields, little clusters of buildings here and there, and patches of snow sitting between the dark rocks. It looked cold. Really cold. Very Icelandic.

Then the runway appeared. There was snow along the edges, more snow beyond it and that huge Icelandic blue sky stretching out above everything.

With all the planning, all those YouTube videos, the ridiculously long flights and our unexpected sprint through Copenhagen Airport… we had made it to Iceland. And judging by the amount of snow outside, Iceland was going to be very different from home.

After landing and collecting our luggage, there was just one more job before we could properly begin the trip. Pick up the rental car. Simple. Or so we thought. Because we’d arrived much earlier than expected the Suzuki Jimny, we’d booked wasn’t there yet. It was still somewhere out on the road with the previous renter.

Rather than waiting for a few hours for it to return, we decided to upgrade to a five-door manual Dacia Duster SUV. Plus, we took out additional insurance as recommended by the car rental company to guard against potential broken windscreens and doors being blown off their hinges!

Our First Iceland Lessons

Collecting the rental car at Keflavík also gave us our first lesson in not assuming things would work exactly as we expected. Our first mistake was walking outside to find the wrong rental office. We soon discovered that several rental companies also operate from a shared desk inside the terminal. Back inside we went.

Then came lesson number two. You need to take a numbered ticket before waiting to be served.

We didn’t. There we stood, wondering why people who had clearly arrived after us kept being called forward while we remained invisible. Then we worked it out. Ticket taken. Number called.

Car sorted. All up, collecting the vehicle took us almost an hour.

Our First Drive in Iceland

The drive from Keflavík into Reykjavík takes roughly 45 minutes, but for us the holiday really began the moment we pulled away from the airport.

Route 41 cuts across an enormous volcanic landscape. Black lava fields stretched away from the road. Patches of snow sat between dark rocks. Mountains appeared on the horizon, and the road seemed to run endlessly ahead of us. And there was hardly a billboard in sight. Coming from Australia, where major roads can feel busy with traffic, businesses and advertising, there was something wonderfully peaceful about it. There was also the small matter of remembering how to drive. Icelandic cars are left-hand drive and traffic travels on the right, so those first few kilometres required a little concentration. Stay right. Stay right. Stay right.

The speed limits are generally straightforward: around 50 km/h in towns, 80 km/h on gravel roads and 90 km/h on paved roads outside built-up areas. Roundabouts, however, required slightly more concentration than I’d like to admit. Thankfully Monty was the sole driver during our entire Iceland adventure.

When Locals Give You Advice, Listen

Our drive from the airport into Reykjavík was thankfully without any hurdles, and before long we were checking into our hotel, centrally located right in the heart of the city.

When we checked into our hotel, the receptionist mentioned something almost casually: “The weather changes tomorrow.”

She explained that conditions were expected to deteriorate quickly. Strong winds were coming; roads could close and travelling might become difficult. We looked outside. Blue sky.

Everything seemed perfectly calm. It was difficult to imagine that the weather could change so dramatically in less than twenty-four hours. Fortunately, we decided to listen.

We had booked Sky Lagoon for the following evening, but after hearing the warning we contacted them and asked whether there was any chance of moving our booking forward. Thankfully, they managed to fit us in that afternoon. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we made during the entire trip. Because the next day? Horizontal rain. Snow. Strong winds. Road closures.

With a few hours up our sleeves before our late-afternoon booking at Sky Lagoon, we decided that the best way to fight the jet lag was to keep moving and head out on foot for a mini self-guided tour of Reykjavík.

The weather was perfect. We wandered through the colourful streets of downtown, taking in some of the city’s most recognizable sights along the way.

We checked out the striking Harpa Concert Hall on the waterfront, stopped by the Sun Voyager sculpture, and made our way up to the unmistakable Hallgrímskirkja church towering above the city. Somewhere along the way, we stumbled across a unique solo art exhibition, wandered down the colourful Rainbow Street (Skólavörðustígur), and generally enjoyed getting our first feel for downtown Reykjavík.

It was a great little introduction to the city — although by this stage, exhaustion was beginning to catch up with us.

Time to soak in the Sky Lagoon

After our walk around downtown, we decided to take a taxi to and from Sky Lagoon. (About 10 mins drive. Cost: Hreyfill taxi 6,920 ISK to Sky Lagoon and 6,620 ISK return to our hotel.)

Sky Lagoon was probably the first moment of the entire trip when everything finally slowed down. We started with the 7-Step Ritual, something we’d read plenty about before leaving Australia and were keen to experience for ourselves. Then we headed back into the lagoon.

Stepping into the warm geothermal water felt very, very good. After everything it had taken to get us to Iceland, sinking into that water with Reykjavík behind us felt like exactly where we were supposed to be.

Steam drifted across the warm water. Beyond the infinity edge was the cold North Atlantic.

Drinks in our hands we watched the light slowly disappear towards the horizon. No airport announcements. No boarding gates. No rental-car queues. No running. After all the travelling, rushing, confusion and last-minute changes, we could finally stop. We were here. In Iceland. And our adventure had officially begun. We just had no idea that, overnight, Iceland was about to completely rewrite our plans.

Coming next: Day 2 — When Iceland Changed Our Plans Overnight

The receptionist had been right. It became one of our first—and most useful—Iceland lessons: when an Icelander warns you about the weather, listen.

Disclaimer:

This blog post is based entirely on our own experiences during our trip to Iceland in April 2026. Everything we share reflects what we personally saw, did, learned and experienced during our holiday.

We have done our best to make sure the information is correct. However, things can change, including prices, road conditions, weather etc. If you are considering travelling to Iceland, we recommend you check current information with official Icelandic sources before making bookings.

Any opinions, recommendations and suggestions shared on Monty&Me are our own.