9 Days in Iceland with Two Toddlers

Skogafoss off the south coast of Iceland

We visited Iceland at the beginning of October 2019 for what might have been my favorite vacation to date. Notice, I used the word vacation (!!) there. For the first time since traveling with the kids, we went on something that felt possibly closer to a vacation than just a trip! Don’t get me wrong, it was WORK – two toddlers, remember? But Iceland was so magical that even weeks after getting home, I’m wondering how we will top it.

Why Iceland?

During the planning and since getting home, I have been asked “why Iceland?” over and over. A couple years ago I started noticing gorgeous photos of Iceland popping up on various travel websites and Instagram accounts. After a bit of research, Iceland landed toward the top of our “travel wish list”.

Iceland with kids?

I think most people ask “why Iceland” because it sounds like a surprising choice given the ages of our kids. J was 3.5 years and A had just turned 2. But in reality, their age was a large part of why we DID pick Iceland at this time. We knew we would want to rent a car and self-drive. This meant we would have the continuity of our own car for the duration of the trip and not have to fully, mindfully pack up luggage for a train or plane ride every time we needed to change accommodations. The draw to visiting Iceland is the dramatic landscape, so we wouldn’t have to keep the kids entertained through church visits and museum tours or hustle them in and out of subway systems through a busy city. We also know that our kids do well on car rides, so the distances between attractions would probably be fine. Compared to other destinations we were considering, this sounded ideal.

October in Iceland

We left for Iceland from Houston on 10/1, with a short stop in Newark, we landed at Keflavik airport bright and early on 10/2. We planned our trip for October, just past Iceland’s main tourist season, because we were trying to balance plenty of daylight hours along with a decent chance to see the Northern Lights (which was a success!). Had it just been Scott and I, we might have wished for a little more daylight, but the kids were D-O-N-E by dinner time each night, so the timing worked out well for us.

Taken with NightCap. Stars mode, 10.05 second exposure, 1/3s shutter speed.

How cold was it?

And because the second most frequent question that I’ve gotten has been “how cold was it”, the temps were not bad for us 40s-50s (F). The wind was the big killer, but the days with sunshine were wonderfully pleasant. Because the weather fluctuated so much, layers of clothing were key. I know, I know…. Every travel blog for any destination always says to pack in layers. I wish I could be more specific, but the wind and clouds are unpredictable and can really affect the temperatures. This is where our rental car came in handy because we could just throw in a bunch of options and we all had wardrobe changes at least once each day.

How did you get around?

We rented a car from Blue Car for the duration of our trip. I highly, highly recommend renting your own car! This gave us flexibility that we would not have gotten if we had relied on tour groups, so we were able to maximize our time, working around kids’ schedules and weather forecasts. This also let us keep layers of winter gear, spare clothes, toys, maps, etc in the car the whole trip. And we got to pick our own music. 😉

One of the best decisions of our trip was renting a portable Wi-Fi router along with our car. It plugged into the car’s USB to charge and was about the size of a cell phone, so we were able to take it with us and had available Wi-Fi anywhere we went. This was especially useful when the Wi-Fi was slow at a couple of our accommodations. So, if you have the option, get the Wi-Fi router!