Today’s the day!

I’m currently sitting in the airport terminal. I guess now is as good a time as any to address all the potential questions you may have. Why Iceland, why now, who am I traveling with, what will I be doing there, etc.

My travel companions for this trip are my BEST friend Eliza and my cousin Shakayla.

Eliza and I have been traveling together since first going to Spain in 2010. In fact, every time I’ve left the country, it’s been with her. She’s my forever travel buddy.

Shakayla and I are the closest of all my cousins. Likely because we’re the same age, 25 days apart to be exact. But we just get along really well.

This trip is mostly about Kayla. This is her DREAM TRIP. She got her passport just to travel to Iceland. But Eliza and I didn’t know she’d be joining us until the day after we booked everything.

Let me explain…

Eliza and I are slight travel addicts. We’re always looking for a flight deal. One day this summer we were having an early dinner and discussing travel, per the usual. Eliza is a teacher so when traveling anytime other than summer, we have to plan around her school breaks. So we decided to look at flights around Thanksgiving and Christmas. We set a budget of $400 each for tickets and started our quest.

We honestly were looking to go to London, Dublin or Edinburgh. Maybe even all three if we could swing it. And the flights were within our budget. But we saw that the weather was pretty dismal that time of year. Using google flights we zoomed out a bit on the map, and saw that Iceland was also well within our budget. $260 each round trip to be exact.

We researched what the weather would be like. What we could do while we were there. What the prices for hotels, Airbnbs, and tours looked like. It all checked out. And it was AFFORDABLE.

So the next day I requested and was approved for the time off (shout out to my boss). And we booked the flights right away.

We considered booking the hotels and tours on our own, which is what we normally do. But because this was Iceland, we wanted to make the most of our time and money. And we didn’t want to miss anything. So we searched for some tour groups. And after comparing a few different Icelandic travel agencies and tour groups we decided on Guide to Iceland. They seemed to offer the most for the price. We selected their 4 day tour and booked everything that day.

This brings me to how Kayla came along the following day….

As I mentioned Kayla’s dream trip is Iceland. I felt really bad about planning this trip without her, but she works for a high end retailer. And November-December is pretty much the blackout period for time off in that industry. Well she also has an amazing boss. She explained the situation and he approved her time off then and there. We added her to our travel plans the next day. Thankfully the cost for the flight stayed the same! It was meant to be.

So here we are sitting at the gate ready to board the plane. Eliza just finished “beating” her face. Kayla just woke up from a cat nap. And I think it’s finally hitting me that in about 7 hours from now I’ll be in Keflavík, Iceland.

More updates soon to come! Thanks.