I wanted to test the love of my marriage, so I decided to travel around Iceland in a small van for two weeks. What could possibly go wrong?
There is a certain sense of Romanticism that is associated with this idea. You will get to share this tiny space with the one that you love. Everything you need is located in some crook or cranny, and the grassy lawn that you park next to will become your living room for the evening. During the day, you will get to travel around this amazing country, looking at the amazing landscape and enjoying the hikes while you never have to worry about where you are going to stay for the night because it is always with you.
We have both been looking forward to this experience. Our friends have done it in New Zealand, and Australia before, and Iceland is another place that was designed specifically for this kind of trip. They all said that they loved it, and we were sure that we would also enjoy the moments that we would have in the van. There were a couple of things that our friends did not tell us about traveling this way that would have given us a better start to our adventure.
It started at the company that we rented the van from. They were really friendly and gave us a lot of great tips for the trip. They even rented a couple of camping chairs, and a camping tables and some bedding gear to us to make our trip more enjoyable. This stuff went into the back of the van. We were so excited to get started that we threw our belongings in the back and took off down the road. We even stopped at a local grocery store to get food for the next couple of days, and threw that in the back as well.
We spent our first day driving to our first campsite while stopping at a couple of sights along the way. It wasn’t until we started to settle down for the night that we realized our mistake. The back of the van was a disorganized mess, and we were in the middle of a campsite with a steady drizzle going on. It took us a couple of days to get things organized, so it was no longer driving us crazy. After we got things organized, we were able to start living that Romantic ideal of traveling across a foreign country under our own terms and timeline.
So that is my advice to you if you are thinking about traveling by camper van across any of these great countries. Before you leave for your adventure, take some time to organize your van. It might take an hour or two, but it will save your sanity. Of course, the van is going to turn into a huge mess as you travel down the road, especially if you are living in it for three weeks, but you can have this moment at the beginning where it feels fresh and new like an adventure should feel like at the start. It will also help you find those little things that you need when you need them because even though it is a small space you are living in, you would be amazed at how fast those little things get lost.
It is a great way to experience a country because it adds a new element to the adventure, and I highly recommend doing it, but take that time and make sure you are doing it right. It is that little thing that will save any relationship out there.
Happy travels, and let me know which camping van companies you think are the best in the countries that you travel in. I will have a review on which one I think is best for Iceland and why at the end of this trip. I will be traveling using two different vans, and I am only in the first one right now.
John Collings 