Roughly 10 years ago I spent several summer weeks in Iceland primarily hiking lightweight with only a baseline level of equipment. Iceland is definitively one of the most amazing countries in case you are fascinated by nature.
A friend and I took the ferry from Denmark via the Faroe Islands to the East coast of Iceland - it obviously still operates today. Taking the ferry is fun and makes you more aware of the distance you are actually covering. Traveling lightweight is great if you get used to it. People were approaching us whether we are doing dayhikes, instead we were in Iceland for roughly 1 month.
Arriving on the East coast in Iceland, you can hitch-hike around the circle road easily. Back 10 years ago this was a great experience to meet different people and learn about their lives.
We hiked to Landmannalaugar from South to North via the Laugavegur which was relatively crowded at that time but it’s worth it – the nature scenery is simply fascinating. And obviously not a too many people hike the South-North route, but the contrary instead.
Afterwards we spent some time hitch-hiking the Golden Circle which I cannot fully recommend. If you come for the first time to Iceland, ok, e.g. Gullfoss is a must-do, but the Geyser is something I would skip.
Reykjavik instead is a fun city given the fact that it is basically a capital of a country with roughly 150’000 inhabitants. The national museum was awesome at that time, I hope today it’s even better.
So all in all Iceland is the place to go. I already have unspecific plans of heading back there, perhaps with packraft and/or trailer.
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