Make no mistake: these are real hazards. Yet they are also, statistically, not the thing most likely to ruin your holiday.

The thing most likely to ruin your holiday is … driving.

Iceland’s main highway—the Ring Road, the one you have probably already imagined yourself on, perhaps with a curated playlist—is, for most of its 1,300-odd kilometres, a single lane in each direction with a gravel shoulder and no margin for error. The speed limit on the paved stretches is 90 km/h. That means two cars approaching each other are closing in at 180 km/h. A second of inattention while reaching for the phone, looking at a stunning cloud formation, rubbernecking a waterfall you weren’t expecting—is enough.

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So here, as a small public service, are some things worth knowing before you collect the keys to your rental.

The speed limits, briefly

Ninety on paved rural roads. Eighty on gravel. Fifty in towns. Thirty in residential areas, which includes most of the streets you’ll be parking on in Reykjavík. Take note: these are not “suggested speeds”. The fines are eye-watering and the rental company will track you down through your booking and charge your card while you are mid-flight home, sipping a small wine and feeling pleased with yourself for dodging the traffic cops.

A note about gravel. The transition from pavement to gravel often happens without much fanfare—a sign, perhaps, if you are paying attention, which you will not be because there is a stunning fjord on your left. Gravel reduces grip, lengthens braking distance, and tends to fling small stones at your windshield and at the windshields of cars coming the other way. Slow down before the surface changes, not after.

Speeding is bad. So is meandering.

Most road safety messaging focuses on the speeders, and rightly so. But on a single-lane Icelandic highway, driving significantly under the speed limit is its own hazard. Within a few kilometres you will have collected a small parade of cars behind you. Eventually one of them will lose patience and try to overtake. Sometimes they misjudge the distance to an oncoming vehicle. Sometimes they catch the gravel shoulder at the wrong angle and the car decides it would prefer to be in a ditch. Either way, the consequences end up in the news.

If you are not comfortable at 90, that is entirely fine. The fix is simple: pull over every so often and let the queue go past. There are plenty of small gravel turn-offs along the Ring Road for exactly this purpose.

The mysterious right indicator

This one confuses people, so pay attention.

If you are driving along behind another car on a long straight stretch, and the car in front of you switches on its right indicator while still travelling at full speed, the driver is most likely telling you that it is safe to overtake. They have checked the road ahead, seen no oncoming traffic, and are signalling that you can pass.

I have no idea whether this convention exists outside Iceland. I do know that it baffles many of our visitors, who interpret the indicator as a signal that the car in front is about to turn. They then slow down accordingly, which produces a small comedy of confusion on both sides.

A few caveats. Sometimes the driver in front really is about to turn—onto a farm track, say, or into a layby. The way to tell the difference is the brake lights and the speed. If they are slowing markedly, they are turning. If they are still going 90 with the indicator on, they are inviting you to pass.

Yet even with that, you should still use your judgment. Check the road ahead, yourself. Make sure overtaking is permitted on that stretch. Do not assume the Icelandic driver in front of you is paying attention on your behalf, because nobody is paying attention on your behalf. The signal is an invitation, not a guarantee.

You can also extend the courtesy to someone else. If they are sitting close behind you and clearly want to go faster, you can check the road ahead, flick on your right indicator, and ease off slightly. Not everyone may understand what you are doing, but the Icelanders will, and they will thank you.

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It’s a lovely, peaceful area (except for a bit where you walk parallel to the Ring Road ) and would be a perfect outdoor spot were it not for all the pieces of toilet paper you find within 200-300 metres from the parking spots.

I took these photos today—and this was only a portion of what I saw.

This everywhere-is-an-outdoor-toilet philosophy that some people have has been a problem here in Iceland basically since the advent of mass tourism around 15 years go. It is not for nothing that you will see this sign in many places throughout the Land:

And, sure, I get it. When you have to go, you have to go, and sometimes the nearest indoor loo is some distance away. But usually they’re not that far. The wooded area above, Daníelslundur, is about a 15-minute drive from the town of Borgarnes, and a 10-minute drive from Hótel Bifröst, both of which have toilet facilities.

And it doesn’t even have to be the countryside. A few years ago I chanced upon a tourist doing her business in the bushes on Landakotstún in Reykjavík—the park next to the Catholic church, see below. The nearest museum, which has public toilet facilities, is literally a five minute walk away.

I was so incensed that I took out my phone and filmed her coming out of the bushes and I would totally post that video here if I wasn’t worried about getting sued. I also gave her a piece of my mind, to which she had nothing to say.

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A million sh*ts in the fields

There was an opinion piece in one of the Icelandic papers a few years back with the above title, and it gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with. Last year, Iceland welcomed 2.2 million visitors. These impromptu toilets are almost always near parking lots or walking/hiking paths, and if even half of those visitors decided to take a dump there … well, you get my meaning. It’t pretty messed up to find a large human turd just off one of your favourite hiking paths, like I did a couple of years ago when I was hiking up to Glymur waterfall.

So I guess what I’m saying is, if you are out touring Iceland and find that you absolutely have to serve the call of nature … TRY NOT TO DO IT IN NATURE. Instead:

Help keep Iceland turd-free. 💩✌️

Want to read more about being a responsible tourist in Iceland? Check out …

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It’s about an hour and a half from now, but we’re still waiting and seeing. It’s likely that we’ll be waiting and seeing up to about ten minutes beforehand, and then I’ll decide whether to hop in the car and drive over there—or not.

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This has very much been the Icelandic reality—for centuries. One of my friends, a non-Icelander who lived here for a few years, once told me that, in her experience, if you asked Icelanders to, say, help you move on a specific day in three weeks’ time, they wouldn’t show up, but if you asked them at 2 pm to come at 5, they’d be there without fail.

Very accurate, and confirms my theory that one reason the Icelanders have such a hard time making long-term plans is because this very adaptability I am describing for today is coded into our DNA.

On the subject of weather, we’ve had an unusually stormy few weeks. We barely saw snow this winter save for one major dump in October … until March. Then the storms started coming as if on a conveyor belt, and it seemed like it would never stop snowing.

My thoughts are with the poor tourists who paid tons of money to travel here only to have their tours cancelled again and again. I happened to see in one of the Iceland travel tips groups I am in on Facebook that someone was bemoaning just that, and someone else commented “just rent a car and go there on your own,” which is one of the stupidest bits of advice I have ever read about Iceland and travel. We are a hardy bunch up here, and if things get cancelled there is a very good reason.

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As for today, what this orange weather warning means is, among other things:

• All domestic flights are cancelled, and international flights after 3 pm. (Nb. it takes a lot for them to cancel international flights.)

• Numerous roads are currently closed, including roads to and from the capital area.

• The Ring Road (Route 1) is closed in the south of the country, where the black sands are. There is a good reason for this: there is no shelter on this stretch of road, and the force of the wind can strip the paint right off your vehicle (sandblasting!). Moreover, flying rocks can smash all car windows—this happens routinely.

• Rescue teams have already been called out due to stuck cars.

• One car is reported to have been blown off the road in West Iceland, near Borgarnes.

Anyway. Enough about all that. I’ll leave you with a podcast episode on which I was a guest that just came out yesterday. The show is the Thoughtful Travel Podcast, and the host, Amanda, has just kicked off a new series, Chats with Locals. Iceland was first up in the new series, and I am one of three locals interviewed … and wouldn’t you know, I go on about the weather! 😁

Listen here

Now, for my valued paid supporters … an update regarding the subtitle of my new book. 👇

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I informed her, and as she was foreign and I saw she already had her bathing suit on, I mentioned to her that she would have to shower wi…

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