My partner and I were living in New York City. At the time, I was a Physics Teacher/Basketball Coach, and he was a Dental School Student at NYU. Needless to say, what we had in personality we lacked in expendable finances. Both of us were living on a tight budget. Luckily in NYC, that means amazingly tasty burritos from incredible secret hole-in-the-wall restaurants, lots of dumplings, free outdoor showings of the opera at Lincoln Center, and $10 comedy where you catch a celebrity now and then. Sadly, however, it means that we rarely went on a true vacation. After two years of feeling crammed in a dense city, we were ready to get the heck out of Dodge. The big problem: vacations are expensive. Handling the cost of vacation and non-Airbnb-able apartment rent is even worse in NYC.

We did our research and came to the conclusion that we were going to find a vacation that had a great amount of geological beauty mixed with some novelty of activity because those things CAN come cheap. We found...ICELAND! Iceland is a quirky country full of incredible hot springs, ice climbing, iceberg lagoons, geothermal parks, wildlife, and black beaches. There is so much to do and to see that is a respite from New York City life. We looked online and saw that there were some very cheap flights to Iceland for a round trip of about $300, not bad. (We saw flights for roughly $80 each way, but sadly wasn’t in our time frame.) There is a cheap bus from the airport to most of the surrounding areas, which would also take us where we needed to go.

First things first. Based on our budget, we couldn’t spend more than $80/night on accommodations combined. We also needed a way to get around the island to see all of the sights so we budgeted $80/day on transportation including gas. Amazingly, we found out that people drive camper vans around the island and sleep in them. For $110/day we had BOTH a vehicle AND a place to sleep. (There were even cheaper options, but we thought we’d add a little luxury since we were on vacation). This was not only the cheaper option than trying to find hostels or small b&bs on our route, but it was also so much fun because we could be the masters of our own fate every minute of the day. But how did you bathe do you ask? Well, all of the campsites have showers and sinks so a few nights we forked over $6-11 in order to use the facilities. Along the way, Iceland has swimming pools/hot springs with showers. We looked up the pools with the most beautiful views, and planned to shower at those and the springs. I was pretty darn clean!

Next thing we had to budget for was food. We were going to miss the NYC food scene, but we were here for a different experience. Heading to Icelandic grocery stores was an adventure itself. We cooked hot dogs, fresh Icelandic salmon, trout, veggies and even rabbit on our charcoal grill and propane stove. We ate the famous Icelandic yogurt for breakfast and stopped at a roadside stand for berries. We did eat at a couple of local stands to get langoustine, specialty hot dogs named after people in the village, and a couple of restaurants in the major cities: Akureyri and Rekjiavik but we spent far less than we would have on food in NYC. All in all, we spent the least amount of money on food. (probably about $10-20/day for both of us) Note: if you try the dried fish, let us know what you think.

Our last consideration: Trip excursions/Activities. The best part of traveling in Iceland is that most things you want to do and see are FREE. They haven’t figured out how to ruin the tourist experience yet with pricey entry fees, so almost all of our favorite sites were just drive in, park and explore! Some of the most incredible things I have ever seen were free for all. We hiked down into a lava tube for about a mile with headlamps for free. We watched seals swim through a brilliant blue set of icebergs being washed out to sea for free. Climbed a waterfall to see some sound sculptures, also free. We even scurried around a geothermal park to explore natural vents and bubbling purple mud-pots for free. The only things that cost some real money were the major tourist sites: big hot springs, ice climbing and some of the bigger national parks. We did these too, but needless to say our daily budget for excursions/tourist activities averaged about $10/day.

All in all, 10 days in Iceland proved to be the perfect vacation for two adventurers on a budget! I would highly recommend finding a vacation like this one to explore the world without breaking the bank.

About the Author

Melissa Belardi

Melissa is extremely passionate about making abstract ideas more tangible for students. After teaching High School Physical Science for 5 years on the east coast, she has made the switch to a nonprofit in the hopes of reaching all types of learners. In her experience, students were interested in learning more about personal finance and she believes that all students should have access to this material. She first gained insight into inquiry-based and project style learning during her Masters in Education at the University of Pennsylvania GSE and believes these methods are ideal for students to connect financial concepts with their lives. Other than creating learning materials, Melissa loves live music, great food, and playing soccer.