---
title: "On foot across Iceland: preparations – part 1."
description: "To make a similar adventure easier for others, we wrote up our preparations for the 400 km crossing of the Icelandic interior. In the first part, about resupply and choosing the route."
canonical_url: "https://gramino.com/blog/on-foot-across-iceland-preparations-part-1"
last_updated: "2017-09-26"
---

# On foot across Iceland: preparations – part 1.

Authors: David Czempka

Date: 2017-09-26

To make a similar adventure easier for others, we wrote up our preparations for the 400 km crossing of the Icelandic interior. In the first part, about resupply and choosing the route.

A few weeks ago we got back from Iceland (in September 2017), where we set out to cross the island from one coast to the other. From the very start it was clear we didn't want to carry a backpack as heavy as a rock. So we needed to put together a route that would let us resupply with food along the way, that would take us through interesting places, avoid the big rivers, and that we could complete in 16 days. Quite a challenge when you only have a few evenings after work to prepare. So what actually led us to this decision, and how did it all start? What did we need to sort out before setting off?

## **An epic landscape awaits…**

The land of fire and ice – a nickname that literally describes Iceland's varied landscape. Its rugged nature has created stunning scenery bursting with every possible color, along with enormous waterfalls and erupting geysers.

We read that Iceland's interior is one of the least populated areas in Europe – strong winds, relentless rain, and the risk of sand or snowstorms, with no civilization in places, just glaciers and volcanoes. It was immediately clear that's exactly where we wanted to go: a great opportunity to see the real face of Iceland while also avoiding the growing crowds of tourists, which keep increasing every year. In 2017 alone there were over 2,000,000 of them – six times the country's total population. And since we'd been considering a proper crossing for a while already, the decision was made.

[Video](https://youtu.be/G3hrHPuhfvQ)

## The planning phase, or our Achilles' heel

We more or less don't plan most of our trips. There's no need to. We book a flight, pack a bag, and fly. When civilization is within reach, you can arrange or find anything you need. This time, though, we were heading somewhere we couldn't rely on civilization at all. We knew that without thorough planning, we either wouldn't enjoy the trip or wouldn't even finish it.

We got the tickets on sale a year in advance, so there seemed to be plenty of time to plan. But procrastination is a terrible affliction, and our actual preparations regrettably didn't start until less than two weeks before departure. And there was no shortage of things to sort out.

## Resupply

Sending food, fuel, or gear packages ahead is a great way to avoid an inhumanly heavy backpack on long trails. Carrying food for the entire crossing from day one would have meant at least 25-kilogram packs for us, and we ruled that out right away. Above all, we wanted to travel light – to enjoy the trip without working ourselves to the bone. So we needed to figure out where and how we could resupply along the way.

Our biggest source of information was this [map](https://www.hjolafaerni.is/files/web-cycling-map-2016.pdf). It shows all the roads, trails, villages, campsites, towns, and services in the area. Thanks to it, we quickly realized that resupplying halfway through the trip wasn't realistic. So we came up with the idea of two resupply points, splitting the trip into thirds: the first resupply at the Hrauneyar Highland Center, and the second at the Hveravellir campsite.

Naturally, there's no postal service or courier companies operating in the central highlands, so our only option was to contact bus companies and travel agencies. We sent out pleading emails and waited. The replies looked something like this.

The first one told us to contact a second company, the second told us to contact a third, and the third replied that they no longer offered this service.

A small glimmer of hope finally came from the places where we wanted to send a package and pick it up during the trip. They told us they'd happily hold onto a package, but arranging the delivery there was, of course, on us. So we tried calling. It ended exactly the same way as before – no luck. In the end, all we could do was hope we'd sort it out on the spot, with pleading, bribes, threats, and who knows what else…

In Reykjavik, we finally succeeded on our fourth attempt, at a travel agency called Sterna Travel, who offered to send a package to the Landmannalaugar campsite. Even though that was a spot we wouldn't reach until day four on the trail, we accepted without hesitation. The first 80 km of our route were the most mountainous, and after that it was more or less flat. Whether we carried 12 kg less or more on that stretch made one hell of a difference. We packed four days' worth of food into our backpacks and sent a package with food for twelve days. The package weighed about 20 kg and cost us 3,500 ISK.

The Laugavegur trail, i.e. those first 80 km, was fantastic. We started out with 13 kg packs, and that kept dropping. The trail is beautifully marked with stakes driven into the ground, so you don't have to worry about anything and can just enjoy the scenery around you. Late in the season there also weren't many people on the trail. At the Landmannalaugar campsite we successfully found our package and got down to repacking. Our biggest worry was that twelve days' worth of food wouldn't fit into our 40- and 50-liter backpacks, but in the end it all worked out. Hats off to the huge back pockets on our ultralight backpacks, which saved us! Our fully loaded packs weighed around 20 kg. We carried the bare minimum of water, since our water filter let us refill from practically any water source, whether it was a puddle or a stream the local sheep also relied on.

## Choosing a route and navigation

There's no officially marked trail in Iceland that runs coast to coast. So it was down to us to either design our own route or draw inspiration from someone who had already attempted something similar. We decided to go with our own route, tailored to our needs.

**These two older blogs can serve as inspiration:**

- [Andrew Skurka](https://andrewskurka.com/adventures/iceland-traverse/) (2008 – 800 km from east to west)
- [Jonathan Ley](http://www.phlumf.com/travels/iceland/) (2006 – 600 km from north to south)

A large part of the interior is covered in volcanic dust and sand – a truly barren, moon-like landscape. That might sound interesting, but the idea of trekking through terrain like that for more than a week didn't appeal to us much. So we tried to enrich our route with interesting places.

In the south, near the small town of Skógar, the Laugavegur trail begins, which, incidentally, is one of the most beautiful trails in the world and runs straight north. Excellent! That settled the start of our journey and the first 80 km. Next, we fell for an area with three sites close together: the Gjáin gorge, the Viking settlement of Stöng, and the Háifoss waterfall. Another great map told us where all the thermal springs on the island were located. And what would a visit to Iceland even be without a soak in a natural hot tub heated by a volcano itself? We found two potential thermal areas right along our route: one in the Kerlingarfjöll mountains, home to Icelandic witches in folklore, and the other at the Hveravellir campsite, close to the Langjökull glacier.

With all the checkpoints set, all that was left was to thread our future route between them. After a lot of poring over about five different maps, we had a rough outline of our route ready.

We tried to plan most of our route along old dirt tracks. But we could only hope those tracks still existed, since even the locals had no idea about their condition, and the routes varied significantly between different maps. We trusted that the tracks would guide us – assuming we could find them. And in the stretches where we knew we'd be going cross-country, we planned to rely on a compass and map, or GPS on our phones. And if we got lost, we could just head due north – easy!

A good topographic map of the central highlands is hard to come by, and unfortunately we didn't manage to find one. There was no time left to prepare our own maps, so we hoped we'd find something once we got there.

In Reykjavik, though, we only managed to find [a map of the central section ("Section map")](http://mapoficeland.com/mapshop/touring-map-5-highland-of-iceland/) at a scale of 1:250,000 for 3,000 ISK. We didn't really consider it an adequate map to navigate by, more like evening entertainment, something to look at. In the end, though, it served us perfectly well. Another advantage was that it's available almost everywhere, even on Sundays, and it covered nearly all of our route.

Even the signal for our phone's GPS was decent, so we could check our position often. Later on we met a young couple (a Norwegian and a Finn) crossing the island from north to south, who had perfect topographic maps at a scale of 1:50,000. But their maps were borrowed, so they couldn't tell us where to find similar ones next time anyway.

In the end, we only went cross-country for about 80 km. Progress was slower but fairly easy, mostly alternating between a few kinds of rocks, soft clay, and grassy turf. You need to avoid the big rivers and canyons, which are hard to cross. We camped wherever we found shelter from the wind, which was easy enough to find along our route thanks to the rolling terrain. We only slept at an official campsite twice, both times on the Laugavegur trail (2,000 ISK per person per night). In the end, we managed to complete the route in 14 days.

##### Our final route – [https://mapy.cz/s/24sRF](https://mapy.cz/s/24sRF)

##### Our sleeping spots – [https://mapy.cz/s/24sRS](https://mapy.cz/s/24sRS)

Mapy.cz worked great for us in Iceland too!

In [the second part](/blog/on-foot-across-iceland-preparations-part-2) you can find out more about how we put together our menu, bought food, avoided danger, and some details about our gear.

This post is also available as [HTML](/blog/on-foot-across-iceland-preparations-part-1).

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.