Would people enjoy looking at vacation photos more if they showed the bad parts? What if we took pictures of the meals that didn’t taste good or made us sick, horrible weather, broken pavement, and overpriced junk? True, we take vacation photos to share the moments that took our breath away, to bring our loved ones with us on the journey. It’s also true that we take vacation photos to show off and to show others that we are living our best life, all blemishes carefully edited out of the shot. I’ll admit to doing a little of both.

But this is not Instagram – this is a travel blog. It is a place for stories, and who wants to read about someone else’s enjoyable, pleasant, relaxing vacation? That’s boring. Instead, I’ll tell you the real truth about our 4-day vacation in Iceland.

Truth #1: Iceland is a lot like Mordor.

(Disclaimer: If you aren’t familiar with the Lord of the Rings, this blog might be a little hard to follow at times.)

For most of our 4-day trip, Iceland bore a striking resemblance to the wastelands where Gollum guided Frodo and Sam toward the Black Gate. The landscape from our rental car windows resembled an impassable labyrinth of razor sharp rock, smelled like sulfur, and in a few cases where volcanic activity was more recent, it was a dead-ringer for the foot slopes of Mount Doom – smoking, black and desolate.

The upside is that the same geologic features and geothermal activity that cause the doom and gloom create a really great environment for hot springs, like the luxurious Blue Lagoon Spa, where we spent 5 hours on the morning of our first day. There are geysers, too; not exactly at the top of our bucket list, but still a very cool thing to cross off it.

Truth #2: If you don’t like the weather in Iceland, just wait 30 minutes. It will probably get worse.

We researched the best time of year to see the Northern Lights; several sources assured us that autumn is great. Some of our sources repeated this cute little myth: if you don’t like the weather in Iceland, just wait, it will change.

Ha. Don’t believe it. October is a horrible time to visit Iceland. We were there for 4 and a half days, 104 hours, and it rained for 95 of them. Consider the aforementioned geothermal activity, and imagine – what happens when it rains in Iceland? That’s right. It gets foggy. Very, very foggy.

What are the chances of seeing the Northern Lights when the skies are cloudy and the air is thick with fog?

I’ll tell you. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Truth #3 It’s even more expensive than they say.

I heard that the food was expensive, and the spas. My husband repeated the legend of the $50 hamburger, but I didn’t really believe it. I thought, surely there’s somewhere you can go for a reasonable meal.

We thought we planned a reasonable, affordable trip with room for a couple of splurges. We booked a direct flight from Dulles with Iceland Air for $600 each. (We can’t recommend it. The seats are tinier than a domestic flight on United, and they don’t even give you free snacks.)

We used credit card points for 3 out of 4 hotel nights, and we were happy with our choices. We stayed the first two nights and the last night in Reyjkavik – our hotels were near the harbor and the tourist district, with plenty to see and do. Our one splurge was Ion Adventure Hotel in Nesjavellir, our third night in the Golden Circle. We really would recommend it – the staff are lovely and helpful, and they call you if the aurora makes an appearance. Dinner at their restaurant, Silfra, was our undisputed best meal of the trip. But our jaws dropped at the $30 cocktails in the Northern Lights Lounge.

Our other big splurge was the Retreat Spa package at the Blue Lagoon. It was $700 for the two of us, but worth every penny. The package includes 5 hours for two people with a private changing room, one free drink each, and a gift bag of skincare products. It’s far more intimate and peaceful than the main section of the Lagoon (which you can also access), with several quiet, atmospheric lounges when you’re done with the water. It’s the perfect cure for jet lag, especially if you arrive too early to check into your hotel. I begged my husband to go and he ended up loving it just as much as I did. They don’t allow cameras, although they will take pictures and email them if you ask, but we didn’t feel the need for a picture of us in our robes. If you’re thinking about going, it totally lives up to the gorgeousness of the website.

In the end, it wasn’t the major expenses or the splurges that bothered us. We’re both doing well in our careers – we are DINKs after all, right there in the blog name – and we save up and plan for travel months in advance. It’s the unforeseen costs that we wish someone had mentioned, and probably would have felt better about or splurged less if we had been prepared.

The Hidden Costs of Iceland

First, the food prices are truly exorbitant. Our cheapest dinner in Iceland? Fish and chips at 101 Street Food cost $50 for the two of us, with only sodas to drink (the food was great – that wasn’t the issue.) Then we went to Loo.Koo.Mas for mini donuts (Greek style, which we sampled before in our food tour in Athens). The donuts cost $30 for 2 small trays. And they were delicious – Loo.Koo.Mas has an impressive and rare 4.9 star-rating on Google for good reason! Those were our cheapest meals. Most nights, we spent over $100 for the two of us to eat, and the cocktail prices could compete with any swanky DC bar.

Is there a cheap hack? Probably. If it’s your priority to save $, look for lodging with a kitchenette, buy your food at Bónus (the grocery store with the cute pig) and cook some or most of your meals. The grocery store is also the cheapest place to buy chocolate bars if you want those for souvenirs.

Second, renting a car is more expensive than it may appear. Rental car prices are standard. A tour group might be an option if you won’t want to rent. We didn’t want to sacrifice our autonomy so we got a SUV, but we didn’t know about the $30/day wind and rain insurance you need for damage caused by gravel hitting your windshield. Afterward, we did some research and found it’s not a scam – there are some horror stories of cars getting hit by rocks and even other car doors, so it’s recommended to get the insurance. Add $30/day to whatever price you are quoted, and bet on the gas costing triple the cost of gas in the US. The Golden Circle is a 3 hour round trip and the South Shore is 2-3 hours each way, so we filled our tank halfway through and again at the end of the trip. It was about $3 per liter when we were there, and $130 total for our trip. And you have to pay for parking.

Third, parking costs money everywhere you go, even at the waterfalls. There is no admission for most natural attractions, but parking cost about $8 everywhere we went. We visited 3 sites in the South Shore and 4 in the Golden Circle, so that’s about $24 dollars on parking per day. Reykjavik hotels also don’t have parking (at least ours didn’t) so you have to find and pay for street parking there.

Truth #4 Iceland took my breath away.

Usually, I try to stay positive when vacations don’t go well. Travel misadventures have only brought us closer over the years – we always come out the other side with a good story to tell. But after two straight days of rain and gloom, it was hard to keep our spirits up.

We grouched all over Þingvellir National Park, taking pictures and grumbling about how great the views would be if wasn’t raining. We ended our visit there an hour earlier than planned. We were going to skip the Geysir Geothermal Area, but with extra time on the schedule we stopped there on our way to Gullfoss and were pleasantly surprised. When you’re gloomy and the whole world feels like a nasty bog, there’s nothing like a steaming batch of Earth pimples, boiling up from unknown depths to burst dramatically.

By the time we left the geysers, we were in a much better mood, and our spirits stayed elevated when we saw Gullfoss, a place anyone could appreciate, no matter the weather. Saved for posterity by a farmer’s daughter, Gullfoss is a Niagara-league waterfall in a green gorge. Minus the other tourists, it feels like a time loop to an ancient world from before humans ever came to Iceland. (A relatively short time ago, as we discovered the following day at the National Museum of Iceland. People migrated here around 870 AD.)

As soon as we drove out of the gravelly, puddly parking lot at Gullfoss, the skies started to clear. The clouds marched up the mountainside, gradually revealing a landscape that had been invisible to us on the drive up. All Iceland’s vastness was laid bare around us. And then the sun came out.

We passed the rivers and small towns, pastures gently grazed by sheep and beautiful Icelandic horses. Then we saw people climbing to the top of a hill at sunset. We pulled over spontaneously to see what it was about, and realized we had accidentally stumbled onto Kerið Crater, a site we read about but decided not prioritize. And if you’re short on time, it’s not a must-see, but that day, with the sun finally out and our spirits up? It felt meant to be.

After an enjoyable golden-hour stroll around the crater’s rim and set our navigator for our hotel. We passed through lonely country roads, with one lane bridges and very few cars to necessitate taking turns. And then it happened. The moment Iceland stole my heart.

And then we rounded a blind curve and saw the sunset light on these waters:

At the opposite side of Lake Þingvallavatn from where we had been just that morning, we pulled over beside a strand of black gravel and a peaceful shore. I won’t tell you exactly where it is, because some places are meant to be discovered.

We weren’t there for long – we checked in at our weird, quirky hotel, nestled on the banks of a hill beside a geothermal plant. We had given up on seeing the Northern Lights, but that night at Silfra restaurant our server announced their presence, and we went on the patio to see. It was just a glimpse before they faded, but even that was enough for us – we were so excited just to finally see them at last! And then it got even better.

We read that 11pm-1am is the best time for the aurora, so we dressed in warm layers and went back to our secret spot at midnight (well, secret to us and whoever the other photographer was taking pictures along the beach.)

In person, the aurora doesn’t look like it does in pictures. The colors don’t show to the naked eye. They are whitish, or lavender like clouds in a moonlit sky. But they move in their own way, not like clouds at all.

We lingered for a cold and happy hour, the best night of the trip. The next day was gloomy again; we drove back to Reykjavik, visited the museum (also expensive for people used to the Smithsonian), and went souvenir shopping. Nothing happened the last day that compared with the last few hours of the night before. But that was fine.

If a journey is a metaphor for life, does it matter how long and at which part of it you endure the rainy, cloudy, gloomy bits? Does it matter if the drudgery sets in at the final moment? Or is it all worth it – as long as you have that one breath-stealing hour of sunset beach, that one precious chance to witness a secret shore, lit only by the moon and the Northern Lights?

Tell me if you know.