Our Road Trip on Planet Iceland
GrindavĂk, day nine. The last meal of the trip.
Fish and chips, straight out of the Blue Lagoon. Behind us, nine days on the Ring Road and more stops than any of us could count. This is how we managed to keep the memories from a trip like this.
Another planet
I would recommend this trip to anyone.
Iceland has magical images. It really feels like landing on another planet, and every day came with a long list of stops.
Around 2,200 kilometres on the road. Fourteen waterfalls, from the Hengifoss hike to Dettifoss to GoĂ°afoss, the last one before Akureyri. Basalt columns at StuĂ°lagil. Steam, boiling mud and a sulphur smell you do not forget at Hverir.
Whales off HĂşsavĂk in the morning, and warm sea baths at GeoSea in the afternoon. Seals on the beach at Ytri Tunga. The fish soup at Geysir that beat the tomato soup. The heart-shaped traffic lights in Akureyri. And on the last day, one more swim in the warm, milky water of the Blue Lagoon.
And the northern lights, three times. The last one from the plane window, on the way home.
Ninety places in ten days, if you count every stop, every meal and every bed.
We did it with Altervan, on their Extended Iceland Ring Road, and I would recommend doing it with them. They love what they do. They have real love for the place, and they care about giving the traveller the best possible experience.
The people in the vans
The best part was the people in the vans. Most of us were around my age, in our 30s, and we got along really well with everyone.
What surprised me was that six people were over 60, and the oldest was 74. It takes a special kind of person to choose a trip like this at that age. Adventurous people. They did everything and adapted to life in a van like it was nothing.
Talking with everyone in the van between stops, I realised something. We were seeing so much, so fast, that none of us could hold on to all of it. Which waterfall was which. Where we had eaten. What a place was called.
And this is a trip you do once in a lifetime. It deserved something special, something like a journal: one place to keep every stop and go back to it whenever we wanted.
Nobody actually asked for this. But I knew I had this need, and I knew they had it too. Many of them, especially the older ones, wanted a simple way to show this trip to their children and grandchildren, and to share it with their whole family. They just couldn’t imagine it happening.
A map, then a website
My first idea was a Google map with a pin for every place we saw. Useful. But the feedback from the group was clear: it was not easy for everyone to open it and find what we had seen.
The first version. Now try finding where we had that fish soup.
So in my free hours in the van, I built a website. The Iceland Aurora Journal. Every place we visited, day by day, with tips for the trip, the map and our memories. I built it with the group in mind: in Greek and English, with bigger text, simple to open on a phone and easy to send to their families.
Now find the fish soup again.
I kept showing it to the group and fixing what did not work until the last day. Bigger text. One big day picker instead of nine tiny boxes. Place names you can actually read on a phone. User testing, so to speak.
I built it with ChatGPT and its Lovable plugin, which for me is a much easier way to work than Lovable directly. Not long ago this would have been a project. Now it is something you do between waterfalls.
What was worth it
The numbers went well. Almost 2,000 views between the map and the journal. Not bad for something built for one van.
But the numbers are not what I will remember.
What I will remember is the love I got back. The messages from people on the trip, telling me how much it helped them and how happy it made them to have this diary of moments to share with their friends and family.
That is what AI gives us now. You can take something that is in your head and turn it into a small positive impact on the people around you.
Epilogue
The trip is over. The journal is not.
It is public, so it is not only ours any more. For me, the only way to do this trip is with Altervan, and nothing else. No other travel agency does Iceland like them.
I built it to keep a trip. I did not expect the love I got back.
A big thank-you to Anastasis for the itinerary and to Alexandros from Altervan for an unforgettable trip.
Their next Extended Iceland Ring Road starts on 27 April 2027. Go and check it out. This is the best possible way to see Iceland.
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