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A wind was rushing in off the body of water and the imperial flowers that lined the route to the lighthouse swayed. Small white clouds drifted across the deceivingly bright blue sky, which made the day seem warmer than it was. I shivered, breathing in the clean, chill air and the odour of the ocean as I wandered the path over to the lighthouse. My phone rang.

'Hi?'

'How-do-you-do sweetie, I was just calling to run across how you were doing?' my mom said, voice not nearly as worried as I knew she was. 'Where are y'all?'

I hesitated. 'Um, just on the side of the route.'

She laughed nervously. 'I promise you're not hitchhiking!'

That was exactly what I was doing; hitchhiking in Iceland, and not on purpose. I had two weeks, nine days of which were prepare aside to make my way around Road 1, also known as the Ring Road, starting and catastrophe in Reykjavik.

At present, when I say fix aside, I mean that one time I arrived and answered a post on the hostel bulletin board about renting a machine with another girl, she said she had nine days and I said that sounded fine; I hadn't planned this trip beyond the hostel I would stay in upon landing.

My bulletin-board-posting commuter and I set out heading north from Reykjavik, car packed full and spirits high.

Our high spirits soon plummeted into the lava fields, along with any attempts at pretending we could get along. 4 days later on she drove off into the sunrise (metaphorically, of course, because the lord's day only fakes rise and setting in June) and I was left standing about direct halfway around Iceland from Reykjavik, a total of 661 km to cantankerous with my backpack and bus fare. Of course, bus fare is just necessary and helpful when there's a autobus to take hold of.

I was in Seyðisfjörður on the eastern coast of Iceland, which is something of an creative person's colony, continuing in a bar with an Icelandic beer in my hand when the local artists, all without cars, broke the news: In that location are no buses to Seyðisfjörður, but every single one of them in residence had fabricated it there regardless, considering in Iceland hitching is part of the civilisation. I suppose that'southward to be expected when the full population of the island is somewhere around 300,000 people, and of those 300,000 people 25% live in Reykjavik. That means anybody knows each other, peculiarly in the countryside, and that atmosphere of community has allowed hitching to become commonplace and really quite safe. As a woman travelling lonely, I would non have attempted information technology had I not been assured past men and women alike that there was goose egg to fear.

And I soon discovered they were correct.

The next 24-hour interval I defenseless a ride with someone from my hostel to the next boondocks, Egilsstaðir, and from there I was on my own again, relying on the generosity of strangers to make my manner s and then dorsum due west to Reykjavik. So in that location I was, haversack still on my back, numberless of food that had previously lived in the backseat of the car hanging off straps and clasps, arm out, thumb up, looking beseechingly at anyone who drove past. The first two days I felt like an idiot, because how many times had I been told that hitchhiking was not something to be done? How many times had I passed hitchhikers without a 2d thought? Surely what I was asking of those driving past was ludicrous.

The feeling stuck with me, and I couldn't believe it when I was picked up. Later two days of successful hitchhiking, all I felt was thrilled.

Over five days I rode in twelve different vehicles, with 20 different people to thank for not leaving me stranded on the side of the road in the cold and moisture. Evidently I went during a cold leap, the mural not notwithstanding managing to accomplish that bawdy dark-green which would cover the plains and sweep up into the black mountains. The longest I had to wait for a ride was mayhap an hour and a one-half, and even then I had the company of a hitchhiker trying to catch a ride in the opposite direction. People picked me up and gave me snapshots of their lives, why they were there, what they had loved most.

The kickoff girl to pick me upward stopped despite being belatedly for work. She was probably in her early twenties and had that air that the younger generations of Icelanders have about them that makes me feel like I'll never be equally cool. It was a fairly short ride before we were heading in different directions. She dropped me at a corner where my but company was two disinterested horses, and I was left hoping I wouldn't nevertheless be there past the fourth dimension she was heading back home. Thankfully, I wasn't.

On the day I waited the longest for a ride it was cloudy, though not still raining. A couple picked me up and I crushed my haversack into the backseat. They took me to Jökulsárlón, that cute glacial lagoon, haunting in its dazzler and strange from annihilation I'd seen earlier. They bought me tea from the little restaurant tucked into the parking lot and told me to take my time wandering forth the shore. By the fourth dimension we reached Vík, where the waves crash with astounding glory and power onto beaches that look like black satin rolled out where the water touches, I retrieve we were all lamentable to be parting ways.

When I finally reached Reykjavik I called my mom again to let her know that I had fabricated it safely.

'I'm so glad,' she said, so clearly relieved. 'I never want you to practise that once again.'

My female parent had hoped I wouldn't hitchhike, but I never wished I hadn't. Iceland is beautiful, and anyone would tell you that, with it's lava fields and hot springs, but there is more to it than that. There is a kindness and openness to the local people and those who wander there. So much and then that if I ever demand a reminder of the goodness of humanity, I just think virtually the people who picked me up and welcomed me to spend a piddling of our lives together.

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Source: https://nomadsinsider.com/2017/04/06/hitchhiking-in-iceland-what-to-expect/

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