Lonely Planet Iceland, Greenland & the Faroe Islands

Since 1999, I have been to Iceland twice and Greenland twice, for a total of seven weeks--extremely unusual for an American. Those trips included extended excursions by bicyle, backpack, and cross-country ski, with some bus excursions as well. Throughout, this book was my primary guide. I found it reliable and an extremely good source of inspiration, particularly for hikes. I cite my own experience because I clearly fall into the target readership for this book. Car travelers aren't the intended audience, and may be disappointed. This book presumes (as do I, even at age 49) that the best way to see Iceland is afoot, a-pedal, or on one of that nation's wonderful backcountry bus routes. If you're not prepared to carry a backpack onto or off of the buses, you'll probably prefer another guidebook.My main quibble is with the maps, which were hard to locate when I wanted them, and not very detailed. But you can get great maps in Reykjavik, so that's only a minor problem.

This is a very good reference for anyone going to the Faroe Islands or Iceland (I don't know for Greenland). It describes any tiny place and it tells you exactly what is there to see and to do and it tells you where you have to go and where you don't have to go. It gives you the good addresses for restaurants or bars. You can look up any place that you can find on a map and LP tells you if it's worthwile visiting. You even learn a lot of things about the parts of the Faroes and Iceland that are not yet known among tourists. There are a lot of books for sale about Iceland, but I think this is one of the only good guides to the Faroe Islands.

We used this book to plan our trip to both Iceland and Greenland, and found it invaluable. We used it to phone and e-mail for reservations, which were not always possible to make, as LP also tells us, because of no English spoken at some of the tiny places. We trusted LP that little hostels existed in these places, however, and always found room. The maps were great, including hiking trails. The historical details were well-researched. The directions were amazing. It even got us to one historical site in Iceland that had no signs and even the locals had a hard time telling us how to find. Besides being practically helpful, it has lots of anecdotes and local flavour that make it interesting reading. Perhaps what should be emphasized more is how expensive Iceland is. Two small loads of laundry cost us about $35 Canadian! We could have bought all new underwear for that!

I am an Earth Science teacher and was a bit intimidated about going to Iceland: a real hotspot of geological activity. The information contained in the LP made navigating much easier and helped me to understand the culture. Don't be fooled: Iceland is a very expensive place to visit, but the LP helped me to budget my resources efficiently.

Lonely Planet Iceland was great. From the book, my friends and I found lodging, night clubs and countless BEAUTIFUL sites. We even tried the rotten shark that the book so luridly describes. (It is as bad as the book says, I might add.) Iceland is a rugged and beautiful place. With this book, I was able to get to most of the wonderful sites without major problems. I can only think of a few times when I needed to consult an outside source for additional information: once to find out where I could get some shark and a couple of other times for directions (Iceland's system of roads is predictably often quite spartan). I guess the best thing I can say for this book is I am going to South Africa in one month and I just bought the Lonely Planet South Africa.I just remembered one more thing that the book does not have: Icelandair's Internet deals are great. Check them out!If you are going to Iceland, I am jealous! Have fun!