Packing for Iceland and the cold outdoors

I booked the bucket list holiday of my dreams this year and at the beginning of September my teen daughter (DD) and I set off for Iceland for 6 days. I had decided to not bother with the Northern lights or the Blue Lagoon as neither really attracted me. I did want to see all the usual touristy things near Reykjavik (where we would be based) though, and I lazily didn't want to hire a car.

So our holiday was a relaxed affair, with tourist buses, no camping, no hiking, and a fair bit of city walking. We did squeeze in a whale watching trip.

With that in mind I looked at weather forecasts and made clothing plans. Because as we all know, there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

Icelandic weather in September isn't cold, but it can feel that way due to wind chill (very strong winds) and lots of rain. So I looked for wind and waterproof clothing and some new walking boots. I also made sure I'd got enough pairs of Heat Holders socks because if I know one thing about the outdoors, it's that warm feet are essential for happiness.

I didn't have an unlimited budget though so I used discount stores, sales and the old faithful, eBay, for my purchases.

DD needed some new walking boots and as she's vegan leather was out of the question. That's a shame as leather boots are really good for protection, waterproofing, warmth and durability. Finding boots with no leather was tricky but Amazon was our friend here and we found some excellent boots from a Chinese seller, I used a waterproofing spray on them before we left and they were comfy and waterproof and are lasting well.

I plumped for some simple leather boots with as few seams as possible.

We both needed water proof and warm trousers so I risked a purchase from a Chinese eBay seller, the trick here is to always leave plenty of time and to measure yourself accurately. The trousers we ordered fitted well, were thermal, and when tested proved to be waterproof. A bargain at just under £15 

Along with snoods, hats and scarves we felt pretty prepared. I bought a lightweight rucksack which proved really useful and we both took flasks and cup soups for our trips out (to save money, beat the queues and keep warm). So off we went.

Find out later how it went (in case you missed all the tweets)

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