This is a first-person travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting travel from Iceland to Latvia (Riga). In this chunk they say goodbye to friends Kayla and Barrett, describe airport and lounge time in Iceland and Copenhagen (including a 3.5-hour flight to Copenhagen and ~6-hour layover), book Airbnbs from the lounge, and arrive in Riga around midnight. They report practical travel details: taxis outside the airport cost €7 (an airport kiosk quoted €13), and they note Latvia is their 50th country visited. The tone is conversational and light-hearted with logistical problem-solving.
Questions this video answers
Three and a half hours
About six hours
Around midnight (about 12:00 AM)
€7
€13
Chapters
It's 6am and she's eating pizza and I don't have any pants on.
What are you doing right now?
I think I washed all of our clothes last night.
None of them dried. So.
This morning is sad for two reasons. Number one, we're leaving Iceland and number two, we're saying bye to Kayla and Barret. However, today is the first day that it's been cloudy in Iceland. Icelanders are forever going to remember this week as the sunny week.
From the moment we got off the plane in Iceland, it has been blue skies and warm by Icelandic standards until today.
Crazy.
Yep. It's also 7am and my pants are still wet. Good way to start the morning. Let's go to Latvia.
Miss you guys.
Love you, Nate. Love you. Thanks for coming.
See ya.
Saying bye to Kayla and Barrett was super sad. But I'm so happy that we got to travel together for the last nine years.
Sorry, I thought that lady was photobombing our thing. She was looking at the board, but she was just standing right behind us. It was a flight attendant. I was like, I thought you'd be a little more professional than that. Thank you so much, Kayla and Barrett, for coming to join us. It's always so much fun when friends and family come. Yes. Kayla basically planned this entire trip. I left it totally up to her and she did a fantastic job.
Barrett drove us the entire week.
Thank you. We owe you all big time.
We're not in a lounge because we found that the Iceland airport is one of the only airports that we've been to that does not take priority pass. There's one Iceland air lounge that we can't get into.
Yeah. So sitting in the airport until our flight for Copenhagen boards, we have a three and a half hour flight to Copenhagen. Then we sit in Copenhagen for like six hours and then we fly to Latvia and we get there at like midnight. So we're in the airport for the rest of the vlog.
Again, fun fact about Iceland, you don't need to get cash ever. Everything took credit card, even to go to the bathroom.
You could pay for the bathroom. You could pay for the tolls. Maybe you don't need cash. Maybe you're right.
I don't think you do. At least with that credit card. Yeah.
We hope you had a pleasant flight.
With us and we wish you all an unworth nice journey.
We just got to Copenhagen and now we get to go to the lounge for five whole hours.
Starting with soup.
So we were having a little bit too much fun with Kayla and Barrett and I Have not booked the place that we're supposed to be staying tonight, so. So I am contacting people on Airbnb because, like, normally I just book one, but we're not going to get to Laia until 12pm tonight, so we need to be able to check in really late. Yeah, probably should have taken care of this a little bit before.
Right now.
We'Re booked. We have an Airbnb for tonight. The lady told me it was only seven. We could get a taxi after midnight to her place, and we're staying there for the next two nights and. How do you say it in Riga?
Thank you. You're welcome.
Have a nice.
Thank you.
It is now 9pm that was a much better needed five hours of work. I got two different places in Latvia booked and a potential place in Estonia.
And a rental car. And I finished the vlog.
So a productive, yet not very entertaining.
Five hours with pretty yummy food, too.
And now it's Lafayette.
So we've just arrived in our 50th country of Latvia. It is a little after midnight, and we have to figure out how to get to our Airbnb. I think our only option is this point is going to be a taxi. Just feel like so confined and trapped when I have to ride a taxi and just watch the meter tick up. We're going to hope that we get a nice driver and we don't get ripped off, because I've heard you have to watch out for that.
So our Airbnb lady told me it should be €7 to get a taxi to the place. The lady inside the airport tried to charge us 13. So we are heading outside and testing our luck with the taxi driver's. Honey.
Is it okay if they're out of front?
There he goes.
It is now 12:30 and we are standing in the middle of a dark street and our taxi driver just pulled out on the way leaving. We are currently standing in the driveway of the place that I'm pretty sure is not our Airbnb. We're close, though, I think. So we're supposed to be looking for number two. We are currently at one, so it must be close. But they're all, like, gated shut and it's the middle of the night. The lady was like, yeah, just come. Just come knock on my door. So we better hope we get it right or a Latvian person is gonna be very angry that we're knocking on their door in the middle of the night. Let's go this way.
That one doesn't have a number. Let's go. This way. So I think this is it. This building appears to be yellow, and it was yellow in the photos, but she said going through the garden. I don't know where that is.
What in the world? Did she give any further instructions? I can only assume this says private property.
Does it open? Does she have a phone number?
Come here, away from the road, and let's hide from all the criminals that want to take our bags from us. Okay, you stay here. I'm gonna walk right over there and see if the other gate is more open than this one.
There's a person not in the right place. We're at the right place. Yep.
Okay, great.
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you. Sorry it's so late.
I was scared to open a closed door.
Okay.
We are coming from Iceland today.
Which one do you want?
Oh, that one.
We're all checked into our Airbnb. A very nice Latin Latvian. It's late. Feels so bad that it's late. But he was so nice and didn't care at all.
And the taxi went very smoothly. It cost €7, just like they said it was going to. But it's crazy. The same company that has the taxis like that you can pay for inside of the airport was going to charge me €13 for this ride. We went outside, we caught the same type Baltic taxi and came here, and it was €7. So just go outside and catch a taxi if you're ever in la. Okay, we are going to sleep, and tomorrow we are exploring the capital of Riga. I've been calling it Regia. Been adding an extra I. That's definitely incorrect.
It's late.
Yeah.
Okay. How long has it been since you brushed your hair?
I haven't brushed my hair in Iceland. I lost my brush on the first day, and then I found it, and then I just kind of liked it. Nate called it lion hair.
Icelandic Lion. Whoa. We're going out onto the Runway.
