ICELAND - LIVE at the Glacier Lagoon

Hi! Oh, am I really dark or is that just me? Maybe I need to turn that up a little bit. Hello gang! Now this is impromptu, this is very, very impromptu. I am at the Glacier Lagoon in Iceland, which I will show you very shortly, and I was like, I have amazing 4G signal and I've been saying that I will do a YouTube Live from Iceland and that I would show you a little bit about what I've been up to and also answer some of your questions. So for those of you who don't know, I try and do a live Every month or so-ish, um, to answer the questions. I get so many questions on email and social media and things that it's impossible to answer them all individually, so I try and do a live every month to answer all of your questions. But first, because this is impromptu, let me show you where I am. So, oh, hang on, get my microphone all tangled up. Don't sit on the drone, Kathryn. Now, can you see that? That, that's the Glacier Lagoon. And that's a glacier, like right there. That— those are buses, I don't know anything about them, but that's a glacier. And then on this side, I don't know if you can see it. Can you guys see that? That's Diamond Beach. And Diamond Beach, for those of you who don't know, so the glacier breaks up. Where is it? It's here somewhere. There. The glacier breaks up, it all goes into the Glacier Lagoon. And I put a bit of that on the video. Have I put that live yet? I don't know. Um, but the glacier comes down, it breaks into the icebergs. You can go on a rib tour, which I did, and go and see the glacier up close, which is amazing. And then the icebergs kind of get swept out of the lagoon and by the little river, and then they wash up on the beach down here. And the little bits of the iceberg, the ice, all sort of glistens in the sun. It's called Diamond Beach because they look like diamonds. It's a really cool location. But I've effectively done an entire loop of Iceland, which is amazing. So I'm quite excited about that, and I thought I would come live, say hi to you all, because I haven't really I don't know if there's a way I can prop that here. Stand by, let me see if there's a way that I can put my table there so you can see the pretty view out the window whilst I'm answering your questions. Now YouTube has just done a setting change and I don't know if you guys can comment if you're not a subscriber because I've literally just got view your subscribers' chats here. So if you're not, hit subscribe and then by all means answer or ask your questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Can you guys see that? Is that working or is that really annoying? I don't know. I don't know if that's gonna work or not. Um, oh, hi, Jodie Bear, how are you? My daughter's decided to pop up. I've not spoken to her for days either. Um, right, so a couple of things that I wanted to talk to you about. Um, I have seen that question, Brian. I will get back to it. Let me get into some of the things I wanted to share with you first and then I will come back. To answer your questions. First of all, hi if you're watching the replay, which I think is going to be most of you because this was an impromptu, hey, let's just go live on YouTube. So hello, drop a comment, let me know where you're watching from as always. Secondly, the weather. How lucky have I been with the weather? It's insane. I get the feedback tomorrow is my last day. How has that happened? It's been so quick, and yet I feel like I've been here forever, which is quite cool. Also, this is quite exciting. I may never come back. One of the things I've been joking about that I miss is custard creams, and I just found custard creams in Iceland. I'm hoping that they're yummy. I've not opened them yet. Another thing, when you come to Iceland, look for this hot chocolate. This hot chocolate is amazing. I'm assuming you can get it elsewhere in Europe. I've never really looked. But when I came out of the glacier, um, the dive snorkel thing that you can do between the tectonic plates, It was 2 degrees, that water. It was freezing. And they gave us hot chocolate. This, this is amazing hot chocolate. What is it? It was this stuff, and it's really yummy, and I have gone through a tub of it already. It's very, very good. Right, I've got lots of questions here from other people, but I want to answer yours for those who have shown up live. So hello, Brian. Hello, Peter. Uh, Brian, how are the facilities for motorhomes? Prices okay? So Iceland is expensive, we all know that, that's not a shock. Motorhoming facilities are surprisingly cheap. Now partly that's because I'm on my own, so I'm just paying for one person, not like 2 or more people, but they are surprisingly cheap. And the campsites work like Aire's. Like, I haven't booked a campsite for tonight, I don't really know where I'm going yet tonight, I kind of make it up as I go along, but you don't have to book. You can turn up at like 10, 11, midnight if you wanted to. You just get a pitch, and most of the time you can pay on your phone on that. The 4G signal is fantastic. I am on— well, you're on my Wi-Fi right now. How is the signal, by the way? Can you guys see me or not? Let me know in the comments. Um, but yeah, so you're on EE, is my Wi-Fi, and then my phone, which I have misplaced, um, that's on Vodafone, and it's been brilliant, the signal. Really, really good. So yeah, but the campsites work like Aires. If you don't know what an Aire is, go to the Wandering World website. They've got a whole section on Aires, how to use them, but they're basically just park-up places. Um, and although a campsite is probably a little bit more, especially if you want electric, um, they do charge you about £4 or £5 a night for electric. It's not crazy money, but it is a little bit more than you might pay at an Aire. But I'm paying roughly £15 to £20 a night for a campsite. You can't wild camp. Wild camping's not allowed. Um, but the campsites are so easy to use, they're brilliant, really, really good. Uh, Peter asks, is there wild camping? Do you have to use sites? That's exactly what I've just answered. So there are loads of camper vans, and every now and then I see one, I think, how long have you been there? But here's the thing, there's no nighttime, like everything's dark. I went to a waterfall the other day at 5 o'clock in the morning. If you've been following me on Instagram and stuff, you'll have seen in the stories I'm doing all this crazy stuff. But most of the time my body clock has changed completely, so most of the time I'm like up till 1, 2 o'clock in the morning doing stuff. So the motorhome is all over the place parked in car parks and things, and I'm not camping or using it because then I'll go to a campsite overnight and then sleep till whatever time I sleep till in the morning, or I'm getting up really early and then going to bed. So I'm not sure if anybody would really know, and it's really annoying as well. So some of the bigger, uh, like attraction like the waterfalls and stuff, you've got to pay for parking even if you stay there for like 20 minutes or whatever. You've got to pay for parking. Oh, really? But you're paying for 24 hours. Why can't I just stay here? But apparently you can't. So the wild camping laws are no. When you— even when you come to Iceland, you have to get this, like, a declaration, and part of it is I will only camp in approved places. Well, that's fair enough. And to be fair, they do really need to protect their flora and fauna, so I get it. Um, but yeah, it's, it's fun. Uh, are there any questions that I've missed Here, uh, because if there's not, I'm gonna dive into these ones. So, couple of questions that I've been getting. So I've got— for those of you who've just joined, I've got loads of questions, loads of things that I physically can't answer them all, otherwise I wouldn't have time to have adventures and do stuff and edit YouTube videos and all the other things that I do. I just can't answer all the emails and social media questions, but I'm gonna try to collate them all every month. I've been trying to do this for the last few months and then do a live once a month. So I wanted to do that again. But if you have got any questions or anything that you want to ask me, drop it in the chat and I will come back to it in a couple of minutes. But let me go through and answer some of these questions that I've got so far. Well, I got in June. Um, so Clive asked me, he said— oh, sorry, didn't mean to make the table jiggle. Um, he's off to France for the first time and wants to know what e-tag I recommend. I use e-movis, which is a small e and then a dash and then M-O-V-I-S. And it's brilliant. You get a couple of tags for different countries, so the France obviously is covered by one, and then I think it's a different one for Spain and Portugal. Italy might be a different one as well. And you just put them on, and you have to put it on the right place in your windscreen. So the first time I put it on, I put it outside of the black dotted area. And once you get it in the black dotted area, it just goes through and it bills you. It's brilliant. Highly recommend that one. Um, you will need something different if you go up into Scandinavia, particularly particularly Norway. I don't think they cover that. And if your vehicle is over 3.5 tons, they do cover it. It's really ridiculous. They've got on their website that they don't. I know plenty of people who have contacted them and said it's a private motorhome, will you cover it? And they said yes. So definitely, if you've got a vehicle over 3.5 tons, give them a ring or send them an email or whatever. Have you got any advice on which side is preferable to have a habitation door on for both the UK and Europe? I have traveled with motorhome to both sides and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. The only thing you've got to be careful with— I mean, I'm in Europe right now with a habitation door which is on the left-hand side— is obviously you're then driving on the other side of the road, so you're opening your habitation door into the traffic, into the road. So if you've got animals, if you've got young kids, if you've just got an ability to forget that that is the main road, you might want to use the driver's door rather than going out the habitation door. That's the only time that it can be an issue, but it's very rare that you would park that close to the main road, um, or certainly a busy road, and then occasionally you have to peer out the window to see if it's clear before you can open it. But that's the only other thing. But of course, then if you had one on the other side and you're spending time in the UK, exactly the same thing would happen. So there is no right or wrong answer, but I think the concern was over campsites, whether they make you park with the hab door. It makes no whatsoever. Really, they don't care. Um, who else have I got? Oh, Barney the dog! Can you advise on the best site to get Crit'Air stickers and what European countries do you need to get one? Right, I've had lots of questions about Crit'Air stickers. You do not need to get one to go to Europe. I don't have one on my van right now. I have literally driven through France, through Germany, through Holland Not in that order, um, through Denmark and now around Iceland. I don't have a Crit'Air sticker on this van. You don't need one. The only time you need one is if you're going to go into one of the zones. Now don't get me wrong, if you don't know exactly where you're going to go and you're going to sort of amble around France or Germany, you probably want to get one. They don't cost very much money. If they're charging you more than— I think the most expensive one is like £9— you're on the wrong site. And the site that I use is called Urban Access Regulations. And again, if you go on to wandering-bird.com, that's my website, and type in Crit'Air sticker, you'll get the post. It's got all the right links on there, and there's a link there to Urban Access Regulations. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. And they've got all the different countries and the actual link to the proper site. So the France one is gov, which is g-o-u-v.fr. Then they— there's literally a few pounds. Get them in advance. You can't get them while you're traveling, but get them in advance. It is linked to the motorhome, so you've got— then got it for life for the motorhome. Obviously, if you sell it and get another one, you'll have to get another one, but you don't have to get them. It's not like the be-all and end-all before you go anywhere. They are not the same as a vignette for the tolls, uh, or a toll pass. So if you go, say, into Switzerland— Switzerland doesn't have toll roads, they have a vignette system. And the vignettes are for driving on the main road. It's not for Crit'Air or clean air zones, and they're not the same thing, even though they're both called vignettes. I know it's confusing. I'm really sorry. I didn't make the rules. But if you're going into Switzerland, you do have to and can buy the vignette for driving on the roads at the border, not the Crit'Esticus. I hope that made sense. If it doesn't, please, please ask. I've got some questions here, I think. What has been my favorite thing so far? Oh, I'm gonna move that slightly because I can see that I'm a bit— um, oh, I don't know. That's a really tough question. Um, going in the Glacier Lagoon was— oh, the whale watching! I saw a blue whale. For those of you who don't follow me on Instagram— and really, why aren't you following me on Instagram? Um, I saw a blue whale, so it was so cool. And it's like, they're so rare. I think there's Well, I think something like less than 1% of people in the world have seen one. And admittedly, you just saw the back and the tail, and we were assured that it was a blue whale. I'm not a whale expert, I don't know, but it was big, which was kind of cool. And then, um, the snorkeling through the tectonic plates between them— it was cold, but it was really amazing. Really, really amazing. Um, what else have I done? Oh, I tell you what was really cool. What? was the hot spring that was a waterfall. And so it's a natural hot spring river, and you could literally sit in the hot spring on top of the waterfall. I've got a bit addicted to hot springs and spas. I don't quite know how I'm going to cope in the UK where we don't have them. Why don't we have these things? But I've been to one like every other day. It's, it's been pretty impressive. The Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon isn't worth it. Don't— if you ever come to Iceland, do not waste your money. It's too crowded. It's too expensive, and there are better ones like 10 minutes down the road. Um, yeah, it's just a couple of people have asked me if I'm going to sell my map and stuff. I am actually. I spent some time doing that the other night. So if you do want to get the map and the itinerary, and you can find out all the exact places that I've stayed and how long it's been between stuff, I'll get that out within the next week or so so you can get that. Um, because I know a lot of people have been asking and planning trips to Iceland, so hopefully that will help you. Um, but I think those Oh, so many things. And I'm gonna look back at my— I think, oh yeah, that was amazing too. The lava show last night was cool. They literally— so all of this, I don't know if you can see it. Can you see the blackness? That's volcanic ash and sort of lava, dried lava. If you put that in a furnace and heat it up to 1,000 degrees or 1,100 degrees or a particular temperature, hot anyway, it becomes molten lava. And they did this show. I think it's still on my stories because I only put up this morning. And they did so it just becomes this molten lava, and they just went into this like trough funnel thing inside the. It was so cool. Well, actually, it was really hot. It was a thousand degrees, but the heat of it—I was wearing like a vest top. It was crazy. And just watching it cool down and cracking, and the guy had like a stick thing and was making it. do all the stuff. It was really awesome. That was, that was really fun to see. Oh, and the ice cave! Oh my God, how did I forget the ice cave? So every year, um, it's the only place in Iceland that you can do an ice cave, and it sort of forms naturally. And then frankly, I think they help widen it a little bit because one just seems to magically appear every year, but they don't last very long. And it's in Katla, which is an active volcano. Like, literally, when, when the guy's strapping all these sensors to him and they're like, what is that? He goes, well, If we get a warning that it's going to go off, we have about 20 minutes to get out the area. Oh good, it takes us 25 minutes to drive there. Because yeah, we will not be doing this feed if we have to. Okay. And when you're in Vic, there's a church on the top of it, like a little hill, a mound, a hillock if you will. And, um, if the alarms go off, everyone in the area, they push a warning notification to your phone And then everyone in the area has to go on the top of the hill. You're not allowed to drive out of the area because they don't know which way the flood is going to go. The issue isn't the volcano. The issue is the fact that the volcano will have been melting the glacier, which is something crazy like 700 meters deep at the moment, but it will have been melting that from underneath. Huge amounts of water in its crater, for want of a better word. Not a volcanologist. Um, but that, once it erupts will flood the area, but they don't know which way it's going to go. So everyone goes on top of this hillock and then they tell— figure out which way it's going to go, and then they can evacuate. It's like, oh my God, what? And people live here? Yeah, they do. And apparently it's really expensive to live there too. But the ice cave was really, really fun. The ice cave was, was awesome. Um, right, how many other questions have I got? How's Mac doing? He's not in kennels. Mac isn't in kennels. He is— bless him, he's been passed from pillar to post because it's been— well, it will be 5 and a bit weeks. I'm really missing him, actually. I'm back a week on Saturday, um, so I'll get him back then, which will be nice. Um, but he's been with Mr. WB, and he has been with— I noticed Jade manages to have wiggled out of having him, actually. JD, I have just noticed this. Uh, but he's been with family, and he's been with some friends who dog sit. And he's been with some dog sitters who are just fab and they love him. So he's, he's quite happy. Yes, I see you there, Jady Bear. How are the questions? Have I got— oh, you've seen a blue whale as well coming to land in the '80s? Oh, that's cool. Maybe it was the same one. I don't know how long blue whales last. I mean, is, is that reasonable that it would be the same whale? I don't even know how many blue whales there are in the ocean. No clue, but it was very, very cool. Right, let me go back to my questions that I've got so far. I've had a couple of people actually asking me about campsites in Europe over winter, struggling to find campsites because most campsites in Europe shut in September. What do they do, and should they cut their trip short? My answer would be, if you really, really, really need to find somewhere to stay, use an Aire. Um, because the AIREs don't shut. Now, there is a small caveat to that. If you're going into the mountains in winter, many of the AIREs do shut because of thick snowfall. Um, but I'm assuming if you're going to the mountains in winter, you're going to be prepared and you have got appropriate gear, and you know that you're going into the mountains. You're not randomly looking for a campsite as part of your tour. So if— certainly if you're in Sharm el-Sheikh, you're not going to have this issue. Um, I would use AIREs. If you really need to find campsites that are open, um, the ACSI book is quite good, or the app. I prefer to use. Park4Night's always good. Um, the problem with Park4Night is the information isn't always 100% correct because it's user-generated, so they might say a campsite's open all year, you might find it's not. So if you really want to know if one's open, contact them or send them an email and they'll be able to get back to you and tell you if they're open or not. That would be the way that I would do it. The other way I'd use is like the Caravan and Motorhome Club. Um, and to be fair, that was another question I got was Which kind of clubs would I join? I'm a member of all of them, mainly because I like the CS and the CL sites, the smaller sites. Like, they have up to 5 pitches. I use them a lot. Um, so I'm a member of both Caravan and Motorhome Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club, and I like them both. But the Caravan and Motorhome Club have a lot of European sites that are open all year. I don't know if the Camping and Caravanning Club do as well. I'm not sure, but I know the Caravan and Motorhome Club do specifically for that purpose. So that might be a way of finding as well. Um, right, what else did I have to answer? Would I go to Italy in December and January? Um, and are any campsites open? So again, that's the way I would find campsites. Italy, I think it depends where in Italy you want to go to. If you want to go somewhere in northern Italy, especially somewhere like the Dolomites, lots of snow, it's a huge ski resort, probably not the best time to see it, but amazing time if you want to go skiing. Um, if you're going to go to the south of Italy— I've not been to the south of Italy in the winter, so I don't know what it's like, but I'm guessing it's going to be warmer than it is here in the UK. So yeah, I'm planning on doing— what am I planning on doing? I'm going to Antarctica next February. Talk about cold! That's going to be colder than the UK too. So I'm not doing any big tour next January or February, just Antarctica. But I think I'm going to try and get down to Spain in November, December. December time, Spain and Portugal. I've been talking about going Portugal. If you look at the back of my van, um, I've got the proper Portugal sticker. It's not in because I haven't been to Portugal yet in a van. And in fact, I don't think there's an Iceland sticker. I'm gonna have to make a little Iceland sticker to put on there because I haven't got one. But that is my plan for the winter. Um, so yeah, I don't know about Italy. It would depend a lot on where you are planning on going to. Um, have I got any other Questions, or have I answered them all? I don't know. Oh, somebody was asking me what the midges were like in Iceland. Huh, worse than I thought, but not everywhere. Like right now here— oh, sorry, I keep doing that. Um, right now here, no midges, no flies, no nothing. Um, my Vatn— I really need to learn how to pronounce Icelandic names. I don't know how they do it. They make 6 letters that sound like 6 letters that just don't exist. They're just— um, so that was full, and apparently it means fly world or fly something or something to do with flies. Um, the lake was awful. It was covered in flies and midges, that whole bit up there. Um, but then Akureyri, which was just slightly further down, and Husavík, that didn't have any flies or midges as far as I can remember at all. And then we had loads— where was I? up in the Westfjords, loads of midges up there. So it really depends where you are. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's by the coast or not. Um, yeah, it's more in places than others, so probably on par with Scotland in the summer in, in the worst places, and then other places it's not been that bad at all. So yeah, it's sort of been a bit of a mixed bag. Uh, and the last question, what's the Bailey been like? Well, the Bailey is still going, given that my, uh, my Brief was to take it on adventure and see how it hand up. I have been down some crazy roads. Like, I will drive roads that are insane that you shouldn't really drive in a motorhome anyway. You'll know that if you follow me in Scotland and in Ireland and now in Iceland. But there have been a couple of roads that I've started carping on. Not, not doing this in a van. Not happening in a van. Um, so yeah, there have been some, some strange roads, and the van's still doing really well. Somebody asked me, um, is it bad like for dings and stuff like stones and gravel? Because some of the roads are gravel and they just sort of become gravel without you really realizing. You're on a main road, the main road, and bits of it are just random gravel. If you're worried about dings to your van, I wouldn't bring your van. Um, I haven't, as far as I know, touch wood, dinged this van, which is good. Don't tell Bailey. Um, well, do tell, Bailey, because I haven't done it yet. But if you are worried about it, there is a chance, I think, that you could do some damage to your van if you're going too fast. The gravel roads are fine, you just gotta go slow. You've just gotta— but some of them are really steep and there's a lot of hairpin bends, and I'm thinking, oh my Lord. And they don't have safety nets or safety barriers, it's just you and a gravel road and somebody coming up the mountain at you. And I'm just thinking, if I just slid here. This would be really bad. I wouldn't want to do it when it was raining. In fact, I didn't. I did change my plan based on when, um, when it was raining. Do I know when mid-season finishes in Scotland? I want to go again. So I went in October last year, no midges, it was brilliant. Um, yeah, so I would say go. I think, I think it's May to September. Does anybody else know when mid-season is in Scotland? April to September. Oh, by October they were fine. If you're going to go— and also most of the people have gone then as well, so it's way nicer than going in the summer. I would avoid Scotland in the summer like the plague. JD, please don't die out there. I'm doing my best. I'm getting on a ferry in 2 days. What could go wrong between now and then? Um, yeah, there you go, Peter. You went to Scotland last October, but it was clear. Yeah, perfect. So that will be fine. Um, what am I doing between now and then? So I'm gonna go do the Diamond Beach in a bit. And then I'm driving about an hour further towards the ferry tomorrow. There's a canyon I want to— I've got a problem at the moment. End of the VAT quarter. My accountant is like, will you please, please do your VAT stuff because I have to submit it? And I'm going, um, but I'm in Iceland. Sorry, Becky, if you're watching this. Love you. Um, yeah, so I'm kind of torn between do I spend my last day in Iceland doing my accounts, or do I spend my last day in Iceland exploring and do my accounts on the ferry? Which is what I'm probably going to do, let's face it. Um, if I— as long as I download them, I can do them on the ferry, she says. And then I've got 2 days in the Faroe Islands. Has anybody been to the Faroe Islands? Because the one thing that I'd found that I really wanted to do is ridiculously expensive. So they do, um, you go to the Faroe Islands, you see waterfalls. Yeah, seen lots of them. See puffins. Seen lots of them. I wanted to go abseiling. So there's a bit in the Faroe Islands where you can abseil down a cliff and then there's like a zipline thing. I was like, that's a bit of me. I really want to do that. Except that it's like £480 to dangle off a bit of rope off a cliff and then slide down a zipline. I was like, I'm not paying that. That's insane amount of money. Not happening. So now I need to find other options for the Faroe Islands. So if you've been, Give me some suggestions. Share them with me on Instagram or Facebook or something. I think somebody, I think his name was Clive, shared me some brilliant ones. Thank you very much for that, Clive. But yeah, I haven't planned. I haven't planned what I'm doing in the Faroe Islands yet. And then I get back to Denmark on. Here we go. So I get on the ferry on Thursday morning. I get to the Faroes like three o'clock Friday morning. That is unsociable. Although again, it'll be nice and light, so I'll be able to drive for a bit. I'll have slept all day on the ferry, I suppose. No, I won't. I'll have done my accounts, honest. And then I've got till— so I've got almost 2 full days in the Faroes, get back on the ferry on Saturday night and arrive in Denmark on Monday morning. And then I've got 4 days to drive from Denmark to Dunkirk. Well, that sounds like a name of an adventure, doesn't it? Denmark to Dunkirk, um, to get on the ferry to get back to the UK to pick up my doggy on Saturday. Nothing, hopefully. Absolutely nothing. Right, I've answered all the questions that I got, I think. I'm pretty sure I've got some more, but I, I— again, impromptu live. I just found the first ones that I got to, and anyone else, I'm really sorry. I'll try and answer them in the next one. Thank you all for joining me on this impromptu thing. Nice to chat to you. And for those of you who just joined, let me share with you where I am. So this is called Glacier Lagoon. Oh, hang on, can you see that? So that's a glacier. That's the biggest glacier in Iceland. I'm not even going to try and embarrass myself by pronouncing it. Um, that is a lava field, although, well, that's a car, but, you know, ignore that bit. It's literally from, from the last volcanic eruption. That's all ash and stuff. That is more of the glacier. And again, that's, you know, ignore the Jeep with the big red thing on. That's really common over here. They've got loads of these. They have these sort of Jeep 4x4 truck things, and then they've got the The sleeping bits on top. But yeah, that's really cool. And then on this side, oh hang on! Now you see, I made the table big so that I would stop rattling it, and now I can't get out. Look, this is this is the sort of table thing with the custard creams for those of you late and the Swiss Miss chocolate. But here we go. I do like this table, by the way. I will do a full review on the Adamo at some point. And look, that's that's Glacier Beach. For those of you who didn't see it before, I think you can kind of see it down there, all the different, um, icebergs when they've all broken up and they make some more glaciers. Right, I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thanks for joining me live, those of you who did, and those of you watching the replay. I will see you soon, and yeah, have a lovely evening. Bye! Bye!