The Self-Help Guide to Icelandic Weather

1. Jackets with hoods are great. Make sure you know how all the tightening mechanisms on all your hoods work (and can adjust them with one hand).

2. Parking the campervan close to the wind-break hedge works really well. Except that many parts of the hedge may break off during the night and plaster themselves all over the van.

3. Develop an obsession for drying your camera lens. Once or twice between every shot with a microfibre towel is fine. Unless you prefer that “Paranormal Investigations” look caused by water drops in all your shots.

4. The weather outside is never as bad as it seems from inside the campervan. Just because the parked van is swaying dangerously from side to side and rain is pummeling the sides (not the roof) does not mean that you should not step outside. Once you’ve put on four or five layers and taken the plunge, you will find that it’s merely, well, BRACING out there.

Murderous cloud

5. All those dark particles on toilet seats are nothing to worry about. It’s just black volcanic sand that has fallen out of other campers’ hair. Remember, it’s in your hair too.

6. Pay attention to the electronic boards next to the road at the start of mountain passes. Keep in mind that “26” is not a good wind speed for crossing any pass, especially the one between Reykjanes and Holmavik. This is because wind speed in Iceland is given in metres per second, not kilometres per hour. With a quick calculation you can determine that 26 metres per second is 94 kilometres per hour.

7. A glove is not too small to be caught by the wind. And once it’s gone you will be sorry, even if you did pack two other pairs of gloves.

8. When the water in a waterfall travels upwards instead of down, this probably means that it is quite a windy day. It does make for fairly interesting photos though (provided that you pay sufficient attention to item number 3 above).

A good day in Iceland

9. Washing and blow-drying your hair is not important. You will be wearing a beanie, all day, every day, anyway.

10. Wearing a scarf to bed at night is very sensible. Not only does it keep out those few breezes that make it into the campervan, it also protects your delicate skin from that insanely stupid patch of velcro on the sleeping bag that tries to exfoliate your under-chin area every night.

11. Campervan doors are very similar to sails. That is, they are optimally designed to catch the slightest breeze (or howling gale, as the case may be). If you are rear-weighted, throwing your buttocks into the fight might help. However, keep in mind that in many circumstances it will not be possible to accomplish the transfer of weight needed to get you up into the passenger seat and to hold onto the door by yourself at the same time. At these times, it is best to get your husband, doubled over with laughter as he might be, to come around and help you keep the door attached to the van.

12. Finally, the above tips are for summer weather. In winter you should not expect the weather to be quite so gentle and you should take extra precautions. Avoiding Iceland for the entire winter might be a good option.