Money

The currency is Icelandic Kronor (ISK). When I went in 2012, I was getting 200 ISK for £1 but now we only get 138 ISK. I find XE is good for getting the latest bad news about currency rates.

I suggest we only get maybe £50 of ISK currency (about 6900 ISK) and use plastic the rest of the time. Card payments are very widely used in Iceland and people think nothing of using a card to pay for something like an ice cream. I’d still take some currency in case we decide to stay in some remote campsite that doesn’t take cards. We can always use excess cash up by using it to pay for fuel.

I just used a cash machine at the Keflavik Airport to withdraw some ISK the last time. It cost me a £1.75 fee but was worth it because most currency exchange places here don’t have ISK and need to order it in. You usually get about the same rate but they usually add on a fee of something like 3%. I usually added 5% to all the prices to allow for that and to allow for small currency fluctuations.

Cards vary from good to bad. I might try and get one with zero fees to save a few quid.