As promised in our "Iceland Budget vs Actual Cost" post, I'm going to dive into the details of our meal planning, grocery shopping, and what we ate while we were in Iceland.
While we were planning for our trip, food costs remained one of our biggest uncertainties. Our research didn't tell us much about the cost of groceries other than repeated mentions of how expensive everything is in Iceland. And of the few bloggers we found who'd shared any information on their Iceland budgets, they either glossed over food costs or weren't eating the sorts of foods were were willing to eat to keep our costs down.
Our plan was to buy groceries for simple foods we could prepare in the campervan. No restaurants.
We budgeted $550 for 2 people for 11 days. I'm happy to say that was a huge overestimation. Groceries were not as outrageously expensive as we feared and we came in well under budget. Our grand total for food for the whole trip – home-to-home – was $192.
If you're here, you're probably researching for a future trip. Hopefully, we can offer you some helpful information. So, let's get into the details!
(Keep in mind: We traveled in August 2021; prices are always in flux and customs policies are subject to change.)
Planning
For us, planning was key here. We knew we couldn't just walk into a grocery store in Iceland and start tossing stuff into our cart. We had to feed ourselves for 10 days in the campervan (foods that were super easy to prepare and not too messy) with as little waste and leftovers as possible. And we also had very limited storage space within the campervan for unnecessary extras. So, before we even left, we had thought out foods for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks and made a shopping list of what we'd need to buy to make those work.
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| Screenshot of our Meal Plan & Shopping List |
Bringing Food From Home
We usually pack snacks for the flight and such but for this trip we stepped it up a notch. Iceland allows for each person to bring 3kg (about 6.6 pounds) of (non-liquid) food into the country (but no meat or dairy products). We didn't bring the full allowance but we did bring a couple gallon Zipock bags full with individually packaged granola bars, protein bars, trail mix, chocolate covered raisins, Fig Newtons, and John's favorite Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares. We'd read that the meat ban did also apply to jerky and snack sticks, so we decided not to bring anything like that. The main reason we didn't utilize our full allowance was because we were traveling without any checked baggage and simply didn't want to use up any more space in our backpacks. But, you could bring more than just snacks and treats as long as you stick to the rules.
Camper Give-and-Take
CampEasy has a space in their lobby where campers can leave extras at the end of their trip for others to grab at the start of theirs. This is where we were lucky enough to grab a roll of paper towels, some hand wipes, and a roll of toilet paper, so we had no paper products to purchase (which, honestly, we hadn't even though of and definitely needed). We also grabbed a shaker of salt, some tea bags and sugar cubes, a couple packets of soup mix, a couple dehydrated camper meal pouches, a small can of corn, and a fresh green pepper from the fridge. (Some campgrounds have these unofficial Give-and-Take piles near the dishwashing stations, as well. We never grabbed anything from those, however.) At the end of our trip, we were happy to contribute a few things back to the shelf to pay it forward.
Big Shopping Trip
Our main shopping trip on Day 1 was at Bónus, which is a popular grocery store chain with dozens of locations. The biggest challenge was not being able to read most of the packaging, but pictures and context clues can tell you enough. (We're still not 100% sure what kind of cheese we were eating, though it was good.) We stuck to our Meal Plan Shopping List really well (without adding random things) and we got almost everything on our list. We didn't find the pre-cooked shredded or diced chicken we were hoping to use for our quesadillas and decided we'd just have plain cheese or use lunchmeat. And we also didn't find dill pickles (only sweet gherkins) and opted to just get pickle relish for our hot dogs.
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| Day 1 Shopping Trip in Iceland |
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| Receipt from Bónus |
Breads
Gifflar: 298 x2
Sandwich Bread: 369 x2
Soft Flour Tortillas (8 pack): 229
Hot Dog Buns: 5 pack @ 198 x 2
Produce
Blueberries (500gr): 795
Bananas (.850kg): 208
Nectarines (1kg): 439
Pink Lady Apples (800gr): 598
Cherry Tomatoes (250gr): 395
Green Bell Pepper (.210kg): 83
Yellow Bell Pepper (.185kg): 73
Dairy
Sliced Cheese: 795
Sliced Cheese: 795
Sliced Cheese: 847
Meat
Ham Lunchmeat: 598
Turkey Lunchmeat: 739
Canned Tuna: 198 x6
Hot Dogs (10 pack): 429
Condiments
Mayo: 149
Salsa: 698
Yellow Mustard: 198
Pickle Relish: 469
Other
Tomato Condensed Soup: 239 x2
Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup: 249
Yum Yum Ramen Cups: 139 x2
Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips: 239
Tortilla Chips: 298
Ice Tea (1.5ltr): 159 x4
Red Bull: 189 x2
There was also tax which brought our total to 14,011 ISK.
Another note: Stores in Iceland do not provide bags. You can purchase bags or bring your own. We brought one bag but realized we could just put all the items back in our cart, wheel it out to the campervan to put all the groceries away, then return the cart.
Top-Off Shopping Trips
When we got towards the end of our trip, we made a couple small, quick trips to grocery stores to replenish our fresh fruit, stock up on some more hiking snacks, and get what we'd need to cover meals for the remainder of the trip while making the most of items we still had.
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| Some Hiking Snacks Bought at Krónan |
These two trips were at Krónan (another popular chain grocery store) in two different towns. Here's the break down of those stops:
Bananas (.82kg): 197
Green Grapes (500g): 499
Packaged Dried Fruit: 399
Packaged Trail Mix: 399
Corny Muesli Bars: 309
Tortilla Chips: 290
Flour Tortillas: 359
Salsa: 199
Guacamole: 479
Sliced Cheese: 469
Ham Lunchmeat: 470
Instant Oatmeal Cups: 110 x4
Apple Juice (1.5ltr): 217
Gifflar: 349
Pastry: 99
Macaroon Cookie Packs: 299 x2
Treats, Impulses, and Indulgences
As you can see towards the end of that list, we did buy ourselves some treats. Especially once we saw how much we still had in our food budget after that first major shopping trip, we didn't hesitate to grab little things here and there throughout the trip.
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| Cool Ranch Doritos are called "Sour Cream Flavor" on the bag and the receipt called them "Cool American" which I found amusing |
Can of Coca-Cola: 395
Can of Red Bull: 395
Box of Rís Buff Candy: 450
Slice of Fresh-Made Apricot Cheesecake: 900
Doritios: 450
Can of Coca-Cola: 399
Mars Candy Bar: 299
Airplane "Pizza": 1,150
What We Ate
We mostly ate as we had originally planned. It worked out well and we never felt hungry or sick of any one food, yet we were able to have very few leftovers at the end of our trip (and only a little waste).
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| Campervan Meal of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Tomato Soup |
Breakfasts
We woke up quite early the entire trip. We usually started the day with fruit and I got in the habit of having a cup of hot tea, as well. Then, we'd drive to our first stop and have a morning snack of a granola bar or some Gifflar (packaged mini cinnamon buns I'd seen in an Icelandic video; turns out they're actually Swedish and you can buy them here in the US at Ikea.. who knew!)
Lunches
Lunches were usually cold sandwiches (I preferred lunchmeat, cheese, and mayo; John usually had tuna with mayo and relish) with chips or fruit. Towards the end of the trip, the remainder of our bread got moldy and we decided to get more tortillas and make wraps, instead.
Dinners
Dinners were usually when we spent a little more time and John prepared a warm meal. (I didn't have to cook or prepare a single thing the whole trip!)
We had grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup a couple times (using mayo as a butter substitute for grilling the bread).
Hot dogs served with mustard, pickle relish, and sliced cherry tomatoes was at least four meals; we had a 10 pack and towards the end of the trip, our buns were moldy so we made up a dish with sliced hot dogs, melted cheese, and the canned corn. The hot dogs in Iceland are truly different than what we are used to in the US (maybe it's the Icelandic lamb?) and they are delicious. If we were eating differently, I would have tried a hot dog served with their traditional condiments (instead of our scaled back, minimal approximation of what we'd get on our Chicago dogs) but, when you already have a 10 pack of hot dogs in the campervan, it's hard to justify buying hotdogs from a stand.
Sometimes we just had soup (ramen cups, instant soup from packets, the can of cream of mushroom), or I had soup and John had one of the dehydrated meal pouches (which were pastas).
But my favorite meal of the trip was actually quesadillas (sliced white cheese melted between two flour tortillas, grilled with mayo as a butter substitute) served with salsa (and, towards the end of the trip, guacamole, too). Once, John also added a little of the lunchmeat in with the melty cheese. Surprisingly yummy.
Sometimes we had warm lunches and sometimes we had quick, cold dinners, depending on how the day was going. But, it all balanced out and we had enough for every meal.
Snacks
Snacking and always having snacks with us was also key. We were often out for long hikes and would grab snacks from our backpacks as we took a break (trail mix, protein bars, and such). Or, sometimes we would snack in the van just before or after a hike or sight-seeing stop (chips and salsa, fruit, and the like). Snacking regularly, especially when we were very active, kept us from ever feeling ravenously hungry (and also probably kept us from being hangry and crabby).
We usually had something sweet after each lunch and dinner, as well. We packed Fig Newtons and dark chocolate squares but we also bought some sweet treats while we were there (cookies, candy, and even a slice of fresh cheesecake to share, once).
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| Slice of Fresh Apricot Cheesecake (they don't use nearly as much sugar as we do in the US, but still good) |
In the end, we never felt like we were depriving ourselves. We were never hungry, or even very bored of the foods we had to eat multiple times in the span of 11 days (10 days in the campervan but 11 days home-to-home).
We ate less veggies than we normally would (and probably more fruit) but I think that was just a result of what looked good while we were shopping and seemed to require the least prep (we had one dull knife and no vegetable peeler).
The only waste we had was a couple hot dog buns and a few slices of bread that got moldy (it seems their baked goods don't have as many preservatives as ours); we used all our other fresh foods and contributed a few things back to the Give-and-Take (three of the Ice Tea cartons because I ended up not liking it (I'm spoiled by my Pure Leaf Sweet Tea), one of the cans of tuna, one can of Red Bull, what was left of the tea bags & sugar cubes and salt, and the remainder of the paper products).
And we loved that we came in so far under budget!
If you are trying to budget or cut costs for an Iceland trip, I hope this information is useful. Feel free to DM me with any questions. I am happy to help!