How to Travel to Iceland on a Budget: Meal Prep Tips

Let us tell you the best Iceland budget tip ever. YOU CAN TRAVEL TO ICELAND ON A BUDGET IF YOU COOK ALL YOUR MEALS. Yes, we are being totally honestly with you.

Do you know a way to check how expensive a country is? Easy, by looking at the price of a Pizza Margarita. Let me tell you, we were shocked. We discovered that you need to pay ~20€ for one of those in Iceland. So instantly, we came up with a plan. We decided to cook our meals. This way, we could make this trip, which we always dream about, affordable for us. That simple trick made our food budget in Iceland of 180 €/187$ for 4 people. Yes you read correctly 45 € per person for a week of food. This budget was mainly between groceries, a Hot Dog lunch and another lunch in a burgers restaurant in Egilsstaðir(which was earlier planned 😃 )

To buy the food we follow to strategies

1. We brought from home what we could carry in our luggage.

2. We bought the rest at Bonus supermarket.

What food we pack from home?

Taking food from home made all the difference in our budget since even supermarket food is not that cheap in Iceland. Since we only had carried on luggage, we were limited to dry food. This kind of food was perfect. It is easy and quick to cook. This is exactly what we needed after long days exploring.

We thought about what we would need not only for lunch and dinner but also for breakfast, snacks and coffee. Based on that we took sugar, salt, honey sticks, chocolate, and coffee. Sugar and salt we packed in small Ziploc bag. For coffee and chocolate we took the small instantaneous packages including those that already have mixed milk. For snacks we too chocolate, granola bars, mix nuts packages, dried fruit, and porridge.

For lunch and dinner we took Instant soup, instant potato, pasta and instant rice (plain and flavored).

Only with this we were covered for most of the trip. All our accommodations included kitchens. We managed to cook dinner every night. We were able to either prepare and pack the lunch that night or the next morning for the road. Another thing you should know is that there are many stops on the side of the road. These stops have tables where you can sit to have lunch with a nice view. But also keep in mind that the weather in Iceland can get really rainy. We had lunch in the car a few times ☺️.