Must-know travel terms to help you explore Iceland

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND -- I’ve logged well over 50 hours on roads during my three trips to Iceland. But it wasn’t until my most recent trip -- with my buddy Matt -- that I discovered a travel hack that will make exploring Iceland a lot easier.​

With an ever-growing influx of visitors coming to Iceland, the country has many itself very tourist friendly -- especially on the roads. The biggest help are road signs with icons -- letting you know about the nearest waterfall, lava field or glacier.
While those signs are great where they appear, they are not everywhere, making you wonder what Icelandic word means waterfall and which means bay.
Matt and I -- we found out -- are both drawn to the little details of travel. As we spent days exploring Iceland in May 2018, we both became obsessed with understanding Icelandic terms.
For nonspeakers, having a basic understanding of the words helped us find where we were going and explore places that we would have driven past.
For example, we found a sign for Bjarnarfoss while exploring the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. We both knew that “foss” meant “waterfall” in Icelandic. So we stopped while dozens of other drivers passed one of the most beautiful sites in Iceland.
The list below is a helpful guide to understanding the sites around Iceland: ​

Click the link below to download the Icelandic terms chart!

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