My family and I went to Iceland in November for my daughter's birthday and absolutely loved it. I know the first thing other travelers want to know is if we seen the northern lights....Yes! we were lucky enough to see them while leaving the Blue Lagoon at 9pm. My biggest tip on how to get a visual of the northern lights is to go far away from city lights and download the app Aurora, which was very helpful in locating the northern lights. If you hope to capture a picture of the northern lights you need a good photography camera...a cell phone wont capture the true beauty (the iPhone pro max and new Samsung might). Also, we did the premium package at the Blue Lagoon where we reserved a dinner and an in-water massage....the massage was not worth the money-AT ALL. However, the food was delicious. It is definitely over rated, but it was definitely refreshing to see other African American people. We stayed in Iceland for a week and only seen other African Americans while at the Blue Lagoon. We also did not see any police -not one, not even a patrol car (I'm not telling you to speed). The locals were VERY FRIENDLY, I cant say the same for some tourist. You definitely want to get up as early as possible so you can fully experience your day because the attractions are very spread out and it gets dark early. For instance, going to the National park and the geysers was an entire day experience. The Skogafoss waterfall and Black Sand Beach was another full day and when I say full day I mean 12hrs. There was a beautiful rainbow cascading over the waterfall when we were there, which was absolutely beautiful. If you are scared of heights like myself....climbing back down the steps from the waterfall was very scary for me; I held onto my boyfriend's shoulders and fixated my eyes on his back, which worked for me. I would like to emphasize....at Black Sand Beach please please do not go anywhere near the water. Don't be the thrill seeker that thinks the tide isn't big. Those tides are unpredictable and those tides take lives. Keep your butt over at the basalt stacks (another cool pic). As for gas prices, I read so many reviews about how expensive gas was and the best way to explain it is... I pay 80$ to fill my SUV with premium gas at home(PA) and there I paid 80$ to fill my gas with regular gas (who puts premium gas in rent-a-car?). Moral of the story is their regular gas was equivalent to my premium gas back home. Also, a cool place to visit is the bridge between continents, you can take a cool pic that gives the illusion that you are holding the bridge up. We also visited Hallgrimskirkja church, which had an amazing view of Reykjavik. We had to pay to go into the church and take the elevator up to the tower. Take note: after we paid we realized we were the only ones to pay everyone else just got on the elevator bc nobody was there to let you on the elevator or to ask you for proof of payment. Upon listening to other tourist, a lot of people were opposed to the idea of paying to get into a church, so I guess that's how they rationalized walking straight in. I am not implying you should not pay, but I am informing you nobody paid but us. More so, I definitely recommend that you rent a car. We had so much fun finding things ourselves. In fact, we wouldn't have seen half of the attractions we seen if we didn't rent a car bc on our way to major attractions there were so many little ones in between, along with the beautiful naturally formed lagoons. A car will also allow you to take in the magnificent landscapes Iceland has to offer. Unlike Bali, there natural attractions like waterfalls, glaciers, geysers, etc. are free; you don't have to worry about panhandlers. Therefore, unless you drink and don't rent a car (use regular gas) your trip has the potential to be inexpensive. Lastly, my biggest tip: be careful where you rent your car...there were a lot of people telling us how the rent a car place charged them for preexisting damage and a costly down payment so definitely take pictures of even the most frivolous damage. We went in November and the roads were clear we had no problems. We rented a car from Green Motion, which we lucked up through Expedia and paid approx. 300 for the week with not down payment. We had no problems from them, but still protect yourself and take pics. The only part of driving that took some getting use to was …"take the first exit at the roundabout" or "take the 2ond exit at the roundabout," however, you will catch on fast. As for there street signs....yes they are in their language, but the resemblance makes them internationally recognizable. Lastly, everywhere we went to eat we were offered whale or their national bird, which was devastating to my daughter who is vegan. If you are a foodie like me...go to Taps Barinn and get their 7 course meal omg delicious! Once again, my Instagram has a highlight titled "Iceland" where capture every step of the way.

My family and I absolutely loved it here. We did absolutely everything. We visited a dozen temples. I must say I enjoyed getting in the holy water at Tirta Empul and I loved Tirta Gangga as well because I am obsessed with koi fish. When you go to Tirta Gangga buy at least 4 bags of food per person so you can get an awesome picture with the koi fish. They also have they cool pet bats you can hold when you walk in and I know your thinking of no but they were cute with fury heads lol and they had owls. Something about holding that owls and looking in their eyes was spiritual for me, idk how to explain it, just check it out. When leaving Tirta Empul make sure you stop in the shops, omg I bought home the most beautiful canvases. The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary was very fun as well, not to often do you get to take a selfie with a monkey. However, don't ask the people there to take pictures and pan handle you. You can take your own pictures, you do not have to pay them to take a picture. They tell you that you can't feed the monkeys because that's their way of saying you have to pay us to take the picture because feeding them is the only way you are able to get a selfie with them. My biggest tip for the monkey forest and Tanah Lot is do no wear glasses or any accessories that a monkey will snatch. They get very domineering, so just leave all valuables in the car. Also, after exploring Nusa Penida I was so upset with myself for queuing in those long lines at The Bali Swing. The Nusa Penida swing (once you make it to the bottom) is so awesome. You literally swing over the water, which is absolutely beautiful and the best part there was no line. Also, we went to Tegallalang Rice Terraces, where we rode a bike in the air and they had a swing there with a beautiful scenery and NO line. My boyfriend hated to pay to use the bathroom, idk but that really abrasively annoyed him. As for me, it didn't bother me. Our US dollar was equivalent to like 1430 IDR, so it didn't bother me. More importantly, I looked at it as their water is sparse and that was a form of survival for them. The best part of my trip, if you are not scared of heights, was Nusa Penida. Please take the steps down to Nusa Penida, it was very scary for me...I literally cried the entire way down, but once down there, it was refreshingly breathtaking (that's an understatement). Oh and take sneakers, it made the crawl/walk down so much easier. I definitely recommend wearing something you don't mind getting wet....we took a speed boat there from Sanur and there is NO ramp to get on the boat, you walk in the water. Also, carry baby wipes and hand sanitizer everywhere. Lastly, we stayed at the Intercontinental, which is right on Jimbaran Beach...WE LOVED IT. I will add pictures and feel free to check out my Instagram highlights titled "Bali" and "Bali2" where I walk you through every adventure I went on.

My family and I did a 2 day stay here on our way back from Bali and did not enjoy it here at all. The language barrier was overwhelming me. Unfortunately, while at the airport we bought coffee and in return the lady gave us fake money. The authorities did nothing about it. In fact, they thought it was funny. They stated that was not a big crime in their country. If you are not familiar with yen definitely get familiar with it when you convert it because that happens very frequently there. However, we did eat amazing Vietnamese food at Tiger Prawn. The best Vietnamese food I ever had to be exact. Lastly, make sure you have some sort of app that you can utilize to translate your language. Also, google search does not work, we used Baidu search engine. I personally will not go back. I did not like flying with their airline either. We literally stood in line in the plane for like 15 minutes because adults would run up with their children talking really loud (of course we did not understand their language) however, we interpreted it as... children hold precedents over the bathroom . However, after 15 minutes I had enough; we refused to let anyone else get in front of us. As my daughter and I was freshening up in the bathroom at the airport we noticed nobody washed their hands after utilizing the toilette. A lot of people were very rude and unhelpful. Also, it was hard for us to get a taxi. I hate to sound negative, but I want to be transparent as possible. We will not be returning here.