On our Iceland trip itinerary included 8 nights of camping in a rental campervan, with 1 AirBnB rental scheduled for the middle of our camping trip to give us the ability to do laundry and 2 nights in an AirBnB rental in Reykjavik at the end of the trip.
Family friendly rentals seemed like a really good idea to us. We figured an apartment would give us space to cook, but also space to relax in the evening once Little MPB went to bed.
Midnight View From Our Apartment
The first place we rented was really great*. It was clearly set up to be a full-time rental property, which was just fine with us. It had 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and a full kitchen. More then enough space for us. It was rather new and simply decorated, and met all our needs. Our biggest struggle was keeping Little MPB out of the mini-fridge – evidently he thought a mini-fridge was the best toy he’d ever encountered. Which was rather cute and made me realize we probably should get him a kids kitchen to play with at home. Also, to our surprise they had a pack’n’play waiting for us when we arrived. This was the only night on our entire trip that Little MPB slept in his own space – it was a dream come true! We even met the gentlemen who rented us the apartment and he was very nice. The only downfall of this place was that we booked it solely for doing laundry halfway through our trip. I understood from the website that it the laundry was in the room. In fact, I even asked before we booked to confirm that we would have access to laundry while we were there. Much to my surprise it turned out that laundry was shared with the neighbouring apartment. And unfortunately the neighbouring apartment arrived first and used the washer and dryer straight until after 11pm. At this point, travelling with a toddler, laundry was a basic necessity for us. So, this meant I stayed up almost all night doing laundry (Mr. MPB was the driving, so he needed his sleep, and I didn’t dare set an alarm clock to wake me up each time a load would be done for fear that the alarm would wake up Little MPB). So the first night we had space and a real bed to sleep in, I basically pulled an all-nighter. Which combined with all of Little MPB’s sleep troubles so far on the trip, was beyond frustrating. I have to say, asides from the badluck with the laundry, this apartment was great. I’d absolutely recommend this place to others travelling through Akureyri.
Upon Arrival in Reykjavik – The MPB’s Don’t Travel Light!
The second apartment rental* was for 2 nights in Reykjavik at the end of our trip. This apartment was beautiful, and a 2 minute walk to everything – it was perfect by all of my previous travel standards. It was a 1 bedroom place, but it was very spacious. The pictures made it look perfect, and upon arrival it looked exactly like the pictures. We were really happy with our choice the second we walked in. However, within about 2 minutes of arriving we discovered the problem – it was so not baby proofed. I didn’t even think of this when I booked the rental, and looking back at the pictures of the rental I should have clued into this problem. The apartment was beautifully decorated, but many things were easily reachable and therefore breakable for Little MPB. We promptly moved all the low and breakable decorations to the kitchen counter. And, once we moved the breakable things, it worked well for us. I’d highly recommend this rental to any adults visiting Reykjavik.
So, the lessons about Apartment rentals are:
- I still think the AirBnB apartment rental was the best approach. Hotels are freakishly expensive in Iceland, and sitting quietly on a hotel bed hoping Little MPB would fall asleep just wouldn’t have been as comfortable for the Adult MPBs.
- With a toddler under the age of 18 months, the biggest thing I’d pay closer attention to in the future is the decorations of the rental. When travelling with a toddler, minimal/simple decorations are best.
- I’d also ask about the availability of a pack’n’play and a high chair. Given Little MPB’s refusal to use his peapod, the surprise pack’n’play made our night. And, neither of our rentals had high chairs, and that would have made life just slightly easier.
* This is not a sponsored post. My comments regarding AirBnB and the specific apartments we rented are based solely on our recent experiences.
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This was probably the hardest part of our recent trip to Iceland.
Little MPB is typically a really good sleeper, which is why we really didn’t think about the potential of sleep problems before we left. But I can easily say now that we should never have been so naïve to the potential sleep problems that were likely to come along with a time change, a drastic change in routine and 24 hours of day light. I honestly don’t know what time zone he was living in, but I know it was not our home timezone or Iceland’s timezone. We knew going into this trip that we’d just have to sleep when Little MPB slept, but it was harder then we expected.
As discussed, the plane ride to Iceland did not result in a lot of sleep. So, we started the trip with sleep deprivation. And, for a kid who loves sleep, falling behind on his necessary sleep makes for one very grouchy little guy.
And to complicate things further, Little MPB fully rejected his kidco peapod for sleeping – he has slept in this thing countless times when we’ve travelled to grandparent’s houses or hotels, so his revolt was very unexpected. We made the decision not to co-sleep with Little MPB when he was a baby due to SIDS risks, but given the aforementioned kidco peapod rejection we started on this trip. While granted he’s not longer at risk for SIDS, he simply didn’t know how to sleep with us. It was a steep learning curve for Little MPB who seemed to think co-sleeping meant time to climb all over a very tired mommy and daddy for hours on end. But, I have to acknowledge that there were some pretty cute middle of the night moments, as Little MPB loved climbing on us and always seemed to find something completely adorable to do while playing with us. And, my heart melted every single night when Little MPB decided he was ready to sleep he’d curl up next to Mr. MPB and pull Mr. MPB’s arm around him and then promptly go to sleep snuggled in with Daddy for the remainder of the night.
And then, due to the driving we did during the day, Little MPB would have randomly timed, and random duration of naps. Again, we should have realized this would cause a problem for him as he normally follows are pretty regular schedule since every single day we had no real schedule to our driving. This meant at some sights one of us would stay in the car with Little MPB as he slept, and the other one would go check out the sights. This really wasn’t a big deal, but it really made it hard to create any sort of schedule for Little MPB.
As well, we were camping for 8 nights of this trip. We rented from KuKu Campers*, as they were the best price we could find. Below are photos of our campervan (note that I borrowed these photos from KuKu Campers website as I forgot to take any of our rental which I assure you was never this clean once we began living it).
We had naively assumed that Little MPB would go to sleep in his little peapod and we’d be able to sit outside of the campervan with a beer and a book in the evenings. This never happened. Given the design of our small campervan (kitchen utensils, including knifes, were fully accessible at all times), Little MPB’s peapod rejection and the poor weather (more on that later), the Adult MPB’s had to be with Little MPB every single time he went to sleep and immediately when he woke up which was always at unpredictable times. Basically, without the enclosed peapod, it simply wasn’t safe for Little MPB to be left in the campervan, even for a few seconds, without direct supervision.
My travel lesson regarding sleep for an international camping trip with a toddler is really simple:
Assume the worst, prepare for the worst, and hope that it’s even just slightly better then the worst you’ve imagined.
* This is not a sponsored post. My comments are based solely on our recent experience renting a campervan with KuKu Campers.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
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