Waterfalls

Glaciers

Mountains

Lakes

Aurora Borealis


Introduction
The silver lining (if there is any) of the pandemic is that I “Shelter in place” and have plenty of time to catch up on my travel journals. Since I have not posted any TR for a while, it is time that I share an incredible photography adventure with you.

Known to some as the Land of Fire and Ice, Iceland is a paradise for nature lovers, hikers, trekkers, and outdoor adventurers of all kinds. Landscape photographers are drawn to Iceland by the hundreds. They run photography workshops and flooded their YouTube channels with videos & photos. Their online presence further fuels the already red-hot tourism business in Iceland.

My plan is to explore Iceland in 2 weeks with a rental car. I fully anticipate getting a heavy dose of waterfalls, glaciers, geyser, mountains, quaint villages and hopefully Aurora Borealis. We (DW is traveling with me) will circle the Golden Circle and then put a ring around the Ring Road. Here is a multi-part Trip Report that will take you virtually on this adventure without leaving your seat. Enjoy!

Due to the significant length of this travel journal, the entire Iceland Ring Road (IRR for short) adventure is written as a series of 17 parts. Despite the fact that we continued additional travel to Warsaw, Riga and Oslo after Iceland, this series will not cover any trip beyond Iceland. That will be reserved for possible future trip reports.

Iceland has been on my bucket list to explore and for landscape photography for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile my travel calendar had been very full for the last 2 years.

In 2019 American Airlines (AA) announced several new routes to Europe, including Iceland. At the same time I have accumulated quite a stash of AA miles that are faced with diminishing values, I decided to go to Iceland with a one-way redemption ticket. Unfortunately, business class was not available (I doubt AA has ever released any U seat for redemption on this route) and I settled in MCE (which is economy with auto upgrade to Mid Cabin Extra by virtue of my AA EXP Elite status) on a retrofitted Boeing 757.

In typical trip planning fashion, I added Warsaw, Riga and Oslo on the tail end of Iceland. So now the flying portion of the itinerary would look like this: SFO-DFW-KEF-WAW-RIX-OSL. With the return soon to be sorted!

After some research for the return, we opted to get a "oneworld Alliance" Round the World (RTW) ticket, ex-OSL DONE4.The DONEx products are Business Class (Fare D) across all chosen partner airlines, except where upgrades are cleared (to First Class on AA only).

At the time of booking, ex-OSL offered the cheapest fare, in part due to the strength of the US greenback (or the weakness of NOK). With this DONE4 ticket (see the first map below), we can use the first 3 flights to bring us back to LAX. From LAX, a separate ticket will get us home to SFO. Thus, all flights are sorted and booked.

For those who are less familiar with the xONEx ticket concept, please consult the oneworld.com web site. Ours consists of 16 flights (maximum allowed) and 4 continents (fares vary by the # of continents and point of first departure) as shown on the flight map below (sequential flights from first to last):

OSL-DOH-LHR-LAX-JFK-SCL-BOG-SCL-GRU-DFW-HKG-BOM-KUL-NRT-LHR-DOH-OSL.

ROUND THE WORLD ex-OSL DONE4 ITINERARY (only the first 3 flights are used to return to LAX, near home)


To repeat, the first three DONE4 flights are: OSL-DOH-LHR-LAX. Then added a separate one-way ticket for the short 377 air mile trip back home (our home port is SFO), LAX-SFO.

NOTE: We were able to get UG'd to First Class with SWUs (aka System Wide Upgrade) on LHR-LAX on AA 77W metal. So all was well!

ITINERARY FLIGHT MAP: TO ICELAND & RETURN (including the first 3 flights from DONE4 ticket)


Listed below are previously posted Trip Reports, feel free to check them out:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...re-wheels.html

2015 Year-End Bliss: 27 flights; 55,992 BIS miles; 3 Continents. Not Mileage Run

Hanami & good eats in Kansai/Tokyo; Camera Purchase; AA137/138 J; Wing F, JL Sakura F

Another RTW in F/J (AA, MH, QF, CX, JL): 16 segments and 12 cities in mega-pixels

100 days & 500 photos: my oneworld DONE3 Adventures

Up next Part 02: Crossing the Pond (SFO-DFW-KEF) & Reykjavik