Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Icelandic Wishlist: A ferry from St Johns to Reykjavik please!

Iceland is at the intersection of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, so in essence it's part of North America and Europe. Unfortunately, only Europe is making an effort to connect to the place.

You can take a ferry from Denmark to Iceland with your own bike and tour this spectacular island for just over 1000 Euro (personal cabin - half that if you share) in the summer and for less than 400 Euro in the off season. If an enterprising ferry operator would start sailing from St John's Newfoundland to Reykjavik, not only would we North American types be able to explore this beautiful and relatively empty piece of the world, but we'd also have a land line to Europe since we could explore Iceland and then ferry to Denmark if means and time permitted.


I'm just a couple of days past a 9 day odyssey around Iceland in a rental car, and all I could think of was how brilliant it would have been on my Triumph Tiger that is sitting in a garage in Canada.

The ferry wouldn't have to run all the time, but four sailings a year would allow a number of adventurous North American motorcyclists to discover the magic of Iceland, and maybe wander on to Europe itself on their own two wheels.

Ride Iceland on your own motorcycle:  Live in Europe?  You can do it now!  Live in North America?  Keep dreaming.

St John's Newfoundland to Prins Christiansson in Greenland to Reykjavik, Iceland. A regular ferry to these places also means another regular ground based means of importing and exporting people and cargo.  The existing ferry from Denmark to Seyðisfjørður on Iceland's east coast could take you on to Europe and Asia.
Costs to get to the European leg of your ride.  With a St John's to Iceland ferry you'd be able to surface travel without special cargo headaches from Los Angeles to Tokyo across Eurasia.