Iceland - Prologue
In September 2025 I rode my bike from London, UK to Iceland.
Leaving London on the afternoon of the 29th Auguest I made my way up to Harwich for the overnight Stena Line ferry, the first of 6 ferries this trip. My target was to ride from Hook of Holland up to Hirtshals in the north of Denmark for the Smyril Line ferry over to Iceland.
This was a trip I’ve been planning for so long and it was surreal to be actually on the way. I still had a lot of miles to go to get to Iceland although it’s amazing just to be free to ride my bike every day. The ferry to Iceland I booked over a year ago and since then I’ve been planning and dreaming.
Arriving in the Netherlands we quickly passed through the border checks and got my passport stamped. It’s still really strange to me that we need to get our passports stamped when we go over to mainland Europe.
Today my aim was to get to around Bremen, a little over 400km. The weather at this point was quite nice, warm, dry, and no wind. Although the trip definitely wouldn’t be like this a lot! My route was mostly along the A12, A1, then the A1 autobahn into Germany. It’s was amazing to finally be on the road on this trip that I’d been planning for so long! Having three days to get to Hirtshals I’d planned to stay around Bremen, Germany, then around Aarhus in Denmark and then finally stay in the Montra Skaga Hotel in Hirtshals which is only a few minutes from ther ferry terminal.
Making pretty good time I was soon at the Dutch/German border and we pulled off the dual carriageway which is coned off into a service station. I expected to show my passport there but a single guy was there just waving people past. I made pretty good time up to Bremen and then checked into my hotel for the night which was pretty decent and had 1980s vibe which I enjoyed. There was no food at the hotel but I’d eaten a good lunch on the road so I just had some snacks and relaxed for the evening.
The next morning I packed up the bike and headed up to Aarhus to stay in the second hotel. Soon enough I was past Hamburg, which was quite busy, and crossing the German/Danish border which you didn’t even need to stop for. I was really excited to have that freedom of border crossings which I really miss nowadays, with a British passport. Eventually I arrived in Aarhus at my hotel, but I’d made a mistake in my booking and instead of booking the hotel I was at—which was close to the motorway and slightly out of town, which I prefer—I’d accidentally booked a hotel from the same chain in more central Aarhus so had to ride there instead. It turned out to be fine though and more options for dinner.
Riding from Aarhus to Hirtshals the next day I stopped into Frederikshavn on the north east coast of Jutland. Years ago I worked at Stena Line ferries there so I thought I’d go and check the place out to see how much I remember of it. Although I recognised the Stena Line offices immediately the rest was slightly unfamiliar, although this was a long time ago!
By this point the wind was really quite strong coming off the sea so I made my way up to Hirtshals and checked into my hotel which was really lovely. That evening I relaxed and slept really well. The morning wasn’t such an early start as the ferry was at 11:30 and we could check in a couple of hours earlier so I had the chance of a good breakfast in the hotel and then made my way to the ferry terminal. As I arrived there were a few cars and huge 4x4 truck type campers but not many bikes, although a load more bikers turned up as we got through the check-in. As we stood around we chatted and it was nice to meet a bunch of people, some of whom I’d see regularly through the trip.
Riding onto the ferry we strapped the bikes up and everybody went to their cabins to get changed and then most people went up on deck to watch the boat slip out of port.
I spent a fair amount of time in a nice little spot on the boat which was sheltered and I could watch the sea going by. Seasickness does’t really affect me, having a lot of experience sailing, but it was pretty calm as we sailed out of the Kattegat strait which connects the North Sea to the Baltic sea alongside the Danish peninsula of Jutland. As we sailed towards the Faroe Islands and then Iceland I watched Norway pass by and spotted Mandal on the south coast; the only place in Norway I’ve ever visted having done a yacht race from the UK to there, years ago.
We were on our way!
Next: Iceland - At Sea