(Pardon my English, not native speaker but will try to do best in translation)
Most important thing during the trip is your hunger! How do we control our budget and knowing not to spend too much money on food? Iceland is quite expensive living expense country compare to other countries of the world. This trip my group stayed in Iceland for a week and we did not rent a camper van. We rented 4×4 car and sleep at hotel or guest house every night. Mostly we will cook for ourselves and dine in once in a while. Lot of review said Bonus supermarket is the cheapest but they never actually visualize it to us! In this blog I’ll show you guys receipts from supermarket and quantity of food you will get from food shopping here.
Lot of things that I’ve written also have shot in video too. You can either watch it now or watch it later after fisnish the blog. Content in video is not so perfect, please think of it as additional visualize from this blog.
Note: this is experience from Thai people traveling in Iceland so what we think it’s expensive it might not be expensive for people who live in other countries.
Supermarket in Iceland
You must have seen many blogs and reviews saying that the cheapest one is “Bonus”. It’s true but it also close very early. There’re some others that open till late like 10-11pm and some even open 24hr. But the time is a main factor for price! From this trip we set our own reminder ” the faster it close, the cheaper it is” I think it’s funny. So check closing time from Google first to make sure you don’t need to spend extra bucks. This trip our group mainly shopping at Bonus only one day that we can’t come back before 6pm and need to go to a bit more expensive one.
Tips: 100kr (Icelandic krona) is about USD1 it’s similar conversion to Japanese Yen
Tips: You will need to pay for plastic bag so carry your own bag is always good
Food we prepare from Thailand
As most of Thai people do, we brought can food, pasteurized food and some chili paste there too! In quite a good quantity. Not only to save some budget ($1 per pack) but also it help us on getting taste of Thai food in some meals. I would recommend the soft package over canned food since it will help decrease weight and easy to pack in your luggage space. One good thing about this kind of can food also very easy to add up meats and vegetables while cooking. Let’s say one green curry paste can add up milk or coconut milk, meats and vegetable and seasoning with fish sauce and other things you have. Taste might fade a bit but of course, it helps you change to Thai’s tongue during the trip.
Anyway don’t forget to bring some food container with you. We took glass lock one with us. It’s very convenience to pack your food on road trip. And also don’t forget silver utensil, eating is plastic ones are not as good.
We saw some plastic spoons and forks that we could get for free in Amsterdam packed and sell in Iceland’s national park tourist information center for almost $10!! I think it’s way too expensive to buy these regular stuffs there.
Bonus food quantities and receipt
We group of five went to supermarket once every 2-3days. Each time we spent around 6000-7000kr and these food last for 2days. Breakfast was always some easy instant food with addition of meats, eggs and vegetables. Lunch was always sandwich. For dinner we do proper cooking at our place.
First roung in Bonus cost 7,377kr
Note from my feeling
- Bell pepper (219kr) here is super good. Very sweet and tasty
- Championge muchroom (about 300kr) is also very impressive (it’s not common to find fresh campionge in Thailand). Good price and fresh. We cooked almost everything with it!
- Banana is extremely expensive (300kr) compare to what we had at home
- Meat price tag is a bit confuse because what it shown will be price per Kilogram. They will be weight at cashier. As you can see in bill, meat price come with @
- Eggs is also very expensive (598kr per dozen!). There are some cheaper price there as well (300kr) but we can not read Icelandic language so we took wrong one ;( Later we found out how to deal with this problem, stay tune…
- Fish roe in tube, the one that looks like toothpaste, is good! Lot of seafood smell but it goes really well with bread and cream cheese
Later round receipt 6,235kr
Same stuffs just two photos
Note on my feeling
- For bread, I would recommend you to get a bit more expensive one. It taste a lot better. We tried the cheapest plain one… it’s horrible… Just adding 50kr and your life quality will be lifted lol.
- There’s instant rice! very fair price and good quantity (198kr). You can check full review on this rice in video. If you are Asian and addicted to rice don’t worry about it anymore! Bonus has this for you
- For meat, we always get minced pork (634kr) and small pack of ham(198kr) for sandwiches
- Salmon here is superb! (641kr) similar price to pork!
Tips: Salmon in Icelandic language is “lax” when you tried to read on any lable there’s no English there
Tips: If you can not read the name and price tag, go look for this machine. It’s a barcode scanner machine. There’re fews hanging around wall and column. We found out on our few last days… so we need to eat some golden eggs.
These are marinated salmon from “Kronan” it’s another good supermarket in Iceland. Quite similar to Lotus in Thailand. I can’t remember the price but we took some back and cooked, taste very good! 
Beer price for drinker!
It’s a bit funny, we didn’t know they don’t sell beer in supermarket. We learnt last day that in Iceland they will separate liquor store from supermarket. Only brand we will find in Bonus is “Thule” which is really low alcohol beer. Very similar to American beer. I assume that they can sell only low alcohol % in supermarket
Thule beer 89kr
These are beer form another place 125-175kr
You can see that Thule beer here sell at 125kr while Bonus is 85kr. It means this shop close quite a while after Bonus!!
And we need to talk about these malt drinks (155kr). We thought it was malt beer. Bought two, they do taste good but drinker in our trip was very disappointed.
basic food price in Iceland supermarket
Here are some photo and price tag of food in Rekjavik supermarket. This is the on ewent to shopping at 8pm. I think this will help you get picture of food expense in Iceland.
Tips: Seems like people here love Thai food! All supermarket will have Thai instant food and paste! If you have budget, you don’t need to bring them from Thailand or you can even stop by Thai restaurants around town.
Food price at gas stations and resturants ร
These are price from gas station to the way to Glacier lagoon
I quote some out here
- Lamp stew 1,895kr
- Sandwich 1,250kr
- Fish burger 1,350kr
- Meal set, beef sandwich, french fries and coke 1,859kr
- Lamb steak with vegetable and potatoes 2,580kr
These are some restaurant price signages in Reykjavik downtown
This Hard Rock cafe is a very good standard that you can compare price for your own country. Burger here is around 2,500kr
อันนี้ดูเป็นร้านแซนวิสเลือกเครื่องได้ราคาประมาณ 2,200-3,000kr
Overall
Living expense for food is expensive compare to Thailand. Whatever you buy it will start at 200kr. But all accommodation will have a very nice kitchen, fully equipped. I think it’s standard for accommodation here. Also you can find world wide ingredients left from previous guest. Food we got from restaurant or gas station are so so, plain taste. Except salmon and fish dish, they all very good! But preference on taste is different on each person so you need to try it yourself.
And one addition thing is when in Iceland, I always craving for food! I assume that because my body need to face with extreme weather so I always eat and get hungry. While you are on the road here and looking around you will notice that there’s nothing! really nothing! Landscape here is only volcanic soil, dried grass and moss… plus with cold windy and humidity from rain. It’s not a weather for human to live. So my instinct keep telling me to eat! (what a good excuse) I felt like if I got left for a night I’ll die for sure lol. So this trip even I walked and climbed a lot, I still maintain my weight.
Ok, this is all about food I think it worth telling from this trip. I hope you guys enjoy it! have fun in Iceland!
I post my video again here. In case you want to watch more additional details fro mthis blog, All of my videos come with English subtitle please check them out!
Along the way, Iceland journal 2017
Review how to prepare shoe for Glacier walk click here
First part, experience of Glacier walk click here
Read about how we chase Northern light (Aurora) here
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