Asklemmy

Will you be able to poop during the duration of the trip?

>travels halfway around the world

>worries about food being expensive

Sandwiches? I did sandwiches and snacks.

fire or microwave

Quite disparate levels of technology you've got there! When defending yourself against an attacker, are your options flint spear or laser pistol?

Because if so, you might enjoy Fallout 2 😉

Tfw you're an Dutchy and simple home-prepaired sandwitches (read two slices of bread with some butter and cheese between them, nothing fancy), are the countries national breackfast and lunch. Warm food is for dinner traditionally 🤣.

Either way, sandwitches (no need to limit to peanut butter, a lot can be put on bread!), salads (pasta or normal), fruit, veggie, cheese, and certain type of meat (like smoked or dried sausage, or beef). They all make great parts for cold meals you can keep in your bag till lunch (speaking from experience). Some cheese & meat are even packed per small packages for easy take along as snack usage.

I would suggest you do go to restaurants a few times, just to try the local cuisine (or their variation of other cuisines). But it probably will be expensive for you indeed. Whenever I'm in Asia, I feel rich (and I'm really not). Even Japan, who is often said to be expensive, is cheaper than my country. Especially when it comes to food.

I was just in Iceland for a week or so. Restaurants were a bit on the expensive side coming from the US, but not terrible. Cheap sandwiches abound there, though: at most gas stations or the supermarkets I could get a premade sandwich for $4 US or so. I largely did day tours as well, and all the ones I went on stopped at a couple of gas stations through the day for pit stops and food, and the sandwich selection was adequate. Personally,I wouldn't stress too much.

I don't have any good suggestions, but I have two questions that might be relevant to you or to other people who do have ideas.

• Will you be visiting a grocery store in Iceland to get your ingredients? Or will you be packing them in your luggage on the flight over?
• If they are in your luggage, will there be any customs tomfoolery if you're bringing lots of food with you? (I have never flown with lots of food in my luggage; I have no idea if this is even a concern, but wanted to bring the question up in case it is.)

Couscous. It can be "cooked" in cold water if necessary. It also goes well with most things so if you find something you can afford, perhaps you can add it.

Ask the locals though, what is affordable there.

My go to travel meals are:

Bread with cheese (and almost whatever else you might put in there). Wrap it in foil and it will be ready to eat whenever.

Cold pasta with cheese - or even normal pasta with tomato sauce cold is great. My Italian friends eat this for lunch regularly.

Cold pizza slices are great - I normally make simple pizza using baguettes and tomato sauce (passata) with cheese. One baguette is enough to make pizza for my family of 4.

Pasta salad - pasta cooked and cooked and then salad of your choice - even cold cuts of meat to well in here and it’s economical to make a huge amount and put it in the fridge

Actually thinking about it, I eat a lot of lunches made from cold leftovers and I think they taste brilliant without having to heat them up. Obviously things like soup, or ramen noodles and other hot liquid meals don’t taste good at all cold.

Go to the supermarket and get ready-made meals. It's way cheaper than restaurants and you'll get to try local delicacies :)

Hey, you're correct it's pretty expensive to buy food here.

If you want to try and get a feel for some of the prices you can try your luck here with Google translate -> https://kronan.is/snjallverslun (this store is much nicer and just as cheap as the self proclaimed discount supermarket Bónus)

Expensive stuff includes but is not limited to; fresh meat and fish, most non basic fruit, fresh pastries, non factory bread, meat toppings, cheese, good yoghurt, most cereal, and more. Basically anything good and healthy. It's gotten much worse in the past two years compared to the other Nordics because the icelandic aristocracy has taken a real liking to greedflation. All the fast food and restaurants are crazy expensive. Anywhere a tourist might go is also crazy expensive.

The less expensive foods might include: basic fruit like banana and some type of apples, factory made bread, cheaper types of biscuits, cheaper types of pasta and canned goods, cheaper types of yogurt. Some dried fruit and nuts. You should be ok with making sandwiches as someone else suggested.

Good luck, try not to get stuck here for too long 😅

One of my favorite snacks to eat on daytrips are hardboiled eggs. You could bring chili/spice mix packets with you to add flavor on the road (I like buying some labeled as "hot pot mate" from my local chinese market). Not much of a meal by themselves of course, but can be a very filling supplement to something like a sandwich or a salad. Good as in between snacks too.

Sushi

Beans, lentils and rice are highly nutritious, can all be eaten cold or at room temperature and won't spoil if you make them the day before and keep them in a closed Tupperware.

Pasta salad is one of my go-to lunches on the go. Fusili pasta mixed with any and all vegetables you prefer. For protein I'll add boiled eggs, beans and/or fried chicken strips. Easy to make, nutritious and good to eat cold/room temperature.

Iceland is amazing, hope you have a greta trip!

Not sure about Iceland, but several countries place some constraints on which foodstuffs you can enter the country with (not asking about importing, etc, even for personal consumption). I’d check this beforehand.

Not sure if it’s in your list, but the hot dog places were immensely popular and quite cheap when we were there a few years ago. Bæjarins Beztu was very tasty. Ate hot dogs with crispy onions and remoulade A LOT when we got home to recreate them. Even if you can’t take them with you during the day tours I’d recommend trying it out anyway.

A caponata sandwich with a shed load of cheese should keep you going for a while. Or if you don't want to make caponata, grill some veg instead.

You can get prepackaged meals that you can eat after submerging the packet in hot water for a few minutes. Hot water is easily available in most place, even more so if you carry a flask.

Protein bars are filling and quite nice to eat. Dried fruits like apricots or dates are also a nice calorie rich option. Bread and jam/pb are the usual travel staples. Milk powder and cornflakes/cereal is also an option, but not one of my favourites.

You can also carry out forms of bread like pretzels, bagels or focaccia which will last for a few days or even more.

Don't forget that experiencing local food is part of any travel experience :) you're not going to travel to Iceland to just eat in the future. So it might be a good idea to explore local supermarkets for some local fruits, bread, snacks and so on. Hopefully some Icelandic person will chime in with more suggestions.