How to travel Cheap without a Cheap experience

okay don't know if its well-known that iceland is hella expensive.... but it doesn't have to be if you're willing to give up a few things. During my trip to iceland I was only there for the sights, not so much the comfort or convenience of the trip. I spent under 200 dollars on gas- to get where we needed and on food for six days.

-- Food: GO GROCERY SHOPPING. getting things at the grocery store is almost 3x cheaper than eating out. We went to the "Bonus" store that was 5 minutes from the airport and stocked up on food and split the cost. We got granola and milk that we ate almost every morning, bananas, bread and things for sandwhiches, and a few boxes of granola bars. It wasn't a lot, but it got us through the next 5 days haha! The last day we did stay in Reykjavik and couldn't find anything under 1800 ISK  (about 15 USD). So we ended up eating at "Icelandic Street Food" and paying 15 bucks for soup and bread, but hey it was a cute little hole in the wall experience. worth it.

YUMMIEST cinnamon roll from a  Reykjavik bakery here

stopped at the cutest local coffe/soup shop in Selfoss & I orded a chai latte <3 

-- Travel: RENT A CAR. Don't pay for those travel tour things, its much cheaper to just rent your own car through priceline or some other travel agency. plenty of small cheap cars (200USD/week) or even campervans (from 300USD/week) if you want to have a place to stay on the go.  Gas isn't too terribly expensive and if you drive smart, you won't have to fill up too much. However, we didn't drive the entire ring road around all of iceland because we were advised its worth it to just stay on the south side, which saved us a LOT of gas.
-- Where to stay in Iceland: Hostels. If you're staying in the capital (Reykjavik), I would reccommend staying in a hostel. We stayed at 'Reykjavik Hostel Village' our last night in iceland and it wasn't a 5 star hotel, but it was a small, warm place to stay for the night. We split the cost and it was about 25-30 USD/ per person. There are plenty of guest houses all across the southern part of Iceland as well, just search priceline or google for them. We did stay at a free campsite in our car 2 nights, its just a place to park your car with free bathrooms and they do offer 5 dollar showers. There are plenty of campsites along the way where you can stop and shower/ cook food/charge your devices.. which is what we did a lot of the time. Simply seach "campsite" in google maps and it'll pull up lots of options.