Renting a Car Seat in Iceland

Renting a car seat in a different country can be tricky since different countries have different laws and requirements. I personally hate the thought of bringing our car seat from home (we did it once and was a hassle) so we opted to rent from KuKu campers since they had the option.

With that said, there were a few challenges:

• Finding a car seat that fit our toddler - who is only 3 years old, but wears 5 year old clothing. At home in the US, due to his age, he is required to be in a traditional 5 point harness car seat. We have a "grow with me" seat at home so has been able to fit him at any age. However, the rental car seats that resembled ours at home the closest were way too small (infant car seats). The only other type of car seat they had to fit our toddler looked more like a booster seat - but with straps for the shoulders... Kind of like a car seat?

• Then, figuring out where to put it was a brief debacle. Our campervan had a divider between the front & back so if we we're to put our toddler's car seat in the back, one parent would need to sit back there with them - or leave him in the back alone but have to pull over every time he needed something. I actually asked the KuKu camper staff to help me look up the laws in Iceland and according to his height and weight, and airbags settings, he was allowed to sit up front - so that is what we ended up doing. It felt really weird since here at home in the US, especially in our state of Washington, children under 13 years old can't sit in the front seat.

• Figuring out how to install and properly use a car seat from a different country was a learning curve... Do your best and ask for help!

• Since the car seat we used was more like a booster seat, my 3 year old had a hard time falling and staying asleep on our drives because he was sitting completely upright and his head kept falling forward and waking himself up. Whereas at home the car seat we have still leans back a little bit and is more comfortable for sleep.

Regardless of the challenges, I still would have chosen to rent versus bringing ours from home - however I have recently purchased the RideSafer Travel Car Seat Vest, used it on a recent trip to Alaska for 3 weeks, and love it. It's can literally be thrown in your carry on bag. I wish I would have had this for Iceland! I've linked it here.