Twenty minutes east of Vik, Iceland are the remains of a US Navy Douglas Super DC-3 airplane that crashed in 1973. The plane lies two miles off of Route 1 (the "Ring Road") on a black sand beach. Before 2016, visitors could drive their vehicle right up to the plane, but now must walk the two miles from the road due to new restrictions by the land owner.
The wrecked DC-3 is in natural decay, so visitors can climb atop it and go inside. Some people use it as an overnight camping spot, although the wind from the nearby ocean might make them reconsider.
This southern part of Iceland near Vik receives much more rain than the rest of the country. The plane has weathered four decades of coastal storms, but is mostly intact. Its electrical guts hang out of the cockpit and blow during strong winds.
The Solheimasandur black sand beach is desolate. Besides the abandoned plane, there's no other structures in sight, and no vegetation. The black color in the sand comes from basalt, an igneous rock.
