Eleven days on Iceland’s Ring Road

I’ve traveled a lot over the years, visiting such places as Alaska, India, Morocco, China, and Taiwan, as well as numerous cities in Europe and North America. However, in March of 2024, I took one of the most extraordinary trips I’ve ever been on, spending 11 days with my wife and 21-year-old daughter (our middle child) doing Iceland’s Ring Road.

Really and truly, it was a spectacular experience. I cannot recommend it highly enough. However, it does require preparation, and I was helped in my preparation from a number of blog posts that other people had made. (A list of the resources I found and used is at the end of this post.) I hope that this (long!) post will help you plan and enjoy your own trip along the Ring Road.

Many of my friends had been to Iceland before us. But almost everyone had stayed in Reykjavik for 1-2 days, typically while changing flights. Maybe they had gone to the Golden Circle. (I’ll have more to say about this in a bit.) The one set of friends who had done the entire Ring Road had gone during the summer, meaning that they missed almost all of the ice and snow that we got in March. So we went into this trip excited, but also without a lot of stories or knowledge of what we were getting into.

Why did we decide to go to Iceland? Because we wanted to go somewhere totally different and a bit wild. This turned out to be precisely the level of difficulty that we wanted; we got to explore and experience the outdoors in more extreme conditions than we’ve ever had before — but we also had Internet service, electricity, supermarkets, and convenient places to stay, in a place with a (mostly) Latin alphabet and people who spoke English.

Here’s the map of where we went; full descriptions of where we stayed, and what we did, are below.

As you can see, we did get to the eastern fjords, but we didn’t get to the western ones. With a few more days, we could (and would) have explored those, as well.

Background on Iceland

If you’re reading this, then you probably know a bit about Iceland — but I’ll still take the opportunity to fill in some gaps with some basic facts: It’s an island nation, a republic (aka democracy without a monarch), and isn’t part of either North America or Europe. Indeed, contrary to what many people think, it’s not a member of the European Union. It also has a very small population for an independent country, with about 400,000 total residents. (More on this later, too.) They have their own language, Icelandic, but people there tend to have excellent English. We communicated in English the entire time, and never had any issues.

Over the years, I had heard at least two other things about Iceland: First, they had a major financial crisis during the Great Recession that started in 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_financial_crisis). The crisis has long since passed, but Iceland’s growth at a tourist destination is partly a result of those issues.

The second thing that I had heard was that Iceland generates power from geothermic plants, meaning that it’s both environmentally friendly and extremely low in cost. This, I had heard (but didn’t quite understand), is because Iceland has lots of volcanoes and underground seismic activity. On a day-to-day basis, this meant that we had more than adequate hot water wherever we went. But it also means that Iceland is full of thermal baths. I’ll write more about that later, but I can already tell you that you should plan to go to as many such baths as you possibly can. You won’t regret it.

I was expecting Iceland to be similar to Stockholm, where I twice visited for conferences. But it’s not; the country clearly has roots in and cultural ties with Scandinavia, but also has its own traditions and styles. We were often struck by the simple practicality of the architecture.

How long do you need?

Iceland is an island, and the Ring Road is (as you would expect), aka Highway 1, goes pretty much around the entire thing. We drove the entire ring road in 11 days, which normally meant driving for 3-4 hours each day, plus doing a fair amount of sightseeing along the way. We did go off Route 1 several times to visit towns and natural sights, but almost all of our time was spent on the Ring Road or very close to it.

We arrived in Iceland on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 20th, and left early on Sunday, March 31st, for what amounted to a 10-day trip. That was definitely enough time for us to explore, sightsee, and enjoy ourselves without feeling too rushed, although it meant that we didn’t get to see the western fjords. We spent the first Saturday in Vik (more on that below) and the second in Reykjavik (more on that, too), staying in hotels (rather than an Airbnb) and exploring where we were. I know that people can take longer to do the Ring Road, and that’s fine, but I can’t imagine doing it in much less.

I should add that you need to take finances into account. Iceland is a very expensive place to live, and that includes as a tourist. We barely went out to eat, mostly cooking meals in our Airbnb kitchens. And yet, it was still not cheap to stay there or to do things. Prepare to spend a fair amount while in Iceland, even on seemingly simple and cheap things.

Finally, the Ring Road is (duh!) a circle. You’ll be arriving at Keflavík Airport, which is a 30-minute drive from Reykjavik. You can then go around the island either clockwise (going north from Reykjavik) or counterclockwise (going east from Reykjavik). We did the later, and I’m very glad that we did, in part because the terrain and nature just got more and more exotic as our trip proceeded. When we arrived in Reykjavik at the end of our trip, we felt (for a short while, at least) like we were in a big city. I go through my itinerary below.

Ways to visit

From what I can tell, very few airlines actually fly to and from Iceland. This means that you’ll either need to take an Iceland Air (https://www.icelandair.com/) flight from your home country, or change planes in an airport with Iceland service. On our way from Tel Aviv, changed planes in Amsterdam. And on our way back, we flew through London’s Heathrow.

As I wrote above, I’ve met many people who fly through Iceland just to have a day or two in Reykjavik, maybe doing some tours that leave from there. Some of my friends raved about their time in the Golden Circle, basically a set of tourist destinations within a short drive of Reykjavik.

However, let me make it clear that if you only stay in Reykjavik, you have missed out on 99 percent of the reason to visit Iceland. Going to the Golden Circle means that you’ve only missed out on 90 percent. Oh, and you’ll be elbow-to-elbow with the other tourists.

I have to admit, the Golden Circle is a brilliant marketing idea. And it’s not totally surprising or random that within a short drive of the capital and most-populated city, you’ll find things to do. But what we saw in the Golden Circle paled in comparison with the awesome natural beauty we saw elsewhere.

In other words: If you’re going to Iceland, then don’t stick to Reykjavik and the Golden Circle. Spend a few days venturing further east or north. You won’t regret it one bit.

Weather

We were in Iceland in late March, and I don’t think that we could have chosen a better time. Why?

1. There is still lots of snow to enjoy, once you leave the southern coast.
2. There isn’t too much snow on the roads.
3. This is low tourist season, which means that you won’t have to wait on line or be crowded by other tourists. Except in the Golden Circle.

How cold is Iceland? I grew up in the Northeastern United States, and spent four years in Chicago. As far as temperatures go, late March was comparable to those places in the winter, typically between 2 and 10 degrees (Celsius) below zero. The southern coast, such as Vik, was a few degrees above freezing for much of the time we were there.

But there’s another factor, one which we didn’t appreciate fully before our trip: The wind in Iceland is incredibly strong. Never before had I experienced constant, howling wind of that strength on a regular basis. We heard that you shouldn’t park your car with the wind coming from behind you, because it might be impossible to close the car door. Or the wind might even rip the door off of the car.

At one hotel, we met a German tourist who had visited Iceland many times over the years. He said that the wind is like this all year round. No matter what, then, you’ll want to dress in multiple layers, with a good coat on the outside to let the wind slide past you.

We were extremely lucky, in that it barely rained or snowed while we were in Iceland. The big exception was when we landed; the flight attendants opened the door, and we felt a WHOOSH of cold air come onto the plane. “Welcome to Iceland!” they shouted at us over the sound of pounding rain and gushing wind, as we walked to the bus that took us to the terminal. I’ve been to such airports before, where you have a stairway and shuttle to get to and from the terminal, but never before was I on one with a roof overhead.

Living in Israel, we don’t have weather even close to what we found in Iceland. We thus stopped at Decathlon (a French-owned sports store) and bought lots of Iceland-specific clothing:

• Good, waterproof winter coats (rated for coldest weather). I would recommend one with a hood.
• Warm pullover sweaters. We wore these a lot, both indoors and out (under our coats).
• Gloves (waterproof, rated for coldest weather)
• Waterproof, insulated snow pants that go over your regular pants. We used these nearly every day.
• Rain pants, basically plastic that goes over your regular pants. We never used these. Maybe we would have, if we had gone in the summer.
• Insulated socks, which you can use by themselves or over regular socks.
• Hats
• Scarves
• Boots. I brought my old snow boots, which were warm but not super sturdy; that was a mistake. My wife and daughter both bought waterproof, insulated hiking boots, and were very happy with them.
• Long underwear. I didn’t get any, but it might not be a bad idea, especially if you’ll be spending extensive time outdoors.
• Quick-drying towel. This isn’t an article of clothing, but did really come in handy. Your towel (from showering or bathing) won’t dry that quickly in the ambient (cold) air. Having a quick-drying towel will help after showering or going to a hot-water spa (see below).

Remember that things like snow pants, rain pants, and sweaters will go on over your regular pants and upper layers, and might need to be a larger size than you usually wear.

Beyond the winter gear, we also packed multiple layers (T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, and long pants). We also (as I’ll write below) made sure that at least one Airbnb would have laundry facilities, so that we could wash our clothes halfway through our trip.

We were in our full gear nearly every time we went outside — a T shirt, long-sleeved shirt, sweater, and coat on top, long pants and snow pants on the bottom, and boots over our socks and insulated socks. And yes, we were still cold when the wind rushed past us.

We also bought walking sticks, but never ended up using them.

The one piece of equipment that we didn’t bring, which might have been nice, are crampons, metal spikes that you attach to the bottom of your boots. The two tours that we took (see below) provided us with crampons, so that we could walk more safely on the snow and ice. (Hiking boots alone are definitely not enough.) There were a few times that we walked around in the snow on our own when crampons would have been helpful.

We also brought a large (3 liter) insulated water holder, which meant that we could have hot coffee, tea, and instant soup in our car while driving. This took up a fair amount of room in our luggage, but it was nice to have hot drinks in the car after hiking in the snow for an hour or two.

I’ll add that while we were in Iceland, the town of Grindavík was basically evacuated because of a volcano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_Sundhn%C3%BAkur_eruptions#Eruptions). This was truly amazing to see on our first night (outside of Reykjavik) and our last night (as we were driving to the airport, as you can see in the above photo), but it was good that we planned our trip after the eruptions started, and knew that we could neither drive nor stay there. The rest of the island kept on going as if there wasn’t anything exciting happening; indeed, when we weren’t nearby to Grindavík, we wouldn’t have known that there was a major volcano erupting nearby.

Paying for things

The Icelandic krona is the official currency in Iceland. As I write this, each krona is worth slightly less than 1 US cent. I know for a fact that they have coins and bills in Iceland, but … I never saw or used them. That’s because I used my credit card (or more accurately, my phone via Google Pay) to pay for everything in Iceland. Absolutely everyone took Visa and MasterCard credit cards; it wasn’t an issue. I’m not about other cards, such as American Express and Discover, though.

Some credit cards will not only charge you a fee for the currency exchange to/from krona. Some credit cards even charge you an additional per-item fee for foreign currency. So you might be able to save some money by using cash or by using a multi-currency card such as the one offered by Wise.com. (I’ve never used it, but it’s supposed to be great.)

Car rental and driving

First and foremost: Driving in Iceland is like in the US, where the steering wheel is on the left and you use the right lane.

Driving around the Ring Road means that you’ll need to rent a car. I’ve been renting through RentalCars.com for many years, and again used them for our rental in Iceland. The rental counter is very conveniently located in the airport when you arrive; they’ll give you a map and some instructions. Then they’ll point to a set of exit doors and a parking lot outside of the airport where the cars are located.

In theory, it should be easy to find your car. In practice, it was windy, cold, and raining when we arrived, and the parking lot was large. So it took us quite some time to find our car. It barely rained the rest of the time we were there, but it was quite a fierce introduction to Icelandic weather, that’s for sure.

I’ve driven in several foreign countries before, and I’ve driven on snow in the past. But all of the blogs that I read in preparing for our trip said that we should get a 4×4. We did, and I’m very glad that we did so.

Having the 4×4 meant that we didn’t have to worry as much about slipping or getting stuck on ice, snow, or mud. In the summer, there are “F” roads, meaning that you’re only allowed to drive on them with a 4×4, because they’re less paved and taken care of. We obviously weren’t able to use those roads when we were there (and I’m not sure if we would have), but even some of the natural sites that we visited in March had roads that were far from smoothly paved; having the 4×4 really put us at ease, and I’m fairly sure that I would have been far more nervous in a regular car.

I also decided to get a gasoline-powered car, rather than an electric one. We had just bought an electric car several months before, and I know how wonderful they are. I also know that charging an electric car in Iceland is relatively inexpensive. However, I wasn’t sure about how the commercial charging would work, or if there were chargers at all of the places where we were going to stay. I thus went with something a bit less experimental, and that would be faster to fill up when we were low.

You have to remember that Iceland is a very sparsely populated country, especially outside of the capital region. This meant that it wasn’t rare for us to drive 30 minutes without seeing any other cars, in either direction. And there were a few times when we were lower on gas than I would have liked, thanks to the fact that gas stations aren’t exactly popping up every few kilometers. It’s quite possible that the closest station will be a 30-minute drive from your current location. And of course, many gas stations are completely unstaffed, especially at night.

If I had to do it again, then my decision about whether to go with a conventional gasoline-powered car or an electric one would depend on whether every Airbnb had an electric charging station. If so, then I would go for an EV.

The Ring Road, despite its fame, doesn’t feel like a major highway: It’s almost always one lane in each direction, with a speed limit of 90 km/h that is very strictly enforced by camera, according to every guide that I’ve ever read. (For two months after our trip, I was nervous that I would get a ticket for the handful of times I went as fast as 100 km/h) You will drive through many towns, at which point the speed limit will drop to 50 or even 30 km/h. I used the cruise control to set a maximum speed of 90 km/h for much of our trip, ensuring that even if I hit the accelerator full throttle, we wouldn’t do over the limit.

So far, it sounds like a pretty easy drive, right? However, you have to take some things into account.

First, there are no shoulders, and the lane markings aren’t always super clear. Next to the minimal-to-nonexistent shoulder will be land or snow, sometimes (but not always) with a fence. This means that a small error might have some big, bad consequences; we saw one car that had turned clockwise by 90 degrees, such that the right doors were on the ground and the left doors were in the air. If you do get into an accident, expect it to take a while for someone to come and help you; the government’s driving guide for tourists says that you should pack water, food, and blankets when you drive, just in case you’ll be stranded for a while.

Second, tourists often stop on the road to take pictures of the amazing, natural beauty. Don’t do this! I can assure you that wherever you might want to stop to take a picture, there will be a sign (with a tree and picnic table) indicating that there’s a parking lot where you can stop and take photos. A two-lane road with people stopped on the non-shoulder is extremely dangerous, both for the people standing there and for cars going by.

Third, the Ring Road is almost never lit. And it gets very, very dark at night in Iceland, in part because there are so few people and buildings around. We tried to avoid driving at night to the greatest degree possible, in part because it made me nervous.

Finally, there was often snow or ice on the road, or just alongside it. The roads are plowed, but the assumption is that people know how to drive on snow and ice, and that their cars can handle it. So they aren’t going to remove the snow completely, and it’ll pile up immediately next to the road.

That said, navigation was largely quite easy; we used Waze to go all over the country, using our cellular roaming plan, and it wasn’t ever an issue getting signal or getting where we needed to go. (There were two Airbnbs that gave us trouble with navigation; more on that below.) I suggest filling the tank at the start of each day, when you’re likely to be near a gas station, rather than hoping to encounter one at some point. You will, but that “some point” might be an hour away, or take you off of your planned itinerary.

Parking in Iceland is rather interesting: In most places, you can park for free. But if you go to a national park, you might well need to pay for parking. However, there won’t be someone there to tell you this! Iceland doesn’t have much of a population, which means that there will be a sign with a QR code, telling you that you should pay, and naming the apps (we used Parka, https://parka.app/) that you can use to do so. Sometimes, the sign will be electronic, asking you to enter your license plate number.

What if you don’t pay for parking? They say that they record license plates, and will fine you. Is this true? I assumed that it was true, but on one of our hikes, we met the guides at a parking lot that had such a sign. When we asked the guides about parking, they said, “Don’t worry; this lot isn’t really monitored. You don’t have to pay.” I didn’t chance it, but I’m guessing that there were other lots where we could have gotten away without paying. It might be one of these things that only the tourists pay for, because the locals know the reality.

Parking in Reykjavik is another story; I’ll write more about it below.

Bridges and tunnels

While driving the Ring Road, you’ll encounter a lot of bridges. That makes sense; Iceland is an island with a huge number of rivers, streams, and fjords; the quantities of water are truly astonishing. This means that you’ll end up crossing many bridges.

Many of these are single-lane bridges, marked with a yellow sign like the one to the right here. This means that only one car can go across it at a time, with the right of way going to whoever gets there first.

Truth be told, we almost never had to wait at a single-lane bridge, because there were so few other cars on the road. But I’ve read that these bridges can be extremely dangerous because so many people (largely tourists) don’t pay attention, and thus keep going … even when there is someone coming in the other direction.

Every single-lane bridge has a waiting area at its entrance. If you see a car coming toward you, then just pull over into that lane, let the other car cross, and then go on your merry way.

I’ve read that because of the large number of accidents that take place on single-lane bridges, the government is slowly but surely replacing them with multi-lane bridges. We crossed some of those, but the single-lane bridges easily outnumbered them, especially when we were driving next to the eastern and northern fjords.

There are also a number of tunnels in Iceland. The most important one to know about is Vaðlaheiðargöng (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Va%C3%B0lahei%C3%B0arg%C3%B6ng), just east of Akureyri, Iceland’s largest city outside of the capital. (Although let’s remember that this means only 20,000 people live there; more on Akureyri below.) After going through the tunnel, you need to register and pay online; if you don’t, then the rental-car company will be charged, along with a fine for non-payment.

Where to stay

Outside of the capital area and a handful of towns, Iceland is sparsely populated, and many people have large tracts of land. Given the tourism boom, it’s not a surprise that many people have put up rental cabins on that land; you’ll often drive through a field and arrive at a small parking lot with a handful of identical cabins in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

We stayed in a different cabin, found and rented through Airbnb, on each our nights. Every evening, we would arrive at a new cabin, and every morning we would drive off onto our next destination. We only stayed in hotels in Vik (on our third night) and Reykjavik (on our final night), and I feel like that was a good mix.

The hotels that we stayed at (more specifics below) didn’t impress us much. The cabins were generally clean and nice, with a kitchen that we could use for cooking basic things. We’re vegetarian (more on that below), so our meals generally involved some combination of salad, pasta, eggs, cheese, and vegetable stew or soup, along with occasional vegetarian burgers we got at a supermarket (again, more on that below). If you’ll follow a similar pattern, then make sure the place you’re renting has kitchen facilities. One had only a stove and a microwave, which was fine overall but did mean that we were a bit more limited in what we could prepare.

I spent a lot of time planning out where we were going to stay each night. Finding Airbnb that had looked nice, had good reviews, and that would allow us to drive only about 3-4 hours each day was a bit challenging. However, it was worthwhile; we found some beautiful places that were in tip-top condition. Do remember that you’ll have a somewhat limited number of places to choose from as you go around the Ring Road; it’s probably worth a bit of additional driving to get to a nicer place, but at the end of the day, everywhere will have heat, hot water, and a bed, which is enough.

If you’ll be renting an electric vehicle, then you should most definitely find a place that has a vehicle-charging station. Many advertised that they had one; letting the car charge overnight will save you money, time, and agitation while on the road. And now that I’ve driven an EV for a year at home, I realize that starting the morning with a full charge would have been more than adequate for our entire stay. However, this does assume that you can charge at every Airbnb, which isn’t necessarily the case.

In general, every Airbnb worked the same way: Several days in advance, we got instructions for entry from the owner, including the four-digit code for a lockbox in which they had put the keys. We would let ourselves in using the keys in the box. Inside, there would be a booklet describing the apartment, its amenities, and things to do in the area. Only in one case did the owner live on the property. In a second case, they lived across the street, which meant a 10-minute drive.

All of the places we stayed had high-speed Internet service. Most, as I mentioned, had kitchens, generally stocked with coffee, tea, sugar, salt, and a handful of other things. (One place had a cabinet full of dried food that previous guests had left behind, which was … interesting.)

Several had washing machines and dryers, something that I had checked for and planned when choosing places to stay. We bought laundry detergent at a supermarket and then brought it with us. I remember reading about people who used washing machines and dryers at campsites along the Ring Road, but I was very happy loading the washing machine in the evening, putting the laundry in the dryer when we woke up, then packing our dry clothing when we left after breakfast.

We only saw the Airbnb owners on two occasions, and in both cases they were extremely helpful and warm. I realize that part of their incentive is to get a good review on the Airbnb site, and that anything under a 5-star rating threatens their income — but still, we felt like they gave us good service and value for the money. We used the Airbnb app to communicate with the owners, and I felt like they answered our questions extremely quickly. On two occasions, the owners sent me messages telling us to go outside and enjoy the Northern Lights, which was extremely nice of them. (More on the Northern Lights below.)

Staying in an Airbnb can be a bit of a gamble, but I found that they were all just fine.

By contrast, the hotels where we stayed were… fine, but not amazing. They were clean, and the staff was certainly pleasant. But in both Vik and Reykjavik, the staff wasn’t particularly knowledgeable when we asked them somewhat non-standard questions.

Given the high prices we paid, we really expected to get more for our money; in Reykjavik, the hotel breakfast included free coffee… unless you wanted an espresso or the like, in which case you had to pay extra. Moreover, the staff didn’t really initiate any help or suggestions. If I were to do it again, I might well use an Airbnb in Vik; my impression is that Reykjavik is so overrun with tourists that the Airbnb there are even more expensive than the hotels.

The only other general comment I’ll make is that in two cases, the directions and address provided by Airbnb were incorrect. One owner knew this, and even warned me in advance that we shouldn’t follow the directions; unfortunately, the number of places in which we were staying meant that I didn’t remember which owner had given me this warning, which meant that we drove 20 minutes out of our way. In the other case, we drove far out of our way, but the owner was kind enough to give us directions and stand on the road so that we would know where to stop and turn.

Google Maps works great, but the coordinates that several Airbnb hosts gave us were wrong. In one case, they sent us e-mail warning about this in advance. In a second case, we went many km out of our way, contacted her, and found out that we were totally off base.

One last point: We passed many people who had rented camper-vans for their Iceland trip. If you’re young and looking to save some money, then I can easily imagine that this is a great option. I happy to get out of the car every evening, with a real bed, real kitchen, and real shower. Moreover, I feel like we had a nice breadth of experiences at the different cabins, interacting with different people, than would have been the case in a camper. And I’m not sure how happy I would have been driving a larger van on some of the rural roads we used. That said, the country is very well equipped for people using such campers, with a large number of campsites where you can stop, shower, and sleep.

Shopping for groceries

In preparing for our trip, I got the impression that supermarkets in Iceland are (a) rare and (b) close early. Given that we wanted to cook our own dinners and pack our own lunches, I expected that this would give us some trouble. But the Ring Road passes through a lot of major intersections and shopping centers, where you can almost always find at least one supermarket.

It is true, however, that many supermarkets — to say nothing of the convenience stores in many towns and at gas stations — tend to close relatively early. We ended up stopping at a supermarket nearly every afternoon, while we were driving to our next destination. There, we would get all of the food we needed for that night’s dinner, as well as the next morning’s breakfast and lunch, plus snacks to have in the car. We rarely had to search hard for a supermarket, although we did sometimes change our plans slightly to get to one before it closed.

Do realize that stores in Iceland shut down relatively early, and that there’s often nothing nearby if you don’t plan well. I believe that it was on our first afternoon that we went to a local convenience store to get groceries; by 7 p.m., it was shut down for the evening. And that was the largest place to buy things in the area.

The supermarkets that we went to — often Bonus, which you can recognize with a large picture of a piggy bank on the front of the store — were very large, with a wide variety of goods from both North America and Europe, as well as native to Iceland. Yes, most products were more expensive than we were used to, but it wasn’t bank-breaking expensive. I’m sure that we kept costs down by mostly buying produce, dairy, eggs, bread, and pasta.

Iceland has a tradition of eating meat and fish, but there is plenty of vegetarian and vegan food to be found at the supermarket. It wasn’t hard to navigate at all.

There were some local Icelandic foods that we tried: The local yogurt, “skyr,” was available everywhere, and wasn’t bad. We got some Icelandic chocolate bars which were certainly good. I got some excellent local cheese, and particularly liked the one covered in black pepper. And I was the only person on our trip who likes licorice, but I definitely liked the Icelandic black licorice that I bought one day.

Bottom line, if you plan a bit and are willing to let your groceries be in the rear of the car for 1-2 hours, then you’ll be just fine.

Other shopping

We aren’t big shoppers; when we travel, we tend to buy very little. And to be honest, Iceland had fewer products that we were interested in buying than most other places. So we looked around a bit, but didn’t really buy very much.

The one thing that seemed most attractive were the Icelandic sweaters. I have no doubt that they’re of very high quality, and will keep you very warm. But each sweater cost at least $200, and I couldn’t bring myself to buy such an expensive article of clothing.

We stopped at a small shop just off of the ring road, thinking that it would be significantly cheaper than in the big cities, but found that this wasn’t the case.

Organized tours

We went on two organized tours while in Iceland, both with Troll Expeditions (https://troll.is/). These were wonderful in every way, and weren’t much more physically demanding than a regular hike would be. The people at Troll were amazing at every step of the way — from ordering (easily done on their Web site) to their attention to our safety. They checked and double checked that we were appropriately dressed, that our crampons were attached correctly, and that we didn’t wander off into dangerous areas.

We were originally going to do the glacier walk on Friday and the Katla ice cave on Sunday. But early on Friday morning, we received e-mail from Troll saying that the weather conditions meant that we couldn’t actually go on the glacier walk. I called them on the phone, and within several minutes we switched the two trips. It really couldn’t have been easier or more pleasant. The guides all spoke fluent English, were friendly, and easily answered all of our questions.

The Troll site makes it clear how you should dress in order to stay warm, dry, and safe. Some people came dressed far from appropriately, and the Troll staff still allowed them to participate. I was certainly very happy to have all of my gear on, though.

We went on two tours, both of which I encourage you to try:

• Katla ice cave (https://troll.is/ice-caves-in-iceland/ice-cave-tours/katla-volcano-ice-cave/): Caves are usually made out of rock, but this cave is made out of ice. We drove in a “superjeep,” meaning a large jeep with very big wheels, for about 40 minutes to the cave, then walked up the mountain, through the cave, and back down. The cave is truly spectacular. You’ll park your car in downtown Vik (which isn’t that big), and they’ll return you there about three hours later.
• Solheimajokull Glacier Hike (https://troll.is/glaciers-in-iceland/glacier-tours/solheimajokull-3-hour-glacier-hike/): Here, we met in a large, open parking lot that is used by a number of tour companies. We hiked for about 45 minutes from the parking lot up to the glacier, and then walked around on the glacier for 90 additional minutes. The guide told us that during peak tourist season, there would be nonstop groups snaking around the glacier, all waiting to get a chance to go up and then down. We only saw a handful of other groups, and definitely didn’t feel pressure to move quickly so as not to slow everyone else down.

I’m sure that other tour companies are excellent, but we used Troll, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go with them again.

Other than the whale-watching tour in the north (more on that below), the remainder of our time was spent touring on our own, which was just fine.

Thermal baths

I’m telling you right now: Stop at every hot-water bath you can while you’re in Iceland. Every. Single. One. You won’t regret it.

Iceland calls itself the “land of fire and ice.” The ice part is pretty obvious as you walk and drive around. The fire part is clear when volcanoes erupt, but the truth is that there is always a lot of volcanic activity under the surface. This creates natural pools of hot water that have been turned into the most wonderful hot-water baths that you can imagine. We visited three of them, plus the hot tub at our hotel in Vik and another at one of the Airbnb we stayed at.

Remember that the outside temperature throughout our visit to Iceland was freezing (0 Celsius) or below. So it was a new experience for me to only wear a bathing suit and a towel and then walk outside into the freezing weather, only to then enter a pool of 38-degree water. It was kind of wild to have most of my body super warm and comfortable, but feel my face and head quite cold. No small number of people wore winter hats on their heads while in the hot-water pools.

Note that the natural underground heat means that the entire area around these baths has a strong smell of sulfur. So yes, you will be a bit smelly after visiting there, too. But it’s totally worthwhile, I promise you.

Here are the thermal baths we visited on our trip:

• Secret Lagoon (https://secretlagoon.is/): Actually, we didn’t go into this one. We drove into the parking lot, thought that it looked a bit too commercial for our taste, and decided to go to another one (Hrunalaug, see below) nearby. I can’t say much about it except that the parking lot was extremely crowded. My impression is that many tourists take day trips from Reykjavik to the Secret Lagoon. This might have been exacerbated by the volcano eruption, which meant that the famous and popular Blue Lagoon (https://www.bluelagoon.com/) was closed. In any event, we didn’t enter.
• Hrunalaug (https://hrunalaug.is/): This was the first thermal bath we entered, after reading about it elsewhere and deciding that the Secret Lagoon was too big and commercial for us. And boy, what an experience! I’m glad that we went there, and recommend it for a low-key, non-tourist, Iceland experience. It’s very bare-bones, with some pools containing hot water, a shack in which you can change, and … well, that’s about it. There are plenty of rocks, rather than a sanded-down pool floor. The water was warm (not super hot), and it snowed on us while we were in there, which was kind of wild. The pools are pretty small, but the 20 or so people who were there with us all fit in just fine. My big problem was that when I got out of the pool, I had to wait to change in the shack… and it took me a while to find my things, during which time I was really shivering. So if you go here, be sure to organize your things such that you’ll be able to get dried and dressed quickly.
• Mývatn Baths (https://myvatnnaturebaths.is/) was the first high-end spa that we went into, and it’s hard to exaggerate just how great it was. There were numerous pools, each labeled with a different temperature. There was a cold-water pool, but I wasn’t interested in entering it. Along with our entry ticket, we each bought a credit to drink at the swim-up bar, which was kind of fun. The baths are next to the Mývatn area, which I’ll describe below, with some of the wildest and most amazing landscapes we saw in Iceland. There were certainly other tourists there, but because Mývatn isn’t close to Reykjavik, it wasn’t very crowded at all.
• Krauma Natural Geothermic Baths (https://www.krauma.is/en) was the final set of baths we visited, one day before entering Reykjavik. It was rather fancy and nice, with tourists from all over the world, and so was a bit crowded. But it looked out over a majestic landscape, and we still got to soak and enjoy for a long time. It was the perfect way for us to finish our bathing experiences in Iceland.

I’ll add that the larger, more built-up baths accept reservations by phone or via the Web site. Hrunalaug is too small and informal for such reservations, although maybe they do so during peak tourist season. We made reservations at both Mývatn and Krauma, but got there at different hours than we had reserved. In neither case did it make much of a difference; we were allowed in, and enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

Two of our Airbnb had hot tubs, and we used the tub in one of them. (Actually, my wife and daughter used it; I was too exhausted from driving, and didn’t feel like getting wet or cold that evening.) It was kind of wild seeing them in their bathing suits, while all around us was meter-thick snow. Knowing what I know now, I would definitely look for Airbnb with such facilities.

Our hotel in Vik had a hot tub, and we enjoyed it on the Saturday afternoon when we stayed there. Again, you had to walk through near-freezing temperatures from your hotel room to the hot tub and back. This wasn’t so terrible when we got in, but I got out, dried off as best as possible, and then sprinted back to the hotel room so as not to feel outrageously cold. But we did enjoy ourselves there for some time, and even got a chance to chat with some of the other hotel guests, who were from all over the world.

Finally, our hotel in Reykjavik did not have a hot tub, but they offered us the use (perhaps for a fee, I cannot remember) at one of the other hotels run by the same chain. We didn’t take them up on this offer; again, in retrospect, I might well have decided to get a hotel with a hot tub. That said, there’s something magical about being in the hot-water spa while overlooking glaciers and mountains that even the nicest of hotel hot tubs can’t reproduce.

Things that surprised us

We expected to see lots of amazing things in Iceland. And we did; it was totally worthwhile! But we were also surprised by many things, some bigger and some smaller, that we saw along the way. Here are a few of them:

• Almost no interactions with natives/locals. In many ways, this was one of the weirdest parts of our trip. Outside of the cities and touristy areas, we barely saw any other people — not in cars, not on the street, and not in shops. It was a very weird feeling. And the people we saw were almost never native to Iceland. The people working at the hotels were from Poland. Our guide on the glacier walk is from Slovakia. The people running the two vegan Asian restaurants we went to in Reykjavik were helpful and kind, and made great food… but they weren’t natives, either. I would be surprised if we encountered even 100 natives of Iceland during our 11 days in the country. Which felt weird.
• Automation everywhere: Running a country typically requires a large number of people. But Iceland doesn’t have that many people to run things. As a result, a lot of things are done with a small number of people, or without people at all. A gas station or store might have one person working there. National parks and sites often had no one around. And as I mentioned above, many parking lots have no attendants or staff working there at all; they rely on a combination of cameras, apps, and your honesty to ensure that you pay. And the AriBNBs, as I indicated, all relied on you to enter and exit on your own, although they did always provide a phone number you could call if you had questions.
• Immigrants: Some jobs can’t be automated, and the tourism boom has left Iceland short-staffed. However, it took me a while to realize that all (or nearly all) of the people we were meeting and speaking with — at hotels, tours, and restaurants — were all immigrants to Iceland. I’m not at all trying to say that this is a bad thing, just that I didn’t expect to meet so many immigrants (and again, so few natives) while there.
• Architecture: I assumed that Iceland’s architecture would look a lot like what I had seen in Stockholm, and that the design would generally be very Scandinavian. Not at all — the buildings were rather simple and practical, both on the outside and on the inside. This might reflect the harsh weather, and the fact that they needed to concentrate on staying warm and dry. It might reflect the fact that for many years, Iceland wasn’t a very wealthy country. (That has changed, but it’s a recent change.) It might also be an artifact of their culture, which seems very utilitarian and un-flashy. Whatever the reasons, buildings were interesting for their elegant simplicity, but not for their sleek or cutting-edge design.
• Icelandic (small) horses. We passed a very large number of Icelandic horses on our trip. These horses are about half the height of a regular horse, but with longer hair, and were all on horse farms we saw along the way. The horses were very cute, and we stopped (legally, in appropriate places!) to watch them. One of our Airbnb hosts, with whom we interacted more than anyone else, had a horse farm, so we decided to ask her what they were raised for. She told us: For shows, for racing, and for export to Japan, where their meat is considered a delicacy. I hope that our facial expressions remained somewhat stoic when she mentioned this last use, because we were surprised and a bit disgusted.
• Emphasis on the environment: Iceland is seeing the results of climate change more than almost any other country. The Troll tours we took pointed out how large glaciers used to be, and how much smaller they are now, thanks to global warming. It was thus unsurprising, but inspirational, to see just how much they talked about the environment in Iceland. Two places that stuck out were (a) the garbage cans in the hotel didn’t have any plastic bags, and (b) the vege-burgers we got in the supermarket were directly in a cardboard box, without any inner plastic to keep it fresh. Also, a large number of places asked you to use your phone for a ticket, so as not to use paper. Everywhere we went, they emphasized the need to protect the environment, and that we could and should see this as a personal responsibility, rather than just a communal one.
• No sheep. We had been led to believe that we would see lots of sheep on our trip. Sadly, we saw none. Maybe late March isn’t a good time for them to go out and graze? I’m not sure, but I really enjoy seeing flocks of sheep, and I was somewhat disappointed.
• No trees. It took a while for us to realize that part of Iceland’s exotic beauty (and harsh winds) stems from the lack of any trees. We read that when the original settlers arrived, there were lots of trees — which they cut down to construct homes and burn for heat. The problem is that trees can’t easily grow in Iceland, so there were very few replacements for the trees that were cut down. Today, there are very few trees in the country, although we did pass a number of places where they were clearly attempting to create some forests. Most of the ground, other than sand, ice, or snow, was a mottled brownish grass that I’ll assume is fresher and greener looking during the summer. As extraordinary as it was to see the glaciers, mountains, and waterfalls, it was weird and a bit depressing to see this sad-looking grass on the ground around us.
• Tourist information. Many towns had an “i” sign, meaning that you could get tourist information there. In other countries, that points to an information booth staffed by locals who can help you out. In Iceland, it means that there’s a sign with information on it that you can read. Again, this wasn’t a bad thing, but it was a bit of a surprise. But it connects with something I wrote above, namely that Iceland has figured out how to run a country with fewer people.

Northern Lights

You’ll hear a lot about the Northern Lights from people who have been to Iceland, or who are interested in going. Nearly every Airbnb listing says that it’s a great place from which to see the Northern Lights. This isn’t untrue, since you can theoretically see them from all over Iceland. And the odds of seeing them are apparently higher in the winter than in the summer, so we were happy to get a chance to see them at all.

As someone who had never seen them before, and who got to see them a bunch of times while we were in Iceland, a few points about the Northern Lights:

First: They are indeed quite beautiful. But they’re also far more subtle than you might have imagined. That’s because photographs make them seem much brighter and clearer than you will see with your naked eye.

Second: Whether you can see them depends a lot on how cloudy it is, along with how much light pollution there is around. You can’t control the clouds, but outside of Reykjavik, there’s basically no light pollution at all. We thus managed to see the Northern Lights at least four times during our trip. Once, one of the Airbnb owners sent me a message at 11 p.m., telling me that the Lights were visible. I woke up my wife and daughter, and we went outside to look at them for a while.

Finally: We used the Aurora app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrustonapps.myauroraforecast&hl=en-US for Android, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/my-aurora-forecast-alerts/id1073082439 for iOS) to find the likelihood of seeing the Northern Lights in a given place, and at a given time. When someone does see the Lights, they post it on the app, allowing others to know if it’s worth looking.

My suggestion is that you use the apps to find out if there’s likely to be a sighting in your location. And if there is, spend some time outside, both looking with your eyes, but also taking pictures with your phone, for the stronger and more impressive visual.

Vegetarian and vegan food

One last note about food: I’m mostly vegetarian, my wife is vegetarian, and the daughter who came with us is vegan. How easily were we able to get along in Iceland?

Answer: Very easily.

Certainly, it was easiest in Reykjavik, where there were vegetarian and vegan restaurants. We ate at three places, two of which still seem to be open:

• Loving Hut, Reykjavik (https://www.happycow.net/reviews/loving-hut-reykjavik-214749). This is part of a well-known international chain of vegan restaurants, each of which serves a different type of cuisine. We got to this branch at about 9:30 p.m., and I worried that they wouldn’t serve us, given that they close at 10 p.m. Not only did they serve us, but the food was excellent. It was nice to have a hot, vegan meal that we hadn’t cooked ourselves.
• Mama (https://www.mamareykjavik.is/). This is a traditional (dare I say “hipppie-style”) vegan restaurant, the sort of place you expect to see in most major cities. We ate lunch here on Friday afternoon, and really enjoyed ourselves.

Cooking vegetarian and vegan food on our own wasn’t an issue: Supermarkets all had extensive produce sections, as well as tofu, yogurt, vegetarian burgers (not so healthy, but useful in a crunch), and pasta. They often had cheese, including vegan cheese.

In Vik, the Black Crust pizza restaurant (https://guidetoiceland.is/travel-iceland/drive/black-crust-pizzeria) had both vegetarian and vegan options, and were very accommodating to our requests and needs.

Every hotel and cafe we went to knew which products were vegetarian or vegan. Places that served coffee all had vegan milk products. Contrast this with the hotel where I stayed in Pittsburgh for last year’s (2024) Python conference, where they said that no, they didn’t have vegan milk, but you could get it at a nearby convenience store. Iceland might be a very meat-and-fish kind of place, but they are familiar with and very knowledgeable about vegetarian and vegan needs.

Our itinerary

Now that I’ve given you lots of background information, I’ll share our full itinerary. If you follow what we did (minus our mistakes, which I’ll point out), then I’m sure that you’ll have a fantastic time in Iceland. But guess what? Even if you don’t follow what I did, you’ll still have a fantastic time in Iceland. Travel means adventure, and adventure means encountering the unknown. So be prepared for things to take longer than you expect, to stop and see things you didn’t have on your itinerary, and to make mistakes — and to laugh at those mistakes. That’s all part of the adventure.

I’ll add that I spent quite a bit of time putting together our itinerary, trying to give us enough time in each place and without too much driving in a given day. But even after poring over these names for many weeks, then seeing their names on maps and signs, and even staying in these towns, I was unable to remember, let alone pronounce, most of their names. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying where we went.

I’ve put our full itinerary, including the places we stayed, on a Google sheet you can view here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15-a5TvDpoQ4FkGXa3jsb7JA6mHQpNOYlInTbZuD2GtQ/edit?usp=sharing . I left my original notes about what we planned to see in each place, and approximately how much time we would spend driving each day, to balance things out.

Day 1: Keflavík Airport to Suðurnesjabær

We arrived in the evening, and I thus chose an Airbnb that was fairly close to the airport. It took us about 20 minutes to drive from the airport to the Airbnb. This was our first exposure to Iceland; we arrived at the cabin, and saw that it was surrounded by grass and a little, that it was rather overcast and dreary, and that we could see the Atlantic Ocean.

Once we were set up in our cabin, we drove about 30 minutes into Reykjavik to eat at a vegetarian restaurant (which seems to have closed, I’m sorry to say). We also went to a supermarket to stock up on food for the next day’s breakfast and lunch.

I made a short video when we arrived in the cabin in the afternoon. You can see the grass that was everywhere in Iceland — but because we were near the capital, and on the southern part of the island, there wasn’t much snow or ice on the ground. That changed when we left Vik (on the southern coast) and started to head up the eastern fjords.

Day 2: Suðurnesjabær to Flóahreppur

We started the next morning with a visit to the Garður lighthouse (https://www.visitreykjanes.is/en/place/the-lighthouse-on-gardskagi), a five-minute drive from our cabin. It rained on us a bit, and we didn’t go in, but did look around a bit. (I believe the lighthouse was closed.) There was a sign at the entrance describing how members of Iceland’s coast guard had saved a number of US sailors during (I believe) World War II.

We then set off, driving from Suðurnesjabær to Flóahreppur. The route is only about 90 minutes long, but we planned to stop at several well-known sites in the Golden Circle during our drive: Thingvellir National Park, Geysir, and the Selfoss waterfall.

Thingvellir National Park (https://www.thingvellir.is/en/) is a famous historical site in Iceland, because it’s where their first parliament met. From that perspective, I understand its importance. I also understand that because it’s part of the “Golden Circle,” and because it’s close to Reykjavik, a huge number of tourists go there. But it was a bit of a let-down; it’s a nice park, with a large parking lot and a clearly marked trail… but it wasn’t that exciting or exotic, was full of other tourists, and the walk was short and not challenging. It’s easy to get to while you’re on the Ring Road, and you’ll feel like you really should see it, but it was far from the high point of the trip.

However, the park does start to to give you a sense of how many spectacular snow- and ice-covered mountains you’ll see on the trip. I never got tired of seeing them.

There is a waterfall in the park. But I promise, you’ll see far more impressive waterfalls later in the trip.

Similarly, you can and probably should go to Geysir (https://guidetoiceland.is/connect-with-locals/regina/the-extraordinary-geysir-geothermal-area-strokkur-and-all-the-other-hot-pots-in-south-iceland), to see water spurting out of the ground. The “large geysir” rarely erupts, but the small one does on a regular basis. It is pretty nice to see, but the area near Mývatn (see below) was more interesting and exciting, with far fewer people. The small geyser was constantly surrounded by a huge circle of tourists, all standing with their phones out to see the geyser erupt.

Because it’s in the Golden Circle, and thus attracts a lot of tourists, there is a large shopping center next to the Geysir park. It’s hard to exaggerate just how unlike the rest of Iceland this area was, full of tourists and shops catering to them.

After seeing the geyser, we went to our first hot-springs bath. As I mentioned above, we thought about going to the Secret Lagoon, but in the end went to Hrunalaug, just a short drive from there. We were there for quite some time, and enjoyed not only the hot water but the fact that we were taking an outdoor bath while snow was falling on us. The changing room has a door on one side, and was originally used for feeding and/or shearing sheep, as you can see from the sheep heads carved into the wood. After being with lots of other tourists, we were very happy to do something a bit off the beaten track, and which felt more “authentically” Icelandic.

Really, Hrunalaug could not have been a better way for us to end our activities for that day.

We then drove to our second night’s Airbnb. This time, it was a set of cabins in Flóahreppur. These cabins felt like they were in the middle of nowhere; we learned that it was common to turn onto an unmarked and unnamed road, where there would be a small parking lot, some cabins, and … basically, nothing else.

I remember this Airbnb being fine in general, but the wind was so strong outside that we heard a constant howling sound all night.

Day 3: Flóahreppur to Vik

The plan was for us to get up early in the morning for the glacier walk with Troll. But as I described above, Troll contacted us early on Friday, saying that they had to cancel the glacier walk. We quickly switched the trips, going to the Katla ice cave on Friday afternoon, and doing the glacier walk on Sunday morning. Both were exceptionally worthwhile; so long as you’re dressed appropriately, I wouldn’t worry about being an experienced or particularly in-shape hiker, either.

Because our Friday trip to the ice cave started at 2 p.m., we first went to the Skogafoss waterfall (https://www.traveltoiceland.is/post/skogafoss-waterfall). Not only is the waterfall huge and beautiful, but you can climb a (long!) staircase to walk up above and beyond it. It’s definitely worth walking up the staircase.

From Skogafoss, we drove to Vik, and went to Troll’s meeting place — the parking lot of a small shopping center in downtown Vik. According to Wikipedia, Vik has a total population of 750 people — but because it’s relatively close to Reykjavik and along the southern coast, it attracts a large number of tourists. I get the feeling that there were several hundred tourists when we were there, and that was during the low tourism season. There are a few restaurants, bars, and hotels, as well as a supermarket and a number of companies offering tourism services.

We parked in the lot where Troll told us to go; I was admittedly a bit nervous about leaving our belongings in the car, given the obvious target for thieves of a car full of suitcases, but we didn’t have much choice. And my naive impression is that such theft isn’t very common in Iceland. We signed in with the Troll trip, got into their “superjeep,” and prepared for our adventure.

I already wrote about the ice cave above, and how impressed we were with Troll from start to finish. But you should be ready for a noisy, bumpy ride in the superjeep.

But the landscape, and the ice cave, and the ice formations… wow. They were truly spectacular.

We then drove to Vik, where we stayed at the Hotel Katla (https://www.keahotels.is/hotel-katla). The hotel was nice, about a 5-minute drive east of the actual town of Vik. This meant that it was surrounded by trees, mountains and nature, which was better than the other hotel I can considered, which would have been in Vik itself. The rooms were certainly nice enough for our purposes, with ample parking during the day. But at night? The parking lot was completely full, when guests returned from their trips in the area.

The hotel offered a pretty extensive breakfast buffet — not the largest I’ve seen, but not too bad, either, even for vegetarians and vegans. Not surprisingly, the breakfast was packed with tourists who left en masse when their buses pulled out.

Day 4: Vik

Over Saturday, we mainly relaxed, taking one long walk from the hotel toward the water, and another up the hill behind the hotel. It was very quiet and pleasant, and while we passed some cars and looked over some farms, we largely felt alone.

As I mentioned above, we spent part of Saturday afternoon in the hotel’s hot tub, meeting and chatting with some of the other guests.

Day 5: Vik to Hofn

On Sunday morning, we drove (back east) about 30 minutes from Vik, to the meeting point for the Solheimajokull three-hour glacier hike.

We made two stops along the way: First, we went up to the church. It was Sunday, so the church was about to have services, and we saw a number of local families dressed in their Sunday best, parking and entering there. We got to the church just before their services began, and they were kind enough to let us look inside of the small, simple, but well-maintained building before moving along.

Our second stop was Reynisfjara (https://guidetoiceland.is/travel-iceland/drive/reynisfjara), a black-sand beach near Vik. This wasn’t a long stop, but it was pretty amazing to see the beautiful black sand and rocks. Moreover, it was snowing while we were there — so between the ocean, the black sand, the snow, and the heavy wind, we got quite the amazing natural experience.

We then continued onto the meeting point, a large parking lot where several different tour companies start their hikes; the Troll bus and station was in the rear of the parking lot. We parked there, checked in, and then hiked for a while toward the park entrance. The guide gave us an introduction to glaciers in general and the Solheimajokull glacier in particular. We then got crampons and started to walk onto the glacier itself. The entire tour was pretty spectacular, with amazing views of the ice, snow, and mountains.

You’ll notice that we all have helmets and ice picks, as well as crampons; I was impressed by Troll’s attention to our safety, and to making sure that we wouldn’t slip on the ice. The guide also made it clear that we need to stick with her, to avoid falling in holes in the ice. She said that the guides are constantly monitoring the glacier to ensure that tours go where the ice is thick enough to walk safely.

When we finished with the glacier tour, we headed back through Vik, and then toward eastern Iceland and our destination of Hofn. We knew that the drive would take about four hours from Vik, but we also planned to stop along the way. And stop we did, at nearly every single one of those signs with a tree and picnic table. There were often no other cars at those stops, giving us a feeling of being totally alone with this spectacular natural beauty. As we moved east and north, the temperatures got colder and the snow was deeper. At many of the rest stops, the picnic table was completely covered with snow.

Along the way, we stopped at the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon (https://guidetoiceland.is/nature-info/jokulsarlon-glacier-lagoon-the-crown-jewel-of-iceland-s-nature). This seems to be a major campsite, with a large parking lot and facilities for people who have rented campers for their trip to Iceland. This lagoon was huge and beautiful, and we saw seals swimming in the water. It was truly amazing — one of the absolutely highlights of our entire trip.

The good news? We had a fantastic time at this lagoon. The bad news? We completely forgot that on the other side of the highway is the famous “Diamond Beach” (https://icelandtravelguide.is/locations/the-diamond-beach/), with ice formations that look like huge diamonds. Diamond Beach is apparently one of the most talked-about tourist sites in all of Iceland, and we only realized that we had missed it about an hour after we left the lagoon and were on our way to Hofn.

My point is that if you do go to Diamond Beach, you should go across the highway to the lagoon. And vice-versa. But it’s quite possible that they look pretty similar, and that we saw roughly the same thing.

Driving from the lagoon to our Airbnb in Hofn took about an hour. It was, once again, one of several cabins built on what seemed like a random turnoff from the highway. Using the Aurora app, we saw that we were likely to see the Northern Lights on that evening, and we did! That’s when we discovered how beautiful, and yet how subtle, they were. We went into the parking lot from our cabin, enjoying the lack of any light pollution (or anyone else) in the area, and looked at the sky for some time.

Day 6: Hofn to Seyðisfjörður

The next day, we started to drive through Iceland’s eastern fjords. The traffic got even thinner, and the number of single-lane bridges grew larger. We frequently stopped to take pictures of the extraordinary mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, and landscapes that we passed. We knew that today’s drive would take about four hours, and thus didn’t hesitate to stop to stretch our legs and enjoy the nature. And boy, did we enjoy it.

We took a long stop at Vestrahorn (https://guidetoiceland.is/travel-iceland/drive/vestrahorn). a mountain and hiking area. The land is privately owned, so you’ll need to pay for a ticket to enter the park and hike around, but I would say that it was worthwhile. The people who run the shop at the entrance (where you also buy your ticket) pointed us in the direction of an area used by TV series, but we were more interested in seeing the natural beauty, which we did for at least two hours of hiking.

After Vestrahorn, we continued onto Seyðisfjörður (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sey%C3%B0isfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur), a town in the eastern fjords. I had chosen to stay there for several reasons: First, it was off of the Ring Road, but not too terribly far off. Second, I wanted to see a town in the eastern fjords. Third, and perhaps most practically, it was the highest-rated Airbnb in that part of Iceland, and we did need to stop somewhere between our two days of four-hour drives.

I didn’t know that much about the town, though. And in some ways, I’m glad that I didn’t, because it meant that we could discover its beauty on our own. Seyðisfjörður isn’t big (population of just under 800), but it has picturesque homes and streets. The town hosted an annual art and culture festival (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LungA_Art_Festival) each July from 2000 to 2024, making it difficult to find a place to rent. (I just read that the July 2024 festival was the last, so maybe it’ll now be easier to rent a place now.) But during late March? We barely saw anyone else, and even the convenience store was closed by the time we arrived around 6 p.m. I did see police cars and snowplows driving around on a regular basis, though.

If you read the guidebooks, they’ll tell you that driving to Seyðisfjörður from the Ring Road takes you over a mountain pass. This is true — but these guidebooks neglect to mention that if it’s snowing, the drive can be difficult, even nerve-wracking.

We drove through the mountains during a snowstorm, and while we could mostly see in front of us, it was the closest I’ve come to driving in white-out conditions in a very long time. I’ll remind you that roads in Iceland have very narrow shoulders (if any), and that I didn’t see a lot of fences ensuring that we would stay on the road. This was one of those times that I was glad to have a 4×4, and that there weren’t many other cars on the road. We took it slowly, and managed to get to Seyðisfjörður, but it was definitely one of the more challenging drives I’ve had in a while.

But then we entered Seyðisfjörður, and it was totally worthwhile; the town was beautiful, especially with the newly fallen snow. Our Airbnb was on the upper floor of a music school. It not only had a fully stocked kitchen, but a washing machine and dryer, as well, which we took full advantage of.

As you can see from the video I took from our porch, the homes are quite simple, at least on the outside. We saw this type of simple architecture all over Iceland.

Day 7: Seyðisfjörður to Árskógssandur

We started the next day walking around Seyðisfjörður. We saw a beautiful church (pictured above), and two buildings with foreign flags. It turns out that there is a weekly ferry that goes between Seyðisfjörður, Denmark, and the Faroe Islands, and there are honorary consulates of Denmark, Sweden, and Germany (https://embassies.net/iceland/seydisfjordur) , presumably to service people who want to take the ferry and/or continue onto those countries. And indeed, while we didn’t see the ferry, we did see what seemed like the docks at the center of town.

From Seyðisfjörður, we then drove to the Hverir Geothermal Area (https://www.laidbacktrip.com/posts/namafjall-hverir-geothermal-area-guide). I seem to remember reading that this area has been used in movies when they need something that looks like another planet, and I can easily understand why: There are numerous mounds of earth and rock (wisely fenced off) from which super-hot, sulfur-infused air comes out of the earth on a constant basis. Some mounds are smaller, and some are larger, but they’re all pretty amazing to look at. We probably spent an hour or so walking around Hverir. Not surprisingly, we saw a fair number of other tourists here.

Of course, if there’s an area with serious geothermal activity, then it’s a perfect place for a geothermal bath. And this is where we went to the Mývatn baths. It was, as I wrote above, a complete pleasure. Even if you’re a bit cold going from the changing room to the pools and back, the warmth of the water and the beauty of the view make it all worthwhile.

From Mývatn, we drove to Goðafoss, a huge, famous, and beautiful waterfall. The above pictures don’t come close to the spectacle of this waterfall. It’s very much worth stopping off here.

Finally, we drove from Goðafoss to our Airbnb near Árskógssandur, by way of Akureyri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akureyri), Iceland’s second and northernmost city, with a population of just under 20,000. The center of town looks like any other European or American small city, with a shopping mall, homes, and even traffic lights — and traffic! We didn’t really do anything in Akureyi other than enjoy the supermarket at the local mall (https://www.glerartorg.is/en). Note that the mall closes at 6 p.m., but the supermarket closes at 8 p.m.

We then drove from Akureyri to our cabin near Árskógssandur. This turned out to be a beautiful wooden cabin set back far from the road. Given the heavy snowfall, it would also have been impossible to drive up to the cabin had our hosts not plowed, so we were very glad that they did so just before we arrived. The hosts were extremely generous and helpful, and when we needed a few things (e.g., cooking oil), they immediately brought them from their house across the road. This was the first time that we had met any of our Airbnb hosts. It was nice to connect a name with a face and voice!

Day 8: Árskógssandur to Blönduós

Today’s big event was whale watching with North Sailing (https://www.northsailing.is/tour/whale-watching-arskogssandur/), which left from Árskógssandur. I was very excited about this, because I love boats, and I thought that it would be really great to see whales. My wife and daughter were rather less excited. Sadly, I have to admit that they were right — the trip was a bit of a fiasco. This is the #1 thing that I’m sorry we spent time and money doing on our trip to Iceland.

We arrived at the Hotel Kaldi, which has North Sailing’s ticket office, and from which the whale-watching ship leaves. We checked in, got coveralls, and boarded the boat. Right away, the captain said that it was a bad time of year to see whales, but he said he’ll try to help us see some. We ended up driving around the fjord for longer than expected, while the snow fell on us. We did see a handful of whales’ flukes, and a number of dolphins and porpoises, but it seemed like a lot of boating for a very small amount of actual wildlife sightings.

I realize that whale-watching companies always say that they cannot promise you’ll see whales. And they do say that March isn’t top whale-watching season. So maybe we should have taken the hint, and done something else. Lovely as it was to be out on the water, there are cheaper ways to spend a few hours boating in Iceland.

Following our whale-watching trip, we drove to Blönduós (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%B6ndu%C3%B3s), a town of about 1,000 people along the northwestern coast of Iceland. It never ceased to amaze me that the centers of these small towns look like any other town you might be in — but then you quickly get to the edge of town, or to where people live on large farms and tracts of land. And indeed, our Airbnb was on a horse farm, giving us a chance to see Icelandic horses up close. It was while staying here that the host sent me a late-night message telling me that the Northern Lights were visible, and we really enjoyed seeing them.

Day 9: Blönduós to Stykkishólmur

We started the next day with a hike on Hrutey Island (https://www.northiceland.is/en/place/hrutey), in the Blanda river (for which the town of Blönduós is apparently named). The island is apparently quite beautiful and green during the summer, but when we visited in March it was completely covered with snow. We parked at the entrance to the island, and took a short walk across the bridge over the river. We spent about 90 minutes walking around the island. Other than a set of footprints in the snow, there wasn’t any obvious trace of other people on the island throughout our time there. It was calm, beautiful, and peaceful.

From there, we drove to Kolugljufur canyon (https://thephotohikes.com/kolugljufur-and-kolufoss/). The road entering Kolugljufur was rather bumpy and snowy, and this was one of those times we were especially happy to have a 4×4. But we finally got to the parking lot and the entrance to the canyon, where we walked around for quite some time. There are steps leading to an observation deck (which were a bit icy, but all of the tourists were patient and let everyone walk up and down as needed. The canyon was huge, the waterfall beautiful, the hike full of spectacular nature… it felt odd to be so blase about what just a week before would have been the most astonishing mountains and waterfall we had ever seen.

Something tells me that we stopped and saw other waterfalls on that day. On the one hand, we saw so many, and they were all so huge and beautiful, that it’s hard to remember precisely everything we saw. On the other hand, each time we said, “Fine, let’s go see another waterfall,” we were very happy that we did. At a certain point, we decided that wherever we saw the tree-and-picnic-table sign, we would stop, since it probably meant that there was something worth seeing — and more often than not, we did.

We ended the day in Stykkishólmur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stykkish%C3%B3lmur), a town of about 1,000 people on the west coast. We arrived just after it got dark, and for a change, we stayed in an apartment, on an actual street, where we saw other cars (!). The home overlooked the water, which was quite beautiful.

Day 10 : Stykkishólmur to Reykjavik

Friday morning, we left Stykkishólmur, finishing up our tour of the Ring Road as we made our way to Reykjavik for the weekend.

We took a short detour to Kirkjufell Mountain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkjufell), a 30-minute drive west of Stykkishólmur. This mountain is apparently quite famous as a location in Game of Thrones, but even without the TV series, it has a very striking shape. We hiked around the mountain and its area for nearly an hour, which was great fun.

We then headed to Krauma (https://www.krauma.is/en) thermal baths, a perfect way to end our trip on the Ring Road. It worked almost the same as Mývatn, so once we paid, we knew what to do. I can’t say enough good things about it. Just as Kirkjufell was a great way to end our time enjoying Iceland’s outdoors, Krauma was a great way to finish our Icelandic thermal-bath experience.

We were ready to finish our journey on the Ring Road, and head into Reykjavik.

Approaching the capital, many cars passed us in the other direction. We assume that locals took advantage of the long holiday (Good Friday and Easter) weekend to get away and see some nature. It was weird to have to share the road with other people after being alone for so long.

Reykjavik

Reykjavik was our final destination on this trip, and I have to say that it was a bit of a let-down. It’s a cute city, for sure — but a very small one, overrun with tourists (and tourist shops), with a handful of things to do. It makes sense that we had to spend some time in Reykjavik, but I’m glad that it was only two days, because we would have run out of things to do.

It is pretty striking, if you’ve just come from the rest of Iceland, to see multi-story buildings, cafes and hotels next to one another, traffic lights, and paid parking lots.

We stayed at the Center Hotels Laugavegur (https://www.centerhotels.com/en/hotel-laugavegur-reykjavik). This hotel, like many others, advertises that it’s right next to Laugavegur Street, the main shopping street in Reykjavik. I can’t stress enough that nearly every hotel in Reykjavik is right next to Laugavegur Street. It’s a very small city with a very small downtown area, and there are numerous hotels that cater to the booming tourist trade. Maybe one of the other hotels would have been significantly different in price, decor, or services, but I seriously doubt it. Choose a hotel that’s in the downtown area, and you’ll be a short walk from whatever you want to do, and wherever you want to go. You won’t have to walk very far to get anywhere, because (have I mentioned this already?) it’s a very small city.

I’m not trying to say that Reykjavik is bad. It is cute and has its charm. But between its very small size, and the fact that it has been overrun by tourists, it doesn’t seem that exotic — certainly not after our experiences outside of the capital area. We went to two vegetarian restaurants (more info below), a cafe or two, and an ice-cream store. Nothing was bad! But it felt like a cold, small north European capital, which was such a different experience from the rest of Iceland. And absolutely everything catered to tourists. I feel for the locals, who have likely been priced out of housing in their own city, and who barely hear their own language spoken on the streets any more.

Our hotel had a buffet breakfast that was more than acceptable, but not as extensive as what we had enjoyed in Vik. (Maybe another hotel would have been better?) Because I booked our hotel before we had become hot-tub addicts, I hadn’t thought to check whether our hotel offered one. (It didn’t.) I would definitely recommend booking a hotel with this amenity for your stay.

On Saturday, we mostly walked around town. The music hall is a stunning building that you can freely enter and look around. You can walk along the waterfront and enjoy seeing the mountains and glaciers in the bay. And the city is quite nice, no doubt about it. But I’m glad that we were only there for less than 48 hours.

Parking in Reykjavik

We arrived in Reykjavik on Friday afternoon, and didn’t plan to use our car until going to the airport early on Sunday morning. We considered returning the rental car in Reykjavik on Friday and then taking a taxi to the airport, but discovered that the price would have been nearly identical. In the end, this turned out to be the right decision, giving us flexibility upon returning to the airport.

The only tricky thing was parking in Reykjavik, which has paid, zone-based parking.

Our hotel (Center Hotels Laugavegur) has free parking for guests. They warned us that it’s on a first-come, first-serve basis, but that if there are free spots, we can use one. Because we arrived when most people were out sightseeing, we snagged a parking space and then just remained there until Sunday morning. However, finding that parking lot was quite difficult; the people at the front desk didn’t explain it well, and I wound up driving around the block multiple times until I finally saw the (tiny) sign, just a short distance from the hotel, pointing me to their parking area.

Had we come back a bit later, I can easily imagine driving around and around, looking for parking and then paying through the nose for it. Depending on your schedule, you might want to avoid having a car when you’re in Reykjavik.

I’ll add that we arrived on Good Friday, and discovered that parking on holidays and Sundays is free. However, parking on Saturday would not have been free. So on Friday afternoon, when most of the other hotel guests were out sightseeing, we parked our car in their lot, taking it out only when we drove to the airport early on Sunday.

Leaving Iceland

We left the hotel at about 5 a.m. on Sunday. We were too early to enjoy the hotel’s breakfast, but they did provide us with a modest pack-out lunch and coffee or tea.

Returning our car to the rental lot was extremely straightforward. But then we had to walk with our bags to the terminal, which turned out to be extremely difficult because of the wind. Really, it was hard to walk, let alone pay attention to where we were going, bring a suitcase, and avoid getting hit by cars. Again, I can’t exaggerate how strong the wind was.

For most of our trip, we managed to avoid tourists. For obvious reasons, they all caught up with us at the airport. There was a self.service baggage check-in machine that didn’t quite work; fortunately, an airport employee helped us out. When we then got to the check-in desk (after waiting on a very long line), it turns out that the same employee was there to help us. He let us go, even though our bags were a bit over the official weight limit.

Given that we were flying to Israel, where it’s (obviously) not as cold or windy as Iceland, I decided to open my suitcase in the terminal and pack my heavy coat. I just didn’t feel like wearing it around the airport, and then finding room for it in the luggage bins above our heads.

We did have one final Iceland-style adventure: Remember how I said that I packed my heavy coat, since I wouldn’t need it any more? I forgot that we would need to be outside, walking up the steps to the plane. It was cold and windy, and I was rather cold between getting off the airport shuttle and going up the steps to the plane. After our busload got onto the plane, the flight attendants closed the door and handed out blankets, only opening the door again when the next shuttle bus arrived.

And with that, we left Iceland. As you can tell from what I’ve written here, it was a wonderful trip in every way. I wouldn’t mind repeating it in a few years, either — it was so much fun, and so different from other things I’ve done and places I’ve gone.

I hope that what I’ve written helps you to plan and enjoy your own trip to Iceland!

Useful sites, links, and resources

We never would have managed to plan our trip to Iceland without reading oodles of blogs and descriptions from other helpful people. Here are a few that I used to plan our trip:

• https://rambleswithrachel.com/12-day-ring-road-trip-in-iceland/
• https://iceland.nordicvisitor.com/travel-deals/self-drive-tours/ring-around-the-island/1128/
• https://zestinatote.com/ultimate-iceland-ring-road-itinerary/
• https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/best-places-to-visit-in-iceland
• https://www.thewanderingqueen.com/iceland-ring-road-itinerary/
• https://fullsuitcase.com/iceland-ring-road-itinerary/
• https://icelandtrippers.com/iceland-ring-road/

Corrections? Suggestions?

I hope that this (long!) post has helped you to plan and enjoy your trip to Iceland. If you spot any mistakes, or just want to send me feedback, feel free to e-mail me at reuven@lerner.co.il. I’m also on LinkedIn (https://LinkedIn.com/in/reuven) and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/lernerpython.com).