BEYOND REYKJAVÍK
DAY-TRIPPING WITH AN EXCURSION
Unguided Excursions to Remote Destinations
Intermediate-Length Itineraries
Reykjavík is a great city, but most visitors to Iceland want to get out into the countryside. Fortunately, some of the most beautiful places in Iceland are within striking distance of downtown. Many of the destinations in the following chapters are doable as day trips from Reykjavík, either with a rental car or with an excursion.
Two of the best side trips for experiencing Iceland’s dramatic landscape are the Golden Circle, a classic loop trip featuring an impressive gorge, waterfalls, and an active geyser; and the volcano-rich South Coast, where you can hike up to and on a glacier, stroll along black sand beaches, and walk behind a thundering waterfall.
There’s also the famous Blue Lagoon spa—a serene, milky-blue oasis in a volcanic landscape—and the eclectic region around Borgarnes. The Snæfellsnes Peninsula, beyond Borgarnes, offers a little bit of everything that’s made Iceland famous.
My favorite “Back Door” destination is the Westman Islands, just off Iceland’s South Coast. There you can see the effects of a recent volcanic eruption and enjoy front-row views of the country’s cutest bird, the puffin. The Westfjords, far to the northwest, are another relatively untouristed Back Door, but they’re too distant for day-tripping (unless you fly into and out of Ísafjörður).
My advice here skews toward either driving yourself or joining an excursion. Public transportation—a godsend for budget travelers in most places—is sparse in Iceland. While suburban buses can help you reach points very close to Reykjavík, there’s no practical way, for example, to use cheap public transit to link up the sights of the Golden Circle or South Coast on your own.
While most of this chapter (and the chapters that follow) focus on day trips from Reykjavík, travelers wanting to delve into a scenic slice of Iceland without committing to the full Ring Road can choose from several appealing multiday itineraries. See the end of this chapter for suggestions.
DAY-TRIP PLANNING TIPS
With so many day-trip choices, take the time to research and sort through your options (group tour, private tour, do-it-yourself with a rental car, etc.). These tips will help maximize your Icelandic experience:
Summer Daylight Bonus: In summer you’ll enjoy very long hours of daylight; from early June to mid-July it never really gets dark. You can pack a day full by sightseeing close to your home base in the morning, then set out on a side trip in the late afternoon. In the peak of summer, for example, it’s possible to leave Reykjavík for the Golden Circle as late as 16:00, see most of the sights along that route, and be back in town before the sun goes down.
Winter Wake-Up: Winter is a rotten time to explore Iceland’s countryside. Daylight is brief (as few as four hours), and it can be dreary and icy. Weather permitting, though, you can still join organized bus trips from Reykjavík to a few outdoor attractions; this makes good use of the few hours of light and leaves winter driving to pros. One popular way to get into the countryside in the winter is to join a northern lights tour—turning the darkness into an asset. If you do decide to drive in Iceland in winter, be alert to weather conditions, as roads may close due to snow, high winds, or ice. If roads are clear, it’s smart to leave Reykjavík in the dark and time your arrival at the first attraction for sunrise.
Cost Considerations: Although a car rental is extremely pricey (roughly $750-1,000 for a one-week rental in summer, plus insurance, fuel, tolls, and parking), consider this: Per person, it’s around $55 for the bus transfer to and from the airport, at least $75 for a basic Golden Circle excursion, and $100 for the South Coast. If you’re in Iceland for three nights, and take two day-trip excursions, you’ll spend around $230 (double that for a couple). For a couple, a car rental may be worth the extra expense, considering the freedom it affords. Do the math and determine what best suits your itinerary.
DAY-TRIPPING WITH A CAR
Road-tripping is a big part of the joy of exploring Iceland. For one thing, it’s hard to get lost: Even on little branch roads, you’ll find signs showing what’s out there. And at most points of interest, a handy pullout with an information board explains all the upcoming roadside attractions.
For travelers day-tripping on their own by car, the following chapters outline detailed self-guided driving tours with suggested schedules and opinionated descriptions to help you assess your options and plan your drive.
My driving directions assume you’re starting from Reykjavík. But if you’re staying outside the city, you can drive to these day-trip destinations from a home base anywhere in the southwestern part of the country—for example, from along the South Coast, from the Reykjavík suburb of Hafnarfjörður, or from Keflavík, near the international airport.
Before heading out, be sure to read the tips on driving in Iceland in the Practicalities chapter.
DAY-TRIPPING WITH AN EXCURSION
A variety of companies offer excursions around Iceland. These are great if you want to sit back, enjoy the scenery, and learn from a knowledgeable guide (or, in a few cases, a well-produced recorded commentary). With careful planning, you can cobble together several half- and full-day excursions that will get you to many of Iceland’s top sights.
Excursion Destinations
The most popular excursion destinations are the Golden Circle, the Blue Lagoon, the South Coast, and the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. In winter, you’ll find evening trips in search of the northern lights. Some tours run all year, but winter offerings are generally sparser.
Most excursions start in Reykjavík, but there are also options from Ísafjörður in the Westfjords, and Akureyri, Mývatn, and other small towns around the Ring Road.
You may see tours advertised for the glacier lagoons and Skaftafell National Park in Southeast Iceland; while these are amazing sights, they’re too far from Reykjavík for a reasonable day trip (at least 10 hours round-trip)—you’ll spend far more time on the bus than at your destination. Save these for a drive around the Ring Road or add an overnight or two in the southeast and do it right.
Choosing an Excursion Company
Sorting through the numerous excursion options can be overwhelming. For starters, look at each company’s website or brochure. As the offerings are constantly in flux, check reviews on TripAdvisor (in the “Things to Do” section) for recent firsthand accounts. Both branches of Reykjavík’s TI (called What’s On) can help you find and book a tour. You can also browse and book tours on the TI website (www.whatson.is).
Another resource is one of Iceland’s travel-company consortiums, such as Guide to Iceland (https://guidetoiceland.is). You’ll pay the same whether you book direct or use a booking service—they get their commission from the tour companies.
Tour Companies: The two biggest players are Reykjavík Excursions (www.re.is, owned by Icelandair and promoted on their flights) and Gray Line (www.grayline.is). Their offerings are slick and consistent, but the 50-seat buses are typically jam-packed (though both companies offer some small-group departures). An advantage, though, is predictability and price; what these tours lack in intimacy they make up for in efficiency and lower ticket costs.
Several smaller outfits are more personal, generally use smaller vehicles, and can be pricier. Well-established and respected companies include family-run Nicetravel (www.nicetravel.is); Your Day Tours (https://yourdaytours.is); environmentally focused Geo Iceland (www.geoiceland.com) and its sister company, small-bus, small-group Iceland Horizon (www.icelandhorizon.is); and Viking Women, which runs multiday, women-only itineraries around Iceland (www.vikingwomen.is).
Add-On Options: Beyond the standard sightseeing loops, excursion companies offer a wide variety of optional activities such as hiking, caving, horseback riding, snorkeling, glacier walking, and snowmobiling. Among the possibilities: You can do the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport; add the Fontana baths in Laugarvatn, snorkeling, or an ATV ride to a Golden Circle trip; or visit Game of Thrones shooting locations.
Prices: Excursions run from about $75 to $250 (more for boutique experiences). For example, an express, seven-hour Golden Circle tour starts at around $75, a 10-hour South Coast tour starts at around $100, and a bus trip to the Blue Lagoon, including admission, starts at about $150.
When to Book: For standard tours—such as the Golden Circle or South Coast—you generally don’t need to book a seat more than a day or two in advance, so you may want to wait until you arrive in Iceland and know what the weather will be doing. One exception is the Blue Lagoon, which can fill up faster than other excursions. Your hotel may be happy to book these tours for you (be aware that they get a commission).
More specialized tours (ice caving, glacier hikes) can book up; for these, keep an eye on online booking calendars, which typically count down the number of slots available for each tour.
Unguided Excursions to Remote Destinations
A number of private companies run regularly scheduled buses throughout Iceland’s countryside—offering transportation to otherwise difficult-to-reach, remote areas, but without any guiding. Developed primarily to get hikers to trailheads, some of these buses can also work for independent travelers who want to put together day trips on their own.
For example, the worthwhile but difficult-to-reach Icelandic Highlands in the center of the country are served by specially equipped excursion buses. Two rough dirt-and-gravel roads (the Kjölur and Sprengisandur routes) cross the Highlands, but can only be driven in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and only from roughly the end of June to the first snows. You can take a bus from Reykjavík into the Highlands to the geothermally active Landmannalaugar, a base for hikers a short detour off the Sprengisandur route (see here). Similar buses cross the island from Reykjavík to Akureyri via the Highland route (see the “Transportation” section of the Practicalities chapter).
MULTIDAY ITINERARIES
The recommended itineraries in this book’s introduction focus on two types of travelers: short-timers (layover visitors squeezing in a day trip or two) and long-haul road-trippers (devoting a week or more to the entire Ring Road). But for those whose available time falls somewhere in between, it is possible to get beyond the capital region without driving the full 800 miles of the Ring Road. Thinking creatively about domestic flights and one-way car rentals can help you make the most of your time.
Icelandair has fast and affordable flights from Reykjavík’s small and easy downtown airport to Akureyri (in the north), Ísafjörður (the Westfjords’ main town), Egilsstaðir (on the Eastfjords), and more (www.icelandair.com). Flights run in the $100 range (if you book ahead) and tend to be quick (an hour or less), easy (there’s no security checkpoint), and outrageously scenic.
Most car-rental companies let you drop off a car elsewhere in Iceland. This usually comes with an extra fee, but it’s often worth the time and money you’ll save by not retracing your drive back to Reykjavík.
Intermediate-Length Itineraries
Here are some suggested itineraries that get you farther afield in just two to five days.
Snæfellsnes in 2 Days: Of all the day trips in this book, Snæfellsnes is the one most deserving of an overnight, which lets you spread the driving and sightseeing over two days. That chapter’s “Planning Your Time” section has advice for both one- and two-day versions.
The North in 2-3 Days: The Mývatn area is one of Iceland’s natural treasures. Unfortunately, it’s a tedious six-hour drive from the capital. To be efficient, you could fly from Reykjavík to Akureyri, pick up a rental car, and drive around a bit (including Mývatn and/or the scenic Tröllaskagi Peninsula, with the lovely town of Siglufjörður). From there, you could drop off your car and fly or take the bus back to Reykjavík—or keep your car (and pay the one-way fee) to drive the Akureyri-Reykjavík segment of the Ring Road.
The South in 2-4 Days: Simply drive down to the South Coast and find a countryside hotel to settle into before taking in the sights. You could spend a day hiking in Þórsmörk (meeting a bus in Hvolsvöllur that’s equipped to handle the terrain), do a side trip to the Westman Islands, or visit the Golden Circle as a loop from here instead of from Reykjavík (each of these takes about a day). If you’d like to linger in glacier country and have time for Skaftafell National Park, you could drive a couple of hours farther east, adding an overnight in Southeast Iceland.
The Westfjords in 2 Days: The remote and rustic Westfjords are the best place in Iceland to get away from the crowds. For a targeted visit, fly in and out of Ísafjörður, doing a day or two of excursions (either with tour companies or on your own with a rental car). Better yet...
Snæfellsnes Plus the Westfjords in 5 Days: These two areas in northwestern Iceland pair perfectly for several wonderful days of sightseeing. Do the Snæfellsnes loop (ideally with an overnight), then take the ferry to the southern Westfjords. From there, you can loop around the Látrabjarg Peninsula and head north (via Dynjandi Waterfall) to the Ísafjörður area. From Ísafjörður, you can drive six tedious hours back to Reykjavik...or, for maximum efficiency, drop off your car and fly back to the capital.