Iceland doesn’t ease you in.
We landed at Keflavik Airport simply because the solar was taking place — and the views from the aircraft on descent had been already one thing else. Golden mild spilling throughout a volcanic panorama that appeared like nothing I’d ever seen from 30,000 toes. That was our welcome to Iceland.
4 days later I left having seen the Northern Lights twice, walked inside a glacier, stood on a black sand seashore in 50mph winds, and located a spot that appeared a lot like Mars I genuinely needed to remind myself I used to be nonetheless on Earth.
That is the precise route we took — each cease, each restaurant, each second price understanding about. My dad and I did this journey in January with Secret Spots Iceland, a neighborhood tour operator who is aware of these areas higher than anybody. If you need a guided expertise, they’re price each penny. That stated, each cease on this Iceland winter itinerary is totally doable by yourself — and I’ll offer you every part it is advisable navigate it independently.
Earlier than you pack — take a look at our Iceland Packing Checklist for precisely what to put on and convey. Waterproof every part. Belief me.
Earlier than You Go: The Winter Gentle Actuality
One factor no one absolutely prepares you for in Iceland in winter the daylight window is tiny.
Dawn wasn’t till round 10:30am and sundown hit at roughly 4pm. That’s lower than six hours of daylight. It sounds limiting nevertheless it truly works in your favor, the golden hour mild lasts all day, each photograph appears unbelievable, and the darkness provides you the very best situations for Northern Lights looking.
Plan your driving between stops accordingly. Don’t underestimate how shortly it will get darkish.
Day 1: Reykjavik & The Northern Lights
Keflavik Airport → Reykjavik (45 minutes)
Flying into KEF is a dream. Seize your 4×4 rental automotive instantly, that is non-negotiable in winter, don’t even contemplate a typical car — and make the 45-minute drive into Reykjavik.
Spend your first afternoon and night exploring town. It’s compact, walkable, and full of character. The primary landmark is Hallgrímskirkja, the long-lasting church that towers over town and offers you sweeping views over the rooftops from the highest. Stroll Laugavegur Road for espresso, meals, and a really feel for town.
Eat someplace native. Reykjavik punches properly above its weight for meals.
Reykjavík → Hvolsvöllur (90 minutes)
Right here’s the choice that modified our whole journey: as an alternative of staying in Reykjavik, we drove 90 minutes east to Hvolsvöllur for the evening.
The explanation? Gentle air pollution. Reykjavik’s glow kills your Northern Lights probabilities. Hvolsvöllur is deep within the South Iceland countryside, darkish skies, privateness, and dramatically higher odds of catching the aurora.
It paid off instantly.
Inside minutes of checking into our Airbnb, I glanced exterior and observed the sky trying a little bit extra colourful than typical. I walked out. The Northern Lights had been instantly above us, inexperienced ribbons shifting throughout your complete sky, on evening one inside an hour of arriving.
We spent 45 minutes exterior. Simply standing there, staring, filming, not saying a lot. A kind of moments the place you perceive instantly that you just’ll bear in mind it for the remainder of your life.
Should you’re chasing the Northern Lights, and need to get essentially the most out of this Iceland winter itinerary, get out of Reykjavik at evening.
Day 2: The South Coast – Waterfalls, Black Sand & Basalt
The South Coast is Iceland’s best hits. Give your self a full day and don’t rush any of it.
Seljalandsfoss
Your first waterfall, and what a strategy to begin.
Seljalandsfoss drops 60 meters off a cliff face and, uniquely, you’ll be able to stroll behind it via a slender passage carved into the rock. Standing behind a waterfall whereas it crashes in entrance of you is a genuinely surreal expertise. The mountains flanking it on each side make the backdrop much more dramatic.
Put on your waterproof gear right here. You’re going to get moist. That’s not a warning, it’s a promise.
Reynisfjara Black Sand Seaside – Close to Vík (R.I.P.)
We had been fortunate sufficient to be a number of the final guests to expertise Reynisfjara earlier than a piece of the cliff collapsed, completely altering the seashore.
Even earlier than that, this place was not like something I’d ever seen. Black volcanic sand so far as you’ll be able to see, huge basalt columns stacked like organ pipes alongside the cliff face, and waves arriving with completely zero warning.
The wind right here was brutal. My dad had forgotten his waterproof pants and inside minutes he was fully soaked. I used to be high quality. Put on your waterproof gear. All of it.
The rogue waves at Reynisfjara are genuinely harmful, individuals have been swept away right here. Keep properly again from the waterline regardless of how calm it appears.
Lunch at Ströndin Pub – Vík
After Reynisfjara, cease in Vík for lunch at Ströndin Pub. I had among the finest burgers I’ve eaten wherever. Heat, unpretentious, and precisely what you want after getting sandblasted on a black sand seashore.
Skógafoss
Finish the day at Skógafoss and save power for it as a result of this waterfall deserves your full consideration.
In contrast to Seljalandsfoss the place you stroll behind the water, at Skógafoss you stroll instantly beneath it. The size is big, 60 meters of water crashing down so shut you are feeling the complete drive of the mist in your face. Don’t be scared to get shut. The photographs are price it.
Climb the steps to the viewing platform on the high for a totally completely different perspective over the South Coast.
Day 3: Ice Caves, Glaciers & The Finest Pizza in Vík
Yoda Cave
Begin the morning at Yoda Cave, a lava tube formation whose jagged entrance appears nearly precisely just like the Star Wars character. I didn’t understand it till we acquired there after which couldn’t unsee it.
One of the best half? We had been fully alone. No different guests, no tour teams, simply us strolling right into a cave on a black sand seashore feeling like real explorers. Popping out alive was a bonus. (Simply kidding. Largely.)
The adjoining black sand seashore provides the entire spot an otherworldly backdrop that made it one of the photogenic stops of your complete journey.
Glacier & Ice Cave Tour with KatlaTrack – The Expertise of a Lifetime
Clear your afternoon. This tour runs about 3 hours and it’s with out query, one of the unforgettable experiences of my life.
The information hundreds you into what can solely be described as a war-ready 4×4 and takes you off-road throughout a glacier. It looks like driving on one other planet. After we reached the ice caves, the scene was straight out of Interstellar, icy mountains on each aspect, electrical blue partitions of compressed glacial ice, full silence aside from the crunch of trainers on historical ice.
We spent the following hour or two trekking out and in of the caves. Each flip revealed one thing extra extraordinary than the final.
Put on each layer you introduced. It’s chilly, it’s moist, and it’s price each second of discomfort.
Guide KatlaTrack prematurely, this tour sells out. Don’t go away it to probability.
Dinner at Black Crust Pizzeria – Vík
Again in Vík for dinner. There’s actually just one pizza place on the town Black Crust Pizzeria, and actually, that’s high quality. It’s glorious. After a day on a glacier, it’s precisely what you want.
Day 4: The Golden Circle – Craters, Geysers & Iceland’s Bluest Waterfall
The Golden Circle is Iceland’s most well-known vacationer route for purpose. However we did it with a couple of detours that the majority guests by no means discover, and people ended up being the most effective moments of the day.
One essential notice for winter: dawn on at the present time was round 10:30am. We timed our first cease completely for the golden hour mild. Plan your Golden Circle day across the dawn.
Ingólfsfjall – Dawn Overlook
On the way in which to Kerið, we noticed a good looking overlook known as Ingólfsfjall and pulled over on intuition. The timing was excellent, it was proper at dawn, the sunshine was golden, and the views over the encircling panorama had been extraordinary.
That is the type of cease that doesn’t make it into most itineraries. Pull over for it. The drone photographs right here had been a few of my favorites from your complete journey.
Kerið Crater
A volcanic crater lake that appears prefer it fell from one other dimension. Deep pink and black crater partitions encompass vivid teal water on the backside, the colour distinction is nearly synthetic trying, particularly in winter mild.
Stroll your complete rim and go all the way down to the water. The angle adjustments fully from each angle you view it from. Don’t simply look from the highest and go away.
The Secret Spot (Close to Kerið – You’ll Know It When You See It)
Only a quick distance from Kerið, we discovered a spot I’m intentionally not naming or mapping.
The complete panorama was various shades of pink, orange, and black. So alien-looking that the one reference level I had was Mars. We had the entire place fully to ourselves. No different guests. Simply us, the drone, and a panorama that genuinely didn’t seem like Earth.
We flew the drone throughout and frolicked simply sitting with it, reflecting on how one nation can include ice caves that really feel like Interstellar AND a pink volcanic panorama that looks like Mars. Hold your eyes open on the roads round Kerið. You’ll acknowledge it instantly if you see it.
Gullfoss
One among Iceland’s most iconic waterfalls, and one of many uncommon ones that really lives as much as each photograph you’ve ever seen of it.
Gullfoss is so large and encompassing that it made me really feel genuinely small, which nature has a humorous means of doing when it desires to place you in your home. Go to each viewpoint, each provides you a totally completely different expertise of the identical waterfall. My favourite was the decrease platform the place you’ll be able to really feel the complete drive of it, mist was blowing instantly into my face your complete time and I couldn’t have cared much less.
Geysir – Strokkur
My first geyser. It didn’t disappoint.
Strokkur erupts each 7-10 minutes, taking pictures boiling water 20-30 meters into the air. The problem is being prepared along with your digital camera each single time. Your arms will get drained holding the shot however the second it erupts is totally price it. You’ll watch it 4 or 5 instances earlier than you’re prepared to go away.
There’s a customer heart proper subsequent to the geysir with a meals courtroom and a present store if it is advisable seize one thing for whoever you left at residence.
Brú Horse Farm
A fast cease that grew to become one of many warmest moments of the journey. Iceland’s native horses are a breed not like every other, small, thick-maned, and fully tired of you except you could have snacks.
Purchase the snacks. It’s the one strategy to get photograph and actually the horses’ full mercenary angle towards people is hilarious and endearing on the identical time.
Brúarfoss Waterfall My Favourite of the Total Journey
Iceland’s bluest waterfall and essentially the most undervisited cease on this complete itinerary.
The water here’s a vivid cobalt blue that doesn’t look actual. It’s fed by glacial meltwater filtering via historical lava rock, and the colour it produces is not like anything in Iceland. With the mountains within the background it was essentially the most purely picturesque waterfall of the entire journey, not the largest, not essentially the most highly effective, however essentially the most lovely.
Most Golden Circle guests skip this completely. Don’t be certainly one of them.
The waterfall is intimate and quiet in a means that Gullfoss and Skógafoss aren’t. I flew my drone up and over it for a number of the greatest footage of the journey. After which I simply sat there for some time. Some locations make you need to cease shifting and simply exist in them for a minute. Brúarfoss is a kind of locations.
Þingvellir Nationwide Park – Finish on a Excessive
The ultimate cease, and the best one to finish on.
Þingvellir is the place the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet above floor, making a dramatic rift valley you’ll be able to stroll instantly via. It’s additionally the place Iceland’s first parliament was established in 930 AD, making it essentially the most traditionally important place on your complete route.
Should you’re a Recreation of Thrones fan, there’s a piece that may instantly remind you of the doorway to the Eyrie. You’ll acknowledge it the second you see it.
We arrived at sundown. Overlooking the huge lake in that mild, with the rift valley stretching out in each route, it was the proper strategy to shut out 4 days in Iceland.
One Final Present – Northern Lights on the Airport
We ended the evening at Keflavik Airport ready for our flight residence. And Iceland gave us one last send-off, the Northern Lights appeared instantly above the airport whereas we waited to board.
Twice in 4 days. Iceland doesn’t do issues midway.
FAQ
Ought to I lease a automotive for my journey to Iceland in winter?
4×4 is obligatory in winter. Non-negotiable.
How lengthy is it day in Iceland?
Dawn ~10:30am, sundown ~4pm in January (Roughly 5 hours of daylight). Plan accordingly.
Ought to I rent a information or go alone?
We used Secret Spots Iceland for Days 2 and three, which gave us entry to spots and data we wouldn’t have discovered on our personal. Each cease on this itinerary is doable independently — however if you would like a neighborhood skilled displaying you the less-obvious spots, they’re glorious.
What are the highway situations in Iceland in winter?
Verify roads each day. Iceland’s situations change quick and F-roads shut in winter with out warning.
The place can I see the Northen Lights?
Get out of Reykjavik at evening. The farther from metropolis lights the higher. Obtain the Aurora app for real-time forecasts.
