The country not the frozen food shop!
Going with the non cycling Mrs Pop late Feb/early March- any ideas gratefully accepted
TIA

Came to make ‘lasagne then fish fingers’ based jokes, but you’ve scuppered that!

Otherwise – interested what others says as I have fancied going there for quite some time.

Why that time of year? I’d imagined going there in late spring, but the dark and really cold months hold appeal too.

We went a few years ago, similarly for a week. We decided to do a full loop of the island but missing out the West Fjords.

If I were honest, this ended up being far too many hours sat in the car and only just really stopping to take photos and move on again. I’d be less ambitious if I were to go again.

There are many, many waterfalls but after a while they all look broadly the same.

We did whale watching in the North of the island – that was great. As too was the diamond beach on the South.

We went for a week, about 12 years ago & concluded we should have gone for half the time & spent twice as much per day on excursions while we were there.

Golden Circle 4×4 trip. This will take you to Geyser, Gulfos and a few other places.

Wander round Reykjavik. Find Solfar, get up to Perlan.

Blue Lagoon ( I know it is the pond for a power station, but it is pretty cool )

Whale watching would have been better if the whales were cooperating.

BSN- timing is around best time for the lights which is either Sept/March allegedly and we werent confident enough to go for September with travel restrictions- we have moved 3 times already!

Scruff- good info I definitely want a rest as well so quality rather than quantity is the order of the day

ceept- similar to above I’m sure we will be happy relaxing in between seeing stuff plus we wanted to make sure we had a good chance of seeing the lights so a week hopefully increases the odds

cheers Harry- forgot to ask about location for stay- we only have flights currently so need to book accommodation – I had automatically assumed Reykavik?

Whale watching would have been better if the whales were cooperating.

Whale watching in the South requires a lot of luck, funnily enough they don’t really tell you that when you book. The north is the place for that

We stayed in Reykjavik. Nice enough hotel with a buffet breakfast and staff that actively encouraged you to fill your pockets for lunch. Sadly I can’t remember what it was called.

I’ve been a few times. If you’re going for a week consider a loop of the west fjords – considered a good trip seeing Iceland in a compact area. I took the kids years ago and it was a great trip.

Always wanted to go but I’ve heard it’s full of instagrammers queuing to get the spot to set up their tripod by a waterfall for their #wilderness shots.

I’m sure you can get away from that, but it sounds like some of the more well-known beauty spots are overrun these days.

Was going to say what Scruff said – don’t be tempted to try and circle the whole island in a week, and definitely not in winter. It will be quite dark (maybe 9-10 hours of daylight depending exactly when you plan to go).

Expect it to be cold, but possibly/probably wet, about 3-4°C in the day and -1 to -2°C at night, but potentially 10° milder or colder, so not camping weather. It doesn’t actually snow that often, but it generally rains about 50% of days. You might be lucky in a week, if you can stay awake the aurora borealis / northern lights might show for you and be lucky with cloud cover. I would stick to the west and south coasts, either spending every night in Reykjavik and paying for guided tours or spend the first few nights in the city and then hire a car for 4-5 days to see other ‘sights’ independently.

It’s not really whale watching season in Feb/March so I would be tempted to stick to the geological and glaciology stuff to the south – ‘the’ geyser, Thingvellir where the tectonic plates are rifting, waterfalls, hot springs, lava fields and lava tubes you can walk through. Further from Reykjavik along the south coast, you can see volcanoes, visit the glacier-ice cap edges and the volcanic black sand beaches. Alternatively on the west coast (famous for whale watching) there are hot springs, cliffs and beaches, just not glaciers. Be aware most / many of the roads once out of the south-west are gravel not tarmac.

* pulls up chair as I’m off there with Mrs Merman in a couple of weeks *

We went in February a few years ago. We flew to Reykjavik, spent a night there, then took an internal flight to Akureyri, where we stayed in self catering for three nights. Saw the lights from the hot tub, did a fantastic full day trip taking in Dimmuborgir, a waterfall or two, some smoking fumaroles and hot springs, and including an hour in Lake Myvatn Nature Baths, which was just so much better than the Blue Lagoon that there’s really no comparison. Flew back to Reykavik for another day (when we went to the Blue Lagoon which is why I can make the comparison above). The time in Akureyri was definitely the highlight of the trip so I’d strongly recommend it.

grum
Full Member

Always wanted to go but I’ve heard it’s full of instagrammers queuing to get the spot to set up their tripod by a waterfall for their #wilderness shots.

I’m sure you can get away from that, but it sounds like some of the more well-known beauty spots are overrun these days

Nah, it’s grand. There are obviously going to be tourist hot spots, but loads of other places away from crowds too

It’s a stunning country with stunning and varied countryside, but not a huge amount of things to do other than to immerse yourself in the countryside. Just like if you were to tour the Highlands of Scotland or Norway or anywhere else. Probably best if you were to campervan it (that’s what I did) or go on some kind of camping/hiking/overlanding adventure thing.

I did is on a charity do I was invited on by some customers. We did a relay cycle event around it out of campervans and loved it and will be taking the family back again, but said will be going for no more than a week and probably renting a camper van or something. Would love to cycle it again on a bike touring do, but its something like 850 miles around and pretty hilly and that ever present wind which could ruin your cycling experience.

2 main points from me:

1) It’s an easy place to drive around – the roads you’ll reach in 7 days are generally good (and mainly tarmac) and traffic is generally fairly light, so (if you weren’t already) consider renting a car rather than relying on trips/excursions.

2) It’s expensive to eat / drink out (see comments above about stuffing your pockets…).

we only have flights currently so need to book accommodation

We stayed in the Centrum Hotel in Reyjkavik and Sæluhus Apartments in Akureyri – both were really good.

Relatively easy hike for a soak in the hot river from Hveragerdi (short drive over the hill from Reykjavik). If you don’t fancy doing it yourselves then can highly recommend the folks at Icelandactivities.is (based in Hveragerdi but will pick you up if required). A little local family business run by mum, dad and grown up kids. They are also mtbers and was just like having a day out with friends.

Isn’t the volcano still erupting? Maybe a hike to see that?

Jokulsarlon is worth a look if the weather / roads allow. I wouldn’t try and drive further than that if only there for a week.

Golden circle and whale watching are good shouts, the black beach at vik is pretty cool and there’s another smaller geothermal area to the south with a nice drive back north past Danau Kleifarvatn …..for food check out svarta kaffid in Reykjavík. Only does two soups in a bread bowl but is well worth it. (be warned there can be big queues to get in)

We did it in March 2020, just before everything closed down with Covid-19 restrictions.

Had 5 days there based in Reykjavik. We did a few excursions on bus trips, was good and got to see plenty, but it was a long time sat on the bus, not something I’d want to do nowadays, so I’d recommend hiring a car to go visiting any attractions.

We loved Reykjavik, it was great place to chill out in and have an walk round. Would definitely go back. It was more expensive than some places, but didn’t think it was as bad as it was made out to be.

I really want to go there to live, but can’t see it ever happening.

Hotel Fron is reasonable, comfortable and brilliantly located, make sure you get the Appy Hour app and you can get drinks at normal UKish prices.

for food check out svarta kaffid in Reykjavík. Only does two soups in a bread bowl but is well worth it. (be warned there can be big queues to get in)

Seconded – awesome little place

awesome place. we went to celebrate our 40th’s. Lassies trip away.

Our flight times allowed us to go to Blue Lagoon on the way from the airport to our hotel. You pass it anyway so no point driving past then back again. Great start to any holiday.

We hired a fairly beat up Panda. We had taken out extra insurance before we went, getting done for gravel damage is apparently a thing.

We did a whale tour from Reykjavik, plenty of action so to speak.
Guided walking tour of Reykjavik.
Beer tour
Self drive tour to the big waterfalls and geysers. don’t bother waiting on the one that hasn’t went since 1982 or something, didn’t stop some tourists!
Highlight was ice-climbing on a glacier.

I would love to go back sometime.

Go and see the Glacier memorial plaque whilst contemplating the Carbon footprint of air travel?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49345912

getting done for gravel damage is apparently a thing.

Second this – we drove quite conservatively but the hire car (4×4 Mitsubishi with roof tent) but still came back with a number of fresh looking road rash scratches from the gravel roads.

I would imagine it fairly easy to have you over a barrel for paying extra – Our hire co were Ok but think we had the extra cover.

Going and see the volcano that is erupting although it may now be passed it’s best

Go to La Palma now if you want to see a volcano erupting!

My wife went before lockdown on a limited time / budget trip, booked a Golden Circle tour; the cheaper ones are on coaches with 60 odd folk but for a little bit more you can get a ‘limited number’ tour with about a dozen. Worth it as you get more time on sites (numbers seem to slow things down) and had an extra stop.

I spent with friends 10 days in Iceland in Feb. 2017. We liked that trip (Golden Circle, Secret Lagoon, Pingvellir, southern coast to Vik and Jokulsarlon, blue ice cave tour )so much that we went back in Sept 2017 (to Snaefellsness and Westfjords). Honestly, Feb was as good as Sept., at least for the areas we went. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to go in March. In Feb we hiked to Reykjadular (a hot river) and even tho snowing and blowing the trail was visible and there were enough people around (not crowded but also not deserted) that we felt safe hiking a mountainside.
Airbnbs are a good option since you can cook your own meals, make sandwiches etc. Eating out anywhere other than a gas station is crazy expensive. The Bonus grocery stores were great.
Useful links
https://www.icelandcarrental.is/
https://guidetoiceland.is/
https://digital-planner.com/budget/planner

We went in 2016 – did the “lap of the island” thing over a week.

First – that was a HELL of a lot of driving. (Although we could have organised the pickup slightly better). There was a pretty constant need to BE somewhere rather than chill back and relax. We did a bit of gravel driving, but the rental co gave us a pretty ancient Vitara that the paint was already shagged on, so no great issues (didn’t even look at it when we dropped it off). Speed limit is officially quite low, and there’s quite a lot of repetetive terrain to cover.

Didn’t spend much time in Reykjavik and kind of missed the western side as we were behind schedule. Standouts were the “Inside the Volcano” trip; the Lake Myvaten area – proper amazing, live, geology round there, (didn’t do the Blue Lagoon, but there’s a much less touristy version up above Myvaten), the eastern fjords, then the Jokusarlon glacier lagoon and the endless black sand beach. Golden Circle stuff was OK but very busy. Waterfalls. Lots of ’em.

Food very expensive (but then you realise *everything* is imported). The only cattle we saw were part of a farm/dairy/restaurant near Myvaten. Bit weird being watched by cows as you’re munching on dad/grandpa…

We’re both desperate to go back and explore into the interior – possibly on bikes.

You could watch this to help decide 😉

http://www.immortalreviews.com/home/2018/4/29/sigur-rs-route-one-experiment-captures-iceland-with-technology

🙂

For a more serious answer, I found 3 or 4 days in Reykjavik was enough. Wander around town, take some of the bus trips. My wife went whale watching and saw some amazing up close whales (very lucky apparently). I went on a MTB trip on the trails around the city (some interesting stuff, although not super tech). Awesome country.

getting done for gravel damage is apparently a thing.

Second this – we drove quite conservatively but the hire car (4×4 Mitsubishi with roof tent) but still came back with a number of fresh looking road rash scratches from the gravel roads.

Third this. We hired a fairly new traffic minibus (6 of us) and when we took it back they found quite a few bits of paint chipped off the bonnet. They took about a grand out of my credit card. They said it actually cost around half that to fix. Fortunately the extra insurance we’d taken out covered it all.

Other than that fantastic place, loved it.

Thingvellir, Geyser, Gulfoss, Blue Lagoon all worth visiting. I went in December 2018, depressing lack of daylight – sunrise at about 11am, sunset at about 3pm in Reykjavik.

It’s very windy , but being in the Gulf Stream it’s not as cold as you might expect. Seeing the northern lights obviously depends on (a) there being some activity and (b) cloud cover.

I want to go back & maybe visit the west fjords, hopefully have some cloudless nights. Probably late September early October next year

I´m living in Iceland at the moment. I love it but some practical things to consider…

Booze is only sold in state run off licenses (Vínbúðin) which are expensive and open fairly short hours (closed all day Sunday). If you drink, hit the duty free shop at the airport. You can use the trolleys to take the booze right through to the airport exit. They seem pretty relaxed about limits, but if you get Mrs Pop to stand near you when you checkout, it will double your allowance.

Reykjavik is nice, but it´s nightlife only really gets going after midnight. There are happy hours at at lots of bars pre 7:00pm (ish). There is an app (Appy Hour 🙂 to find which bars are doing promotions. Full price beer in a bar is 7-8 quid a pint, but be carful, some exotics can be 12 quid plus.

The weather is brutal, not so much cold, but the wind and rain. Buy all the outdoor gear before you come out as a decent waterproof coat will be be over 300 quid.

There has been massive car hire shortages, and 4×4´s have been something like 500-6öö quid a day to hire over the summer. I guess it´s calmed down, but book early if you want a car.

Something like YAKTRAX Cleats might be a good should as I believe the pavements (where they are not heated! – I´ve seen someone leaving heating pipes under their front lawn) can be very slippery.

Personally, if you are travelling independently, I´d leave travel plans flexible, as the weather varies greatly across the country.

Just returned from a week in Iceland. Mrs Thurman and I chose to stay in a hotel in Reykjavík and hire a car for the week.

Amazing holiday, only soured by the hirecar experience*.

Reykjavík itself is really nice, but there’s not enough there to keep you busy for a week so you will need to get out and see the countryside. Genuinely, everywhere you go there is an amazing vista: snow-capped mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, lava fields sometimes covered in moss, moonscapes, Mars-scapes…

It is very expensive eating out. Mrs Thurman is a very fussy vegetarian which limits our choices sometimes. On our last evening we were getting desperate so plumped for a bog-standard-looking Italian place. Two starters and two mains (mine was half-a-bowl of spaghetti and Mrs Thurman’s was yer basic Margherita pizza) with no drinks = £70.

But aside from expensive food and rubbish hire cars, we had an amazing time and saw some astonishing sights. Have to say my jaw dropped several times – and not just from seeing the restaurant bill.

The weather forecast wan’t looking good for two of our days so we chose to stay local and do Hallgrímskirkja (1930s concrete cathedral with a lift to the top of the spire), and the museums in Reykjavík: the National Museum of Iceland, the Settlement Museum, National Gallery, and the Árbær Open Air Museum (which has a few original turf buildings). All fascinating.

Drove round the Golden Circle one day, stopping off at all the main hotspots: Þingvellir, Geysir geothermal area, Gullfoss, and Kerið volcanic crater.

Another day we drove down to the south coast to Vík to see the black sand beach taking in all the views and waterfalls along the way.

Another day we drove round the Reykjanes peninsula to see the Blue Lagoon (which was bonkers: water the colour of pale-blue milk) and climbed Fagradalsfjall which is the volcano that was erupting about a month ago. There we saw three-week old lava flows which were still smoking and covered in sulfurous vents, as well as the distant crater rim, still smoking and encrusted in sulfur.

Another day we drove northwards to see more geothermal fields and springs, and get close to a glacier. Waterfalls a-plenty including Barnafossar where the waterfalls emerge from between the layers of rock.

We saw the Northern Lights, too. A website accurately forecasts how good the lightshow is going to be on a scale of 0 to 9. The one clear night of our week the forecast was a ‘3’. Unfortunately there was also a full-moon that night which was never going to help, but at about midnight we took our chances and drove out of Reykjavík to a nature reserve and watched the skies. They weren’t spectacular, but we definitely saw them. One more thing I’ve ticked off the list 🙂

Weather wasn’t too shabby, either. It only rained on us a few times (showers, not set-in rain). Temperature hovered just above freezing on a couple of days but with wind-chill, it felt very, very, very cold indeed on those days. Otherwise it was about 4 to 8 degrees.

In summary, we only saw some of the the southwest corner of Iceland, and it was absolutely stunning. Would love to go back one day and see the rest of it.

Few pictures here if you’re interested.

(*Crappy hire-car company kept us waiting at Keflavík airport for an hour before they collected us, then we spent two hours in their office wrangling with them over the cost of extra insurance: small print meant we HAD to take out their top level insurance as we were paying with a debit card, not a credit card. Crappy hire-car company accidentally blocked our debit cards meaning we had to phone our banks back in England and jump through hoops to unblock them. The extra insurance also was more expensive than originally expected. Car (tired old Hyundai i10) was absolute dogsh!t: 200k on the clock, dents, chips, scratches everywhere, suspicious stains on the seats and oily handprints. Oh and a badly cracked/chipped windscreen. Parcel shelf was tied on with a shoelace and its hinge was broken meaning you couldn’t open/shut the boot easily. Faulty low tyre pressure warning ‘pinged’ all the time, and the water pump sounded like it was going to expire at any moment. I could go on. Suggest you take out the maximum insurance and assume your car WILL get damaged).

I have had a quick scroll through and haven’t seen this mentioned. Might not be an obvious thing to do initially but if you have a grain of interest in fishing then try and get a game fishing half day. The fishing out there is mind blowing, and I am considering it for my 50th next year it is so good.

Can’t offer much more than that I’m afraid as all my research has been fishing focussed, but my god it looks awesome!

I´d def. recommend the Diamond Beach which is a c. 5hour drive from Reykjavik. It´s beautiful. We visited the glacier cave with http://www.glacieradventure.is. The guide was great and you get 10% off if you stay at the Skyrhúsid Guest House, which was really good basic accommodation. Ditto Dyrhólaey / Reynisfjara near Vik.

Weather-wise in Feb, I´d try to leave arrangements flexible so you can follow the decent weather. Last Tuesday we went up the the Snæfellsjökull National Park and it was so windy the waterfalls were going upwards:-) You have the advantage you will be able to book accommodation the morning you travel.

en.vedur.is for weather and northern lights forecasts.

The Westfjords are totally beautiful, but you will have to be careful in Feb. Check /www.road.is before you travel. Some of the main roads are gravel on the Westfjords (https://guidetoiceland.is/connect-with-locals/stephen.midgley.7/westfjords-roads-a-complete-guide) so be careful.

If you do the golden circle, leave Rekjavik at 7:30 AM and beat the coaches. It´s OK if it´s quiet, but when it´s busy, it´s (IMHO) horrible.

One thing to consider, if you are into photography, there are infrequent places to stop when driving. It´s not considered cool to just stop on a road and put your hazards on. In some areas (esp. Westfjords) you will be driving past mindblowing landscapes, and when you get to a gravel area to pull off the road to take pictures, you get a very short time to call if the pull off area is OK. I´ve seen a fair few hire cars stuck at the side of the road where they pull off and get stuck in soft mud. There is no national AA type recovery service in Iceland. A 4×4 makes this much easier and gives better ground clearance.

One beautiful, easy road trip from Reykjavik is to visit the Barnafossar waterfall, but instead of going through the tunnel under Hvalfjörður, take route 47 and drive inland round Hvalfjörður and stop off for a walk to Glymur Waterfall.

Then take 520 > 50 > 518 to Barnafossar, it’s a beautiful drive. After visiting the waterfall, carry on and loop round on 518 and visit either Háafell Goat farm or Krauma Spa (depending on budget and your appetite for the smell of goat piss).

La Colina Pizzeria is a nice pizza place at outside Borgarnes which gives time for it to go properly dark. If the skies are clear, pull off route 1 anywhere between Borgarnes and Saurbær and see if he northern lights are playing.

Hótel Egilsen in Stykkishólmur for a night. We were there just before Christmas 8 years ago which added to the magic but it was an enchanting stay. Watch Walter Mitty on your return and get freaked by recognising much of Stykkishólmur in the film.

I ‘think’ we went there on the cusp of Iceland being a bit overcooked on the tourist front. It was still well touristy but in the couple of years after we went so many of the places we went to just seems to become an instabanger cheesefests. Despite it being one of the best things we’ve ever done its seemingly never ending appearance in every to-do-before-you-die list it put me off doing a repeat. Whilst tourism saved the place financially after 2008, it felt like it was on the verge of ruining it too. In a way covid might well have saved it from imploding up its own backside if the visitor numbers have dropped off a bit.

From a previous recommendation on here I used SAD cars they gave us an older beaten up but perfectly working Vitara, no worries about gravel damage, just don’t crash it!

I loved Iceland, the Iceland air hotels are lovely in reykjavik and Akureyri. Kaffinbarrin was a fun night out, but the kids really go for it from 12 and we were done by 2!

Don’t try to lap the whole island, it’s massive a d for large parts of the drive you’ll not see much, cloud, rain, farmers!