Iceland Road Trip on a Budget & Time Crunch
Iceland is a great country to visit, especially if you love the outdoors, specifically waterfalls. It is great for road trips too, as the country is basically designed for this. Iceland has vast countrysides with roads leading to the many different waterfalls and hikes. Many people rent vans, and do van life for a week or a couple days while they are visiting.
I went to Iceland in late August and loved it. I mostly saw the southeast part of Iceland (where most tourists go) and can’t wait to go back to visit northern Iceland. My friends and I spent a couple nights in Reykjavík and then did van life for the rest of our time. We spent a total of 5 nights and 6 days in Iceland. Like I said above, if you enjoy the outdoors and small towns, this is the place for you. However, if you like big cities and nightlife, I would not recommend you visiting Iceland.
In this blog post you will read about Iceland road trip itinerary, Iceland road trip map, Iceland road trip planner, Iceland road trip itinerary 10 days, Iceland road trip itinerary 7 days, Iceland road trip itinerary 5 days, Iceland road trip cost, Iceland summer road trip, Golden Circle, Blue Lagoon, Westfjords Region, Thingvellir National Park, Hallgrimskirkja, and more.
This blog post is all about an Iceland road trip.
Iceland Road Trip:
Iceland Road Trip Planner
First, you will probably fly into Reykjavik, where you can spend the night, and if it’s early enough you can explore the city. Reykjavik really isn’t that big and you can see everything you need to in a couple hours if you’re on a time crunch. My friends and I stayed at two different AirBnBs when we were there but there are hotels that you can stay in as well. However, there is no Uber or Lyft in the country, they use taxis (expensive) instead.
From the airport there is a bus you can take called, Flybus. There are buses around the city as well that you can take to get around. In addition, many of the day tours out of Reykjavik drive you everywhere. Lastly, like I said above Iceland is designed for van life or road trip life. There are many different places you can rent vans or cars within Reykjavik or near the airport.
We fly out of JFK airport in NYC and got into Reykjavik around 9pm. Iceland is 4 hours ahead of New York or east coast (America) time. Thus, it wasn’t too hard adjusting to the time switch. We took the Flybus from the airport into Reykjavik. It was pretty easy to find, as there were many employees asking people if they knew where to go. As we were riding the Flybys, one of their volcanoes had recently erupted, so on our drive, we could see the lava spewing from the volcano. Once we got into Reykjavik, we walked to our AirBnB. We used GoogleMaps to find where it was. It was a little tricky to find via Google Maps, but not because the city is difficult to navigate, but more because of how tired we were.
Iceland Road Trip Map
We spent two nights in Reykjavik to start the trip off. On our first day there, we took a day trip to hike instead a dormant volcano. This was a cool experience and I did like the hike to the cave a lot. We also got to see an arctic fox, which was really cool. And lastly, they did feed us lunch. Also, this hike was extremely cold and we went at the end of August. They gave us “wind suits,” which I was really appreciated. If they didn’t provide me with the wind suit, I would have been too cold to hike. And this is coming from a very experienced hiker. Thus, I would pack warm, when you travel to Iceland and you plan to hike.
Going inside the volcano was kind of cool however, it was also kind of cheesy. You can tell that this is a big tourist trap. However, I didn’t feel that way until I was in the volcano. Also, I think this excursion was WAY overpriced. I think each of us paid around $300 US dollars per person to see the volcano, which to me was not worth it. It should have been about $150 per person if that, in my opinion. There are some excursions that I think are worth it but overall, I found that ALL the excursions were grossly overpriced.
With all that being said, here is a link to different excursions that can give you an idea of what to see possibly on your own if you can. Another popular excursion that tourist take is to see the northern lights.
On our second day, we went snorkeling between the tectonic plates. I thought this excursion was worth it, but again, way overpriced. Before we went snorkeling we did pick up our Happy Camper van. They have a couple different styled vans you can choose from. There were four of us that went on this trip, so we booked the biggest van. I think it was plenty of space for us. When we slept at night, the camper was setup like bunk beds, so two of us slept on the bottom level and the other two (myself) slept on the top bunk.
I thought it was pretty comfortable, but I can pretty much slept anywhere. Also, they provide you with quilts, thick blankets, and pillows to help with the cold weather. They also tell how you can leave the heat on in the car without leaving the car on. We took a taxi to the Happy Camper company, it was closer to the airport, so this taxi ride was expensive. I forget exactly how much it was, but it was around $40-$50. But we did split it between four people. This gives you an idea of how expensive taxis are in Iceland.
Iceland Summer Road Trip
I thought the snorkeling was really cool. Again, it was expensive. I think my friends and I pay around $220 US dollars to snorkel. Which is still overpriced but I think it’s really cool that I get to say I snorkeled across tectonic plates. I would do this excursion over the volcano. Now, if you want to do this, the water is COLD. I believe our guide told us the water was 35℉, this is about 2℃. Now, they do provide you with all the materials and clothing you will need. I suggest wearing leggings and a thermal long sleeve t-shirt underneath all the wet suits they give you. Also, wear warm socks.
Once you are all suited up they give you snorkels, face masks, and gloves to protect you from the cold. You will go into the water, again it is cold, and there are gaps between your hands and wrists, and your face masks, so those areas of your bodies do get cold. The whole excursion took about 3 hours.
After we were done snorkeling, we went back to our Happy Camper van and drove to Diamond Beach. This is the famous beach that has glaciers floating in the water. Diamond Beach was pretty to see but I preferred the waterfalls that we saw over the beach. The drive to the beach was about 4-5 hours. We drove to a campsite not too far from the beach. At most of the campsites you do have to pay to stay there. However it’s very cheap. I think we paid around $10-20 US dollars per person. We had the van for 3 days and 2 nights, so we only stayed at two different campgrounds.
Iceland Road Trip Itinerary
The next day we drove along the whole Golden Circle. There are a ton of famous landmarks along the Golden Circle driving route to see. The ones we saw were Gullfoss Waterfall, Kerid Carter (cost $5 US dollars to see), and Geysir Geothermal Area. Some other famous spots are Þingvellir National Park, Secret Lagoon, Laugarvatn Fontana Geothermal Baths, Skálholt Cathedral, and Thjorsardalur Valley. Some other waterfalls we saw were Haifoss and Seljalandsfoss. Selijalandsfoss was by far my favorite waterfall. You can walk behind it and get beautiful views. We ended up spending the night at a really pretty campground with a waterfall. It was the Skogar campground.
On our last day in Iceland we spent it in Reykjavik exploring the city and buying way too many souvenirs. We went to a couple different bars and saw Hallgrimskirkja (church in the downtown area of Reykjavik). Also, the library bar in Reykjavik is super fun, I highly recommend going there. Whenever we were there they always had live music and it just had a really fun vibe to it. There are some fun bars to drink at in Reykjavik and overall, it’s a pretty funky/artsy town. I really liked it, the architecture and artwork on the buildings are pretty cool.
Finally, the day of our flight, we went to the famous, Blue Lagoon. Now, this is definitely the biggest tourist trap they have. It was WAY overpriced. I would spend the extra time looking up different “hot springs,” to go to instead going here. Again, it was WAY overpriced to buy our ticket. It was around $115 US dollars just to swim in the lagoon for 2 hours. I would have much preferred to go to some of the more rugged hot springs such as, the Secret Lagoon, Myvatn Nature Baths, Hofsós, Drangsnes, Landbrotalaug, Seljavallalaug, or Reykjadalur.
Iceland Road Trip Cost
This trip was pretty expensive. However, if you stayed in the vans for the full trip and didn’t go on any of the excursions, you could definitely get away with this trip for around $2,000 US dollars. The smallest van goes for about $155 US dollars per day (for 2 people), and the largest van size (what my friends and I rented) goes for about $178 US dollars per day (split between 4 people). Next, we booked our flights, round trip, for between $400 – 500 US dollars. We fly out of JFK airport in New York City, so it wasn’t too far of a flight. If you’re coming from the west coast I’m sure it’s pricey, as it’s much farther away. Also, the flight going to Iceland was about 4-5 hours and coming back it was about 5-6 hours long (from NYC).
As far as food goes, you really want to buy products at the grocery stores. Eating out was really expensive. We only ate two or three meals out and the rest of our meals were peanut butter sandwiches. The big grocery stores in Iceland are Bónus and Krónan. I think we spent about $40-50 US dollars on our groceries for the week per person.
Overall Thoughts About Iceland
Overall, I liked Iceland. I definitely want to go back and really focus my visit more on van life and hiking. On this visit, I will say, I let my one friend do all the planning and I didn’t get to see all the spots I would have liked to. But that is my own fault and beyond that, I still had a wonderful time. I think the trip we had was a great introduction to the country and it’s most famous spots. Now, when I go back I know how to avoid all the tourist traps and how to save more money.
Again, I would really love to go back and research all the different hikes I could have gone on, as hiking is one of my favorite activities. Lastly, I would have loved to have spent the whole time in the van we had. I did like spending the two nights in Reykjavik but anything more than that, I will say, I would have gotten bored. It seemed to me, that Iceland really is for the hiking, the waterfalls, and van life. With all that being said, thank you so much for reading, and I hope this article was helpful to you and you learned more information about Iceland.
