We have just come back from Iceland together with Lukasz. It was one of the most amazing trips I have ever done and I can easily recommend this country to anyone who wants to experience something extraordinary, different than anything you visited so far.

Below you can find list of the best destinations in Iceland and itinerary that shows how to visit them in ultimate manner! If you need more details on when to go, how to move around or how to see northern lights – visit this page: FAQ – Iceland

Why you should go to Iceland?

Iceland nature is something unique. This island has only 300.000 inhabitants, so in many places you have nothing but the pure nature. Because the island was created through volcanic eruptions and is located so much in the north it is often called as the land of fire and ice. That makes the landscapes outstanding and you can easily call this place the paradise for photographers. And don’t forget about northern lights! 

 

What to do in Iceland?

Hike, whale watching, snorkel, go to SPA or just go around and enjoy amazing views. Iceland is full of different attractions and you can design your stay in the most suitable way for you. I highly recommend to try all of these, so you can fully experience this country.

Itinerary

Day 0: flight to Iceland in the afternoon
Day 1 (Reykjavik): Hallgrímskirkja, Harpa, Murals,
Day 2: Getting car, Silfra snorkel, Borgarnes, Stykkishólmur, Kirkjufell, Hellissandur (sleeping there)
Day 3: Snæfellsnes peninsula, Snæfellsjökull national park, Glacier hike, Vatnshellir Cave Tour, Arnarstapi
Day 4: Hofsos, Tröllaskagi peninsula, Hverir, Myvant lake, Akureyri
Day 5: Husavik whale watching, Jokulsargljufur, Dettifoss, Borgarfjörður Eystri & Seydisfjordur
Day 6: Seydisfjordur, Jokulsarlon, Skaftafell / Vatnajökull national park, Efri-Vík Bungalows
Day 7: Fjaðrárgljúfur, Vik, Reynisfjara, Sólheimasandur plane crash spot, Seljalandsfoss, Selfoss Hostel
Day 8: Geysir, Gullfoss, Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik
Day 9: Coming back home

Day 0

• Flying to Iceland after work.
• Taking bus from the airport to Reykjavik – we used GreyLine. You can book it in advance and they will wait for you. If you fly in the night, then I advise you to take transportation directly to the hotel as otherwise it will be hard for you to get anywhere close city centre from bus station.
• Accommodation: Reykjavík City HI Hostel (very nice hostel with 24hours check-in, which was crucial for us as we arrived around 01:00)

Day 1

Reykjavik (full day)
Generally you don’t need much more for this city as it is quite small (but still lovely). Nice things to see:

• Hallgrímskirkja: church with amazing architecture and with even more interesting view from the top of the tower. You can see whole city at one glance.

• Harpa: concert hall with the great illumination during night. You don’t go inside, but just see if from outside while it is already dark.

• Murals: whole Reykjavik is full of interesting graffiti. It’s good to pay attention towards them when you walk around.

• Walking around: old harbour, nice architecture and view on the mountains. It’s nice just to walk around the city and see the whole city and experience it. Try also to visit local bars in the evening!

Day 2

In the morning we picked up the car from Budget. It is quite far from the city centre, but they run shuttle bus, so it is worth calling them first. 

Silfra snorkel (#250 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
After getting car we drove to Silfra for snorkelling. It’s one hour drive from Reykjavik. Silfra is a rift between two tectonic plates that is filled with water from the nearby glacier. It is amazing experience to snorkel between two tectonic plates and see on one side America and on the other Europe. 

At Silfra you can both dive and snorkel. We chose the latter version as diving needs some special training to be able to go to the depth of the rift. I can assure that it is completely worth to do snorkel as well. The visibility in the water is crazy – you can see everything down to the deepest part of the rift (around 40 metres). It look like a big church when you are between two stone walls. 

Water is very cold there (around 4 degrees), so it is better to go for dry suit. It keeps you warm enough during 40 minutes snorkel. However, for face and hands you will have to have wet suit, so it means that at the end of the route you will have mouth size like Keira Knightly and your hands will have colour of good preserved zombie. But believe me, at the end you will be so astonished by the experience that you will not remember about these small disadvantages. Please note that dry suit and fins keeps you easily on the surface so don’t worry about the depth of the rift.

We chose company “Artic Adventures” and I can fully recommend their stuff – nice, helpful and funny. However I think that except of the stuff all companies do not differ too much in the way they render the service, so you can easily go for some other choice.

It’s also worth noticing that the whole national park around rift is amazing and worth going around after the snorkel. 

Borgarnes
After Silfra we hit the route and started the circle around the island. First stop for us was Borgarnes. It is a nice city in which we made some groceries (last place with Bonus shop for a long of time). We also visited “Settlement centre” that tells about history of the settlement in the Iceland. We found it interesting, especially because Iceland has so-called “Sagas”, which tracks the history of the land since the first vikings landed there. It is kind of chronicles, where reality mixes with fantasy and real historic persons are mixed with trolls and other strange creatures. Therefore, it is interesting to go to the settlement centre, but after first part we were a little bit tired of slow pace of visit and skipped the second part, which was way more boring.

Stykkishólmur
There is a lot of great places in this small city. It looks amazing, however because we arrived in the late afternoon, all these places were already closed. However, we managed to get to the cliff at the end of the city. Go up and enjoy amazing view from there. The view at the sunset is breathtaking.

 

Kirkjufell
So-called Church mountain creates interesting landscape that is worth stoping-by. It is also place where some scenes from the games of thrones were  filmed.

 

Hellissandur
We took accommodation at Hotel Hellissandur. Really nice place. The city itself is rather small and there is not a lot of to visit, but there is quite a lot walking paths around if you are interested in bird watching. During our walk we found something we called ‘house at the end of the world”. 

Day 3

Snæfellsnes peninsula (#351 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
To be honest we arrived to the peninsula already the day before, but it was on Monday that we fully experienced it. It is on the ultimate traveller list because of the amazing nature and landscapes. All the below spots from that day are parts of the peninsula. 

Snæfellsjökull national park
We woke up very early in the morning to visit all interesting places before the hike we have planned to start at 10:00. First we did some trekking, however didn’t spot any birds that were supposed to be there. Nevertheless, we were able to see all the lava fields that looked like different planet.

 

Later on we visited Saxholl Crater. It is worth going to the top and look into the old volcano and get the view on the surrounding landscape. 

 

Last stop before hiking was Djúpalón Beach (glass beach). It looked very nice, but unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to explore it more.

Glacier hike
Few days before coming we signed up for hike to the Snfellsjkull glacier together with Go West company. Owner of the company is really oriented into eco-tourism and going with him to the top of the glacier is an interesting lesson on the environment protection. It is also very sad to hear how much bigger the glacier used to be in the past.

Hiking the glacier is really easy and even if you are couch potato, it will be doable for you. At the same time hiking is one the typical Icelandic experiences and worth attention. However if you are short on money, I guess it is a point you can try to skip. For me personally it was also very interesting to see how to use crampons (I used them for the first time in my life) as I plan some more hiking in the upcoming future.

Vatnshellir Cave Tour
We planned it around 17:00 and had no problems to be there at that time. You can only go with one company: Summit Adventure Guides, but they are really cool. The trip is around 30-40 minutes and you can go through interesting experience of visiting lava created cave. During the trip you will experience the complete darkness (only for few seconds) and you will see many interesting geological spots. We were also amused by the fact that most of the lava caves are found by sheep, when they go walk around and step into the ground that collapse because of the cave beneath. 

Arnarstapi
We got accommodation at Arnarstapi Guesthouse. It wasn’t our best choice on the way, but unfortunately there are not a lot of choices around, so it is probably still the best possible option.

Around Arnastapi there are a lot of spots that you can walk around without using the car. It’s perfect for the evening . Especially Gatklettur (Arch rock) is worth visiting. 

 

Day 4

Again, we hit the road to go longer distance. Most of the day we spent in the car, but it was fully worth.

Hofsos
First stop that day. There is not a lot of to do in that city except of one outstanding thing – swimming pool with warm water and view on the fjords. Unfortunately they had afternoon break, so we didn’t have chance to go inside…

Tröllaskagi peninsula
We rode around the peninsula and stopped in few places to see the astonishing landscapes. The most interesting spot there was Siglufjörður with its port. During the trip we were also “attacked” by the group of the sheep which stopped us from driving for some moment.

Hverir
This is a geysers field, which is completely outstanding. It’s one of my favourite spot in the whole Iceland and it is completely worth visiting. Around these area there are a lot of geysers, so be careful not to stop before and think that you have already visited Hverir. We almost did this, but fortunately we went a little bit further and found the proper field. It looks like different planet and it is hard to believe you are still on Earth. Completely amazing.

Myvant lake
On the way to and back to Hverir you go through area next to the lake. Landscapes there are amazing and we had to stop few times to take pictures. I even found the place that I think was used for Windows XP wallpaper.  

Akureyri
It is the second biggest city in the Iceland. We slept at Akureyri Backpackers, which was really cool place and can easily recommend if you look for nice hostel. 

We didn’t visit Akureyri itself too much. We used time there to take some pictures of the city at night from the other side of the bay and to go outside city to watch for the northern lights (successfully! Details on how to spot them are above). 

Day 5

In the morning we took one person for car-pooling. She was supposed to go only to Husavik, but after short time with us she decided to go further and stayed with us up until the end of the trip, what made the whole trip much more joyful and interesting.

Husavik whale watching
We went in the morning to Husavik, which is the best place in the Iceland to spot whales. We chose “Gentle Giants” company to go with to the Ocean. 

When we arrived it turned out that the weather is so bad that it was the last vessel going that day to the ocean as later it was going be too dangerous. We were warned that boating in such weather is not nice, we will be completely wet and we will probably vomit due to sea sickness. We thought that it is worth going anyway as we would not have a second chance for it during the trip.

Boating was quite an adventure. For the first hour we were fighting with the waves and got completely soaked. Like really completely. I had 7 layers of clothes, 4 were water-proof, but it didn’t help at all. Therefore, remember not to take camera and other precious staff with you unless it is water proof. And have second pair of shoes, towel and dry clothes waiting for you in the car for quick change after you will be back on the land.

After first hour the weather fortunately got better and with some sun it wasn’t so bad anymore. We were looking for whales for some time and at some point the boat that went after us spotted them close to the harbour and we quickly came back to join other boats and observe the whales. 

We were quite lucky – we spot two humpbacks swimming together. Humpbacks do this specific diving move, thanks to which you can see their fin above the water. I must admit that I was expecting them to be bigger, but apparently 14 meters is big, but just because of the distance it doesn’t seem so long. The whole trip is amazing experience and seeing the whales is something extraordinary. 

Jokulsargljufur
It was suppose to be interesting and strange landscape formation, but unfortunately I didn’t find it interesting at all…

Dettifoss
It is really big waterfall. Worth visiting. However the road to get there is awful and it took us a long time to go through all the bumpy way full of holes. In case of rain I don’t think we would manage going there with our car. 

We approached waterfall from the west side, but I recommend rather going from the east side, however the road there may be even worse. 

Borgarfjörður Eystri & Seydisfjordur (#211 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
Two cities on the edge of the fjords. We arrived to Borgarfjörður Eystri after the sunset and didn’t really go around too much, but I guess during the day it can be really nice. Especially during summer when puffins are around. Please note that route there is really curvy and it goes through mountains, so in case of strong rain it may be hard to get there during night. 

Seydisfjordur was the place we slept and therefore we  really visited it the next morning. We arrived in the night and stayed in the Post-Hotel, which is really cool place that was one of our most favourite hotels on the way.

Day 6

Seydisfjordur
We really had the chance to see the city in the morning. It is beautifully located between the two fjords. It’s most remarkable spot is the famous church with the rainbow road to it. We also made very short hike in the nearby hill to see the city from the above. However, to be honest I can’t fully justify its place on the ultimate traveller list. 

In the city there is craft market, where you can buy one of the best Icelandic sweaters I have seen during the trip – I got one even tough they are crazy expensive (150 EUR). 

 

Jokulsarlon (#60 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
It is so-called Ice Lagoon – on the bottom of the glacier there is lake full of very small ice bergs. You can go around and it makes great impression. It is one of the best places in the Iceland. You can go to the lagoon using amphibia, but walking around should be enough for you. 

Skaftafell / Vatnajökull national park (#145 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
The main spot of the park is Svartifoss (black waterfall) and everyone goes there. However if you will go a little bit further you will find much more – amazing view on the mountains, glacier and the way it transfers into the river. It is really worth to spend some time and make some longer trekking.

Efri-Vík Bungalows
We slept in the Laki hotel (but we decided to go for bungalows which are part of the hotel). It was great place next to the lake and what’s even nicer – it has deck for northern lights observation. You can sit in quite warm glass hut and once you will spot the long-waited northern lights, you can go outside and observe them fully. It was the most expensive hotel on our way, but also the nicest one in my opinion.

Day 7

Fjaðrárgljúfur
Canyon. Cool to see, it doesn’t require a lot of time. 

 

Vik
Nice city to refill your fuel and food. You can also go to the nearby church with beautiful landscape behind.

 

Reynisfjara
Black beache with basalt columns. Full of people and with very strong wind. Worth coming and walking around, but be careful as a lot of tourist came too close to the water and sudden big wave took them to the ocean. Iconic, but there are more interesting places on the way.

Sólheimasandur plane crash spot
That is really interesting spot. Old US Navy transportation plane that crashed on the beach. Fortunately no one died. Unfortunately you cannot go there directly by car, but you have to stop at the parking spot and then walk around 4km to get to the plane. It is really boring walk, but plane is really worth visiting. Parking spot is around following GPS coordinates: 63°29’28.5″N 19°21’47.8”W. 

Seljalandsfoss
How many times you dreamed about going behind the waterfall? It is possible at Seljalandsfoss. Left all non water-proof stuff in the car and enjoy the amazing experience of going around the waterfall.

Selfoss Hostel
Really cozy hostel with Jacuzzi (!) for quite a moderate price. Highly recommended. Nearby there is nice restaurant – Kaffi Krus. Be careful with your order as even starters there are crazy big!

Day 8

Geysir (#359 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
We started from the great Geysir. It is located in the geothermal field with many other, smaller geysers. Geysir is indeed very big and the name “geyser” comes from it, however it does not erupt so often (once every few years as far as I remember). Fortunately, closely located Strokkur erupts every few minutes for the height of around 30 metres. This is really one of the nature wonders. Hverir has much nicer landscape, but there are no eruption there, so it is worth to visit both places. 

Gullfoss (#176 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
Extremely big waterfall with two steps. Hard to take picture due to the water sprinkles all over the lens, but it makes amazing impression. 

Blue Lagoon (#93 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
I have never liked SPA, but this place is amazing. Blue lagoon is open-air pool filled with the water from the geothermal sources (which is first used for the nearby plant) and apparently has good impact on your health and skin. Generally the best thing is to be in the very warm water while it is really cold outside. It was very relaxing experience after all these crazy travel.

Reykjavik
We slept in the Downtown Hi Hostel. It was ok, but not the best place during our trip. 

Day 9

We used Sunday to buy some souvenirs, give back car and go back home.

What left to visit for the next time?

• Westfjords. Not so touristic part of Iceland, hard to get and it takes a lot of time to travel around. However it is filled with amazing landmarks and nature. 
• Vestmannaeyjar. Island with the Puffins colony. Best place to observe these cute looking birds, however you can spot them only during summer as later they go back to the ocean.
• Þórsmörk. Interesting place for hikes.
• Warm river. Requires short hike, but you can take bath in the naturally warm river.