Iceland Itinerary & Travel Tips

Watch my video I made about our trip to Iceland below and/or scroll down to read my travel tips and itinerary for the trip!! Then of course you can read more by visiting my blog posts about each day.

So it's worth mentioning that I am obsessed with planning, I love having a solid plan to stick to on vacation... which saying it now sounds completely counterintuitive to having a relaxed vacation... but when there's SO much to see and you only have 4 days you literally have to plan the trip to a T.

We obviously couldn't see everything we wanted to - plus we were trying not spend an obscene amount of money so we didn't do any guided tours. If we had the time and money I would have loved to rent snowmobiles, do a glacier hike, take an ice cave tour, or go on a guided Northern Lights tour. All of these cost money of course, but some of them really aren't too expensive - Like this Skaftafell Glacier Hike that's under $100. But we really enjoyed how we did the trip, it let us create our own schedule and see almost everything we wanted to see.

Our Itinerary Outline

Day 1: Drive Golden Circle → Drive to South Coast → Seljalandsfoss Waterfall → Stay at Lindartun Guesthouse

Day 2: Skógafoss → Dyrhólaey → Reynisfjara Beach→ Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon→ See Northern Lights

Day 3: Jökulsárlón→Diamond Beach→Kerið Volcanic Crater→Blue Mountain Apartments→ Night out in Reykjavik

Day 4: Blue Lagoon→ Explore Downtown Reykjavik

You can read the specifics of each days itinerary in the separate blog posts for each day so I won't get into the details of that here but definitely check out those posts if you want to know more, and see my pictures from each day. If you want to see all the pictures go to my Full Photo Tour of Iceland post!

Flights & Rental Car

We got our flights through WOW airlines for pretty cheap, and as you can read about in my Day One Blog Post, we overall had a pretty great experience with them! Just be aware of the size of your luggage and their pricing for each kind of luggage. They have a 40 lb weight limit for checked suitcases, which is a little lighter than other airlines, but we actually went a couple pounds over on the weight limit and no one said anything about it.

We rented a car through Avis and it was also a really good experience. We chose the mini car option (it was cheapest obviously) and got a Hyundai i10. It was really small but for two people and one big suitcase it was totally fine. Be aware of two things though, 1. to make sure you're choosing a car with automatic transmission if you can't drive a shift (we can't), and 2. If you're going in the colder months the roads might be icy and you might need a car with better traction. Because we went in March the temperatures really weren't that cold and the car handled just fine, but the one thing we did experience was realllllly strong winds on the drive back to Reykjavik. Along the water you can encounter these winds and they can be kind of scary, so just keep that in mind.

Hotels

Hotels We Stayed At:

- Lindartun Guesthouse (Southwest Coast)

- Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon (Southeast Coast)

- Blue Mountain Apartments (10 mins from Downtown Reykjavik)

Again, you can read all about the individual hotels in each days blog post!

Food & Drink

Best Meals We Ate:

- Sveitagrill Míu (Mia's Country Grill) Local Fish & Chips in Skogar

- Restaurant at Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon

Ok, I'm gonna be real with you and tell you that overall I was not a fan of the food in Iceland. I'm actually not that picky of an eater and will try a lot of different things, but there was just something about most of the food we ate that was unappetizing to me. Everything seemed to have a particular bitter taste to it, and it just wasn't for me. The other thing is food is so expensive if you want to go out to eat, or even buy stuff at the grocery store. One of our saving graces was that we brought a ton of power bars with us to eat in the car to hold us over, and I would definitely recommend doing that! Also if you drink a lot of coffee or caffeine like I do, be aware that coffee is pretty expensive there as well and I didn't find it to be great coffee. Since we had so much activity packed into our first few days I would have brought a couple of five hour energies to get me through if I were to do it again.

Also, one of the greatest tips we got was Don't Buy Bottled Water!! Just bring your own big empty bottle of water, or just buy one and keep refilling it. You can fill up your water bottle anywhere in the country with their tap water and it's delicious and totally good to drink even if you're snobby about tap water like I can be. It's just simply not worth the money to keep buying bottles, plus you're saving the environment - YAY!

You can read more about the bars & drinks in my Day Three Blog Post!

Next Post

Day One: Golden Circle & Drive To South Coast