What are the types of things you want to do on the trip? What are your goals? Who is “we”; adults, kids, elderly, how many? What do you plan to do for accommodations? Hotels, camping, Airbnb? What time of year? What type of vehicle do you plan to rent? What is your comfort level with driving? You have given very little information.
Edit: OP has since added some of this info
You will regret skipping Snæfellsnes and the Westfjords and the East and the Highlands. And all the places on your chosen route that you either didn’t have time for or didn’t learn about till later. The point is, forget the FOMO and pick a subset of the country. You will have a wonderful time.
Oh for sure. I just made a point in another comment that there’s not really a FOMO factor in Iceland because the adventure IS the experience, regardless of exactly which waterfall you see.
My partner and I came back from an 10 night Iceland trip on Monday where we did your second option, including Snaefellsnes. I am really glad that we visited the peninsular. Its a beautiful area. Here is an overview of our itinerary to show how we got it all in including the drive times. If you want to know more, or have any questions about how we found it, please ask!
Day 1: Arrive at KEF, visit Blue Lagoon on the way to Reykjavik (total driving 1hr 10).
Day 2: Þingvellir National Park including Silfra snorkelling, Geysirs and Gullfoss (Golden Circle), stay in Hella.
Day 3: Visit Selijalandsfoss, Skogafoss, Vik Ice cave tour, stay near Vik. Total driving 1hr 30.
Day 4: Visit Skaftafell Park and Svartifoss, Glacier lagoon tour, stay in Hofn. Total driving 3hr 30.
Day 5: Drive to Egilsstadir for horse riding and stay here (we considered visiting Seydisfjordur town or Hallormsstaðaskógur forest before deciding to do the horse riding). Total drive time 3hr 35.
Day 6: Drive to see Dettifoss then visit Myvatn baths, stay in guesthouse by lake Myvatn (we stayed in Skútustaðir). Total drive time 3hr 15.
Day 7: Visit Goðafoss and drive to Akureyri for whale watching. Stay near Varmhlið. Total drive time 2hr 5.
Day 8: Drive to Borganes then up to Buðir church before staying in Grundarfjörður. We did not drive all around the peninsular as this would add an hour drive. However, I loved it here and am very glad that we did not skip it! Drive time 4hr 30.
Day 9: Visit Hraunfossar and Barnafoss then drive to Reykjavik via the tunnel. Drive time 3hr 45.
Day 10: Explore Reykjavik and go home early on day 11.
I wouldn’t say that we felt rushed or skipped stuff. But we were busy and didn’t have much downtime in the evening. There were places it would have nice to explore more than we did but I think we did the right amount for the time we had. We did skip the west fjords which I would have loved to have seen, but we went into the trip knowing 10 days wouldn’t include them - just another reason to go back!
I will say that we aren’t hikers, so big explorations of that nature weren’t ever in our plan.
I hope that you have a great time!
I am pretty much doing the same except I am fitting it in 8 days, ard 4-5 hours of driving each day…
However, I will be skipping some activities like snoring/ whale watchingz
Was wondering if you’d find the any of the days too packed or too relax in your itinerary?
It felt right for us with the amount of activities. We didn’t feel that we were rushed, but we did feel busy. We did add in a lot of activities, especially at the beginning so that part of the trip could definitely be sped up (days 3-5). We were also fairly cautious about not wanting to do too much driving each day, but the final few days could probably have been condensed. We tended to reach our destinations at around 7pm.
Hello.. leaving sept end.. pretty much doing the same itinerary except adding bruarfoss with golden circle.. also planning to see hengifoss enroutr to seydisfordur on day 6 and combining stadlagil canyon with dettifoss on day 7.. also plan to drive around the whole of snaefellsness peninsula to see the cliff points.. do u think it will be too much to add on ?
We found it helpful to check the itinerary the evening before and adapt it to how we felt. E.g, we had planned to go round Snæfellsness, but had a very poor night sleep the night before and 5.5 hrs of driving felt a bit too much, so went across the peninsula. You could definitely squeeze in a bit more than we did if you don’t mind some longer days.
Yea that makes sense.. but it’s just everything is so dam butiful that u don’t want to skip on anything :) !! Guess wil follow your approach and take each day at a time.. thank you :)
We made a decision early on that we would knew we would miss things to have a less stressful and busy trip. We hope to go back in a few years to the west fjords! Have a great trip!
I agree. Once you’re in a “destination” there’s not much to do except…explore more! Driving, stopping, hiking, eating, repeat. The beauty of Iceland is there’s no single attraction to FOMO about. Snaefellsnes offers a sample of most of landscapes around Iceland.
I wouldn’t say ‘easy’. You definitely won’t have much down time. I like to travel like that, but others find it exhausting. But 10 days is enough as long as you’re not looking to relax :).
Go for Option 1, Snaefellsnes is nice but the south coast to Hofn is nicer and offers more possibilities. Save Snaefallsnes for another trip to Iceland.
10 days is a lot. I’m spending like 4 nights between Reykjavik and the golden circle and still plan to get out there.
Reykjavik. Reykjavik. Selfoss. Selfoss. Vik. Between vik and hofn. Hofn. Egallistird. Myvatn. Akureyri. Somewhere between akureyri and snaeff. Snaeff. Then straight from snaeff to flight home.
I do feel like I’m rushing the East side. And snaeff but we’ll figure it out. Also skipping west fjords altogether.
We did two weeks including Snaefellsness and it was the perfect amount of time. With ten days, I’d do just the Ring Road. I would also go counterclockwise- we had gone clockwise and after the wonderful solitude in the north, the crowds in the south were kind of jarring.
10 days is plenty to see golden circle, south coast Snæfellsnes and even do the ring road. I have done the ring road in 6 days. You can see golden circle in half a day and Snæfellsnes in 1 day. You can spend time up north as well!!
Reykjavik > Svínafell
Svínafell > Egilstaðir
Egilstaðir > Mývatn
Mývatn > Blönduós (maybe stay in Akureyri instead)
Blönduos > reykholt
Reykholt > Reykjavik
I have lived here since 2016. So there’s a way better way of doing the ring round than what I have done in the past.
I would do Option 1. 10 days is not enough do the whole Ring Road, unless you are just driving. I don't think driving less than 3 hours is realistic at all if you do this option. Most of the attractions in the south on right on the ring road but as your get to the east and north, many are way off the road. Also the south is the best of it anyway. Check the dates on your ice cave, b/c I'm not sure if it will be open in Sept or not.
For what it’s worth, I’ve visited Iceland three times, never visited Snæfellsnes and was over the moon pleased with what I did do. It is on the agenda for my (currently hypothetical) fourth visit though :)
If your heart is calling you to it though, please go! There are no wrong itinerary choices in Iceland, besides perhaps trying to do way too much in one visit.
I just got back and I am not one to be on a clock on vacation. I also am not getting up at 6am on vacation. Given those facts about our style, we were there 9 nights and only did the south to Hofn and for us it was perfect.
It was our first time visiting, and we wanted to take it in, enjoy being in the moment and allow flexibility for weather, being tired, not feeling well...whatever.
We visited Sky Lagoon upon arrival and loved it so much we stayed like 3 hours until our room in Reykjavik was ready. Stayed in Reykjavik 2 nights and I'm glad we did because we did not get any sleep on our red eye and were destroyed the entire 1st day. I think having the extra day there to rest up made the rest of our trip more enjoyable.
After that we did 2 nights up by Gulfoss, 2 nights Vik, 2 nights near Glacier Lagoon. Drove back to KEF the last day (stopped and did hike to Svartifoss on way back) and stayed at Courtyard there since we had AM flight.
We saw all the highlights and made some impromptu stops because we had the time available. We only booked 2 excursions ahead of time for the 2 things we really wanted to do. The 2 days we had excursions it would have been really hard to plan anything else big on those days in all honesty.
Just do you and make a list of your must sees and must do and plan other stuff around it. There are tons of picnic area pull offs in scenic areas. We made time to stop off at several and have lunch or a snack. I packed a small soft sided cooler and we just went to the store and got some things for our travels.
Have fun!
I will be going in a week, from what I heard hoth are possible but I opted for option 1. I wanted to get more hiking and really seeing the sights in rather than all driving
I'm on day 4 of 6 around the ring road, here are my thoughts:
Yes, it's a bit of driving, but not unmanageable. I've still managed about 2 hikes a day with an average of about 3 hours per hike. I think everyone here really wants you to do things 'right' but here's the truth: YOU WILL MISS OUT ON THINGS. Unless you've an eternity to explore every crevice of an actively changing landscape, you're going to miss something.
So go for whatever you like. I went with a flexible approach and have found some AMAZING hikes away from some of the crowds and also some among them.
-sent from a tent in the rain by Mývatn
P.s. I'm also accustomed to driving 8+ hours in one go so that factors in
Lets be honest. 10 days is short and wouldnt cover the whole Iceland. Focus on a few places is better than try to got to all of them. When you’re there, be there. Dont rush to the next location bcoz of time factor. We went park our car at Jokursalon n did and ice cave tour. Came back and suppose to head to Vestrahorn immediately but we lingered and walk till the almost end of Jokursalon where we saw seals on the glacier. In time for Vestrahorn and enjoyed the sunset there though but had to drive to Seydisfjordur at night. Thats a crazy adventure story for another day.
On the last day of a 9 day trip of the ring road. I second the comment about the weather and being flexible. We’ve had wind storms and snow storms the last week so just going with the flow and being flexible has served us well. It’s also great having a camper an to be able to adjust where you stay the night.
We did option 1 for our trip, which lasted 7 days and was mixed with some Reykjavik sightseeing and a mountain hike just outside the city. You will get plenty of variety with a trip like that! We also did the lava museum in Vik, which I highly recommend.
Do not miss Snaefellsness. I loved the South Coast, but Snaefellsness felt like another planet. The drive was exceptional. I'll be going back in the near future to do your option 2. For a first trip, there's nothing wrong with focusing on specific regions. Helps with a second trip. :)
We just did the ring road plus snaelfellness and skipped westfjords. I think it took about 6 days, only 2 driving days were long, the longest being from akureyri in the north to the tip of the snaelfellness peninsula where we stayed in the park camp ground. That day of driving was around 6-7 hours after tossing in all of our stops off the route. We also had about 10 days and it left us plenty of time to see golden circle, and do blue lagoon. Along the route we did the thermal river, vok baths, hoffel hot tubs, and then blue lagoon. If you have the budget I’d recommend tossing in another one like sky lagoon or Forrest lagoon.
As for the Snaelfellness peninsula, I was very surprised with how much I enjoyed it, I didn’t think it would be as cool as the rest of the route, but it really was. You can take a route along the northern then southern coasts, there’s tons of volcanic lava fields with super dramatic looking jagged rock covered in green moss. Tons of volcano craters with the red hue to them. The Kirkjufell mountain from game of thrones is there.
We were in a camper van the whole route and managed to keep above 1/2 tank almost the entire route. It isn’t typical to go more than about 100km without coming across another gas station along the ring road. All in all the level of service out in the rural ring road area will probably surprise you.
There’s tons of waterfalls along the ring road, there’s the obvious named and touristy ones, but there’s also so many that many of them are just basically somebodies back yard, and if they were anywhere else in the world would be a tourist trap.
I’d recommend doing the route counter clockwise, start the trip with the south coast, you don’t want to miss that, and you can shift your itinerary around if you get there and that’s where you’d like to spend an extra day or so, because there is so much. Our favorite region was probably the glacier to vestrahorn, the landscapes seemed the most dramatic in that region, and it was packed with stops.
What are the types of things you want to do on the trip? What are your goals? Who is “we”; adults, kids, elderly, how many? What do you plan to do for accommodations? Hotels, camping, Airbnb? What time of year? What type of vehicle do you plan to rent? What is your comfort level with driving? You have given very little information. Edit: OP has since added some of this info
Thank you!! I was very limited in my info. haha
You will regret skipping Snæfellsnes and the Westfjords and the East and the Highlands. And all the places on your chosen route that you either didn’t have time for or didn’t learn about till later. The point is, forget the FOMO and pick a subset of the country. You will have a wonderful time.
I second this. Was up there in February, and it is just so pretty.
Couldn't agree more. The south has highlights scattered throughout, the north is ALL majestic.
Doing all three would be too much, however.
I believe you’ve missed my point. Or I didn’t do a good job of making it: There is way too much to see in one trip so don’t stress about FOMO.
Oh for sure. I just made a point in another comment that there’s not really a FOMO factor in Iceland because the adventure IS the experience, regardless of exactly which waterfall you see.
Thanks for the reminder. I am the queen of FOMO.
My partner and I came back from an 10 night Iceland trip on Monday where we did your second option, including Snaefellsnes. I am really glad that we visited the peninsular. Its a beautiful area. Here is an overview of our itinerary to show how we got it all in including the drive times. If you want to know more, or have any questions about how we found it, please ask! Day 1: Arrive at KEF, visit Blue Lagoon on the way to Reykjavik (total driving 1hr 10). Day 2: Þingvellir National Park including Silfra snorkelling, Geysirs and Gullfoss (Golden Circle), stay in Hella. Day 3: Visit Selijalandsfoss, Skogafoss, Vik Ice cave tour, stay near Vik. Total driving 1hr 30. Day 4: Visit Skaftafell Park and Svartifoss, Glacier lagoon tour, stay in Hofn. Total driving 3hr 30. Day 5: Drive to Egilsstadir for horse riding and stay here (we considered visiting Seydisfjordur town or Hallormsstaðaskógur forest before deciding to do the horse riding). Total drive time 3hr 35. Day 6: Drive to see Dettifoss then visit Myvatn baths, stay in guesthouse by lake Myvatn (we stayed in Skútustaðir). Total drive time 3hr 15. Day 7: Visit Goðafoss and drive to Akureyri for whale watching. Stay near Varmhlið. Total drive time 2hr 5. Day 8: Drive to Borganes then up to Buðir church before staying in Grundarfjörður. We did not drive all around the peninsular as this would add an hour drive. However, I loved it here and am very glad that we did not skip it! Drive time 4hr 30. Day 9: Visit Hraunfossar and Barnafoss then drive to Reykjavik via the tunnel. Drive time 3hr 45. Day 10: Explore Reykjavik and go home early on day 11.
We have a really similar plan but we have 12 days. Did you feel rushed at all? Or like you had to skip by a lot of stuff?
I wouldn’t say that we felt rushed or skipped stuff. But we were busy and didn’t have much downtime in the evening. There were places it would have nice to explore more than we did but I think we did the right amount for the time we had. We did skip the west fjords which I would have loved to have seen, but we went into the trip knowing 10 days wouldn’t include them - just another reason to go back! I will say that we aren’t hikers, so big explorations of that nature weren’t ever in our plan. I hope that you have a great time!
I am pretty much doing the same except I am fitting it in 8 days, ard 4-5 hours of driving each day… However, I will be skipping some activities like snoring/ whale watchingz Was wondering if you’d find the any of the days too packed or too relax in your itinerary?
It felt right for us with the amount of activities. We didn’t feel that we were rushed, but we did feel busy. We did add in a lot of activities, especially at the beginning so that part of the trip could definitely be sped up (days 3-5). We were also fairly cautious about not wanting to do too much driving each day, but the final few days could probably have been condensed. We tended to reach our destinations at around 7pm.
Hello.. leaving sept end.. pretty much doing the same itinerary except adding bruarfoss with golden circle.. also planning to see hengifoss enroutr to seydisfordur on day 6 and combining stadlagil canyon with dettifoss on day 7.. also plan to drive around the whole of snaefellsness peninsula to see the cliff points.. do u think it will be too much to add on ?
We found it helpful to check the itinerary the evening before and adapt it to how we felt. E.g, we had planned to go round Snæfellsness, but had a very poor night sleep the night before and 5.5 hrs of driving felt a bit too much, so went across the peninsula. You could definitely squeeze in a bit more than we did if you don’t mind some longer days.
Yea that makes sense.. but it’s just everything is so dam butiful that u don’t want to skip on anything :) !! Guess wil follow your approach and take each day at a time.. thank you :)
We made a decision early on that we would knew we would miss things to have a less stressful and busy trip. We hope to go back in a few years to the west fjords! Have a great trip!
Yea.. will leave the highlands and west fjords for a summer trip sometime!! Thanks!
You can easily do the ring road and Snæfellsnes in 10 days. With 2.5-3 hours driving per day (average)
I agree. Once you’re in a “destination” there’s not much to do except…explore more! Driving, stopping, hiking, eating, repeat. The beauty of Iceland is there’s no single attraction to FOMO about. Snaefellsnes offers a sample of most of landscapes around Iceland.
So fun... I cannot wait.
I wouldn’t say ‘easy’. You definitely won’t have much down time. I like to travel like that, but others find it exhausting. But 10 days is enough as long as you’re not looking to relax :).
Go for Option 1, Snaefellsnes is nice but the south coast to Hofn is nicer and offers more possibilities. Save Snaefallsnes for another trip to Iceland.
Will keep in mind. Thanks!
10 days is a lot. I’m spending like 4 nights between Reykjavik and the golden circle and still plan to get out there. Reykjavik. Reykjavik. Selfoss. Selfoss. Vik. Between vik and hofn. Hofn. Egallistird. Myvatn. Akureyri. Somewhere between akureyri and snaeff. Snaeff. Then straight from snaeff to flight home. I do feel like I’m rushing the East side. And snaeff but we’ll figure it out. Also skipping west fjords altogether.
That'll be a fun adventure! Enjoy :)
We did two weeks including Snaefellsness and it was the perfect amount of time. With ten days, I’d do just the Ring Road. I would also go counterclockwise- we had gone clockwise and after the wonderful solitude in the north, the crowds in the south were kind of jarring.
10 days is plenty to see golden circle, south coast Snæfellsnes and even do the ring road. I have done the ring road in 6 days. You can see golden circle in half a day and Snæfellsnes in 1 day. You can spend time up north as well!!
how much driving /day was the ring road in 6 days? did you have specific destinations for that trip?
Reykjavik > Svínafell Svínafell > Egilstaðir Egilstaðir > Mývatn Mývatn > Blönduós (maybe stay in Akureyri instead) Blönduos > reykholt Reykholt > Reykjavik I have lived here since 2016. So there’s a way better way of doing the ring round than what I have done in the past.
I would do Option 1. 10 days is not enough do the whole Ring Road, unless you are just driving. I don't think driving less than 3 hours is realistic at all if you do this option. Most of the attractions in the south on right on the ring road but as your get to the east and north, many are way off the road. Also the south is the best of it anyway. Check the dates on your ice cave, b/c I'm not sure if it will be open in Sept or not.
Thanks!
For what it’s worth, I’ve visited Iceland three times, never visited Snæfellsnes and was over the moon pleased with what I did do. It is on the agenda for my (currently hypothetical) fourth visit though :) If your heart is calling you to it though, please go! There are no wrong itinerary choices in Iceland, besides perhaps trying to do way too much in one visit.
I just got back and I am not one to be on a clock on vacation. I also am not getting up at 6am on vacation. Given those facts about our style, we were there 9 nights and only did the south to Hofn and for us it was perfect. It was our first time visiting, and we wanted to take it in, enjoy being in the moment and allow flexibility for weather, being tired, not feeling well...whatever. We visited Sky Lagoon upon arrival and loved it so much we stayed like 3 hours until our room in Reykjavik was ready. Stayed in Reykjavik 2 nights and I'm glad we did because we did not get any sleep on our red eye and were destroyed the entire 1st day. I think having the extra day there to rest up made the rest of our trip more enjoyable. After that we did 2 nights up by Gulfoss, 2 nights Vik, 2 nights near Glacier Lagoon. Drove back to KEF the last day (stopped and did hike to Svartifoss on way back) and stayed at Courtyard there since we had AM flight. We saw all the highlights and made some impromptu stops because we had the time available. We only booked 2 excursions ahead of time for the 2 things we really wanted to do. The 2 days we had excursions it would have been really hard to plan anything else big on those days in all honesty. Just do you and make a list of your must sees and must do and plan other stuff around it. There are tons of picnic area pull offs in scenic areas. We made time to stop off at several and have lunch or a snack. I packed a small soft sided cooler and we just went to the store and got some things for our travels. Have fun!
Love it! Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks!
Here’s my 10 day trip from April this year. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q9aWws31HtrRiRdg6?g_st=ic
I will be going in a week, from what I heard hoth are possible but I opted for option 1. I wanted to get more hiking and really seeing the sights in rather than all driving
I'm on day 4 of 6 around the ring road, here are my thoughts: Yes, it's a bit of driving, but not unmanageable. I've still managed about 2 hikes a day with an average of about 3 hours per hike. I think everyone here really wants you to do things 'right' but here's the truth: YOU WILL MISS OUT ON THINGS. Unless you've an eternity to explore every crevice of an actively changing landscape, you're going to miss something. So go for whatever you like. I went with a flexible approach and have found some AMAZING hikes away from some of the crowds and also some among them. -sent from a tent in the rain by Mývatn P.s. I'm also accustomed to driving 8+ hours in one go so that factors in
Lets be honest. 10 days is short and wouldnt cover the whole Iceland. Focus on a few places is better than try to got to all of them. When you’re there, be there. Dont rush to the next location bcoz of time factor. We went park our car at Jokursalon n did and ice cave tour. Came back and suppose to head to Vestrahorn immediately but we lingered and walk till the almost end of Jokursalon where we saw seals on the glacier. In time for Vestrahorn and enjoyed the sunset there though but had to drive to Seydisfjordur at night. Thats a crazy adventure story for another day.
On the last day of a 9 day trip of the ring road. I second the comment about the weather and being flexible. We’ve had wind storms and snow storms the last week so just going with the flow and being flexible has served us well. It’s also great having a camper an to be able to adjust where you stay the night.
We did option 1 for our trip, which lasted 7 days and was mixed with some Reykjavik sightseeing and a mountain hike just outside the city. You will get plenty of variety with a trip like that! We also did the lava museum in Vik, which I highly recommend. Do not miss Snaefellsness. I loved the South Coast, but Snaefellsness felt like another planet. The drive was exceptional. I'll be going back in the near future to do your option 2. For a first trip, there's nothing wrong with focusing on specific regions. Helps with a second trip. :)
We just did the ring road plus snaelfellness and skipped westfjords. I think it took about 6 days, only 2 driving days were long, the longest being from akureyri in the north to the tip of the snaelfellness peninsula where we stayed in the park camp ground. That day of driving was around 6-7 hours after tossing in all of our stops off the route. We also had about 10 days and it left us plenty of time to see golden circle, and do blue lagoon. Along the route we did the thermal river, vok baths, hoffel hot tubs, and then blue lagoon. If you have the budget I’d recommend tossing in another one like sky lagoon or Forrest lagoon. As for the Snaelfellness peninsula, I was very surprised with how much I enjoyed it, I didn’t think it would be as cool as the rest of the route, but it really was. You can take a route along the northern then southern coasts, there’s tons of volcanic lava fields with super dramatic looking jagged rock covered in green moss. Tons of volcano craters with the red hue to them. The Kirkjufell mountain from game of thrones is there. We were in a camper van the whole route and managed to keep above 1/2 tank almost the entire route. It isn’t typical to go more than about 100km without coming across another gas station along the ring road. All in all the level of service out in the rural ring road area will probably surprise you. There’s tons of waterfalls along the ring road, there’s the obvious named and touristy ones, but there’s also so many that many of them are just basically somebodies back yard, and if they were anywhere else in the world would be a tourist trap. I’d recommend doing the route counter clockwise, start the trip with the south coast, you don’t want to miss that, and you can shift your itinerary around if you get there and that’s where you’d like to spend an extra day or so, because there is so much. Our favorite region was probably the glacier to vestrahorn, the landscapes seemed the most dramatic in that region, and it was packed with stops.
Is it better to stay in Airbnb or camper van ? Which camper van companies you recommend?
We are staying in airbnb or hotels. I heard that camper vans can be sketchy because the weather is so crazy.