Around Iceland

Two thirds of the country lives within half an hour of here, and almost every day tour picks up downtown. That makes it the easiest base in Iceland and the only place you can fill a wet day indoors without driving. We would give it the first day or the last, not one in the middle.

Worth seeing

• Hallgrímskirkja tower
• The Settlement Exhibition
• Old Harbour
• Laugavegur
• Sundhöllin pool

Tours in this area

Reykjavík's southern neighbour, and where a lot of visitors actually sleep without realising they have left the city. Nothing here is a sight in its own right, but the pool is one of the best in the country and it is five minutes from the Ring Road south.

Worth seeing

• Salalaug swimming pool
• Gerðarsafn art museum
• Kópavogskirkja

Tours in this area

Built into a lava field, which is why the streets bend the way they do. It is closer to Keflavík than Reykjavík is, so it works well for a first or last night if you have an early flight. The harbour has good fish restaurants and not much of a crowd.

Worth seeing

• Hellisgerði lava park
• The old harbour
• Víðistaðatún sculpture park

Tours in this area

Residential, quiet, and mostly somewhere people live rather than visit. The reason to stop is Vífilsstaðavatn — a flat lake walk of about an hour that almost no tourist finds.

Worth seeing

• Vífilsstaðavatn lake path
• Hofsstaðir settlement site

Tours in this area

The last town before the road north, and the start of the Reykjadalur hot river walk is not far. Halldór Laxness lived here and his house is open as a museum, which is worth an hour if you have read him and nothing if you have not.

Worth seeing

• Gljúfrasteinn (Laxness house)
• Mount Esja trails
• Álafosskvos

Tours in this area

The tip of the Reykjavík peninsula, twenty minutes' walk past the end of the city. Grótta lighthouse at the end is one of the few dark-ish spots you can reach from town on foot for northern lights — though the city glow still costs you.

Worth seeing

• Grótta lighthouse
• The shore footpath
• Small tidal hot pot

Tours in this area

Where you land. Part of Reykjanesbær along with Njarðvík, and a sensible place to sleep if you arrive late or leave early rather than driving 45 minutes into Reykjavík twice. There is genuinely not much to see, and that is fine for one night.

Worth seeing

• Viking World museum
• The harbour
• Rock music museum

Tours in this area

A fishing town next to the Blue Lagoon, and badly disrupted by the eruptions and ground movement since 2023 — access and what is open have changed repeatedly. Check the current situation before planning anything around it rather than trusting an old guide.

Worth seeing

• Blue Lagoon
• Gunnuhver hot springs
• Brimketill lava rock pool

Tours in this area

A working harbour on the western edge of Reykjanes, ten minutes from the airport. Birdwatchers come for Garðskagi just up the coast; everyone else drives past. Good for an hour if your flight is late and you have a car.

Worth seeing

• Garðskagi lighthouses
• Sandgerði harbour
• Coastal bird hides

Tours in this area

A small place on the road between the airport and Reykjavík, mostly passed at 90 km/h. It is a reasonable coffee stop and nothing more.

Worth seeing

• Coastal path
• Stapinn cliffs

Tours in this area

The biggest town in the south and the natural place to buy food before the South Coast, where prices climb and shops thin out. The rebuilt old-house square by the river is newer than it looks. Fine as a base for the Golden Circle if Reykjavík is full.

Worth seeing

• The riverside square
• Ölfusá bridge
• Bobby Fischer's grave at Laugardælir

Tours in this area

Steam comes up through the town itself — there is a hot spring park in the middle of it. The real reason to stop is Reykjadalur: an hour uphill to a river warm enough to sit in. Take swimwear and expect mud.

Worth seeing

• Reykjadalur hot river walk
• Geothermal park
• Greenhouse cafés

Tours in this area

A harbour town with a long black beach and, most of the year, a hard wind. The ferry to Vestmannaeyjar sails from here when conditions close the shorter crossing at Landeyjahöfn, which is the main reason most visitors ever see it.

Worth seeing

• The black beach
• Harbour
• Raufarhólshellir lava tube nearby

Tours in this area

Once the main port for the whole south, now a row of nineteenth-century timber houses behind a sea wall. The maritime museum is small and good. Twenty minutes from Selfoss and much more interesting to walk around.

Worth seeing

• Húsið museum
• Maritime museum
• The sea wall walk

Tours in this area

Next door to Eyrarbakki and quieter still. Known for langoustine restaurants and a kayak route through the shallow lagoons behind the village. Out of season much of it is shut.

Worth seeing

• The lagoon paddle
• Village shore path

Tours in this area

A greenhouse village off the standard Golden Circle loop. The Secret Lagoon here is the oldest swimming pool in Iceland and considerably less polished than the Blue Lagoon, which is rather the point. It does get busy at midday when the coaches arrive.

Worth seeing

• Secret Lagoon
• Greenhouse tomato farm
• Brúarhlöð canyon nearby

Tours in this area

A lake with a steam bath on its shore, sitting between Þingvellir and Geysir. Fontana bakes rye bread in the hot ground and digs it up for you, which sounds like a gimmick and is actually very good. A better lunch stop than anything on the main loop.

Worth seeing

• Laugarvatn Fontana
• The lake shore
• Buried rye bread

Tours in this area

Not really a town — a national park with a handful of residents — but everyone stops. Parliament met here from 930, and the rift you walk through is the plate boundary. Arrive before ten or after four; between those the car parks are full and the path is a queue.

Worth seeing

• Almannagjá rift
• Öxarárfoss
• Silfra fissure
• The church and farm

Tours in this area

A farming town on the Ytri-Rangá, and the usual jumping-off point for the highlands road to Landmannalaugar in summer. Several northern-lights hotels sit out here because the sky is properly dark. Little to do in the town itself.

Worth seeing

• Man-made caves at Hellir
• Ytri-Rangá river
• Hekla views on a clear day

Tours in this area

Last real supermarket before Vík, so we stop here whether or not we mean to. The Lava Centre explains Icelandic volcanism better than anywhere else in the country and is genuinely worth the hour, especially on a day the weather has ruined.

Worth seeing

• Lava Centre
• Saga Centre
• Seljalandsfoss 20 minutes east

Tours in this area

A petrol station, a church on the hill and the black beach at Reynisfjara just west. The waves there are dangerous and have killed visitors — stay well back from the water, and take the warning signs literally. Most South Coast tours give it forty minutes, which is about right.

Worth seeing

• Reynisfjara beach
• Dyrhólaey arch
• Víkurkirkja
• Sólheimajökull glacier

Tours in this area

A single street with a petrol station, sitting between Vík and the glacier lagoon where there is otherwise nothing for two hours in either direction. Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon is fifteen minutes away and has a proper path along the rim. Fill the tank here.

Worth seeing

• Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon
• Systrafoss
• Kirkjugólf basalt pavement

Tours in this area

An island town half-buried by the 1973 eruption, with houses still under the lava and a museum built over one of them. Puffins nest here in huge numbers from May to August. The ferry is 35 minutes from Landeyjahöfn and cancels in bad weather, so leave slack in the plan.

Worth seeing

• Eldheimar museum
• Eldfell crater climb
• Stórhöfði puffin cliffs
• Herjólfsdalur

Tours in this area

A visitor centre and campsite rather than a town, and the main trailhead on the south side of Vatnajökull. Svartifoss is an hour round trip on a good path. Nearly every glacier hike on this coast meets in the car park here.

Worth seeing

• Svartifoss waterfall
• Skaftafellsjökull glacier tongue
• Sjónarnípa viewpoint

Tours in this area

The one real town between Vík and the east fjords, and the place to sleep if you want the glacier lagoon without a five-hour drive from Reykjavík on both ends. Langoustine is the local dish and the restaurants take it seriously. Vatnajökull fills the view inland on a clear day.

Worth seeing

• Jökulsárlón an hour west
• Diamond Beach
• Stokksnes and Vestrahorn
• Harbour

Tours in this area

A quiet harbour at the southern end of the east fjords, with thirty-four stone eggs along the waterfront — one for each local bird species. It takes twenty minutes to walk and is the most pleasant short stop on this stretch of Ring Road.

Worth seeing

• The stone eggs
• Harbour walk
• Búlandstindur mountain

Tours in this area

The service town for the whole east — supermarket, airport, car hire, hospital. It is not pretty and nobody pretends otherwise, but everything in the east is within an hour and you will end up here. Hallormsstaður forest just south is the largest in Iceland, which in Iceland means the trees reach above head height.

Worth seeing

• Hallormsstaðaskógur forest
• Lagarfljót lake road
• Hengifoss waterfall

Tours in this area

Down a mountain pass from Egilsstaðir, with timber houses shipped in from Norway and a blue-and-pink painted street up to the church. The ferry from Denmark docks here. The pass can close in winter without much warning, so check before committing to it.

Worth seeing

• The painted street and Bláa kirkjan
• Tvísöngur sound sculpture
• Gufufoss

Tours in this area

The best place in Iceland to see puffins at close range — a wooden platform at Hafnarhólmi puts you a few metres from the burrows, with no boat and no fee. They are there roughly April to early August and gone the rest of the year. The drive in is long and worth it.

Worth seeing

• Hafnarhólmi puffin viewing platform
• Stórurð hike
• Lindarbakki turf house

Tours in this area

A working town built around the aluminium smelter, which makes it unusual in the east — people here have industrial jobs rather than fishing ones. The wartime museum covers the British and American occupation, which is a part of Icelandic history most visitors never hear about.

Worth seeing

• Icelandic Wartime Museum
• Fjord road
• Hiking above the town

Tours in this area

A narrow fishing town strung along one side of the fjord under a very steep mountain. The old trading houses on the waterfront are the nicest thing about it. Helgustaðanáma up the road was once the world's main source of Iceland spar.

Worth seeing

• Maritime museum
• Helgustaðanáma spar mine
• Waterfront houses

Tours in this area

The easternmost town in the country, reached through a tunnel that replaced a genuinely frightening mountain road. It is a long way from anywhere and feels it. Good hiking straight out of town and a nature reserve at the end of the fjord.

Worth seeing

• Páskahellir sea cave
• Museum house
• Fjord-end nature reserve

Tours in this area

French fishermen worked out of here for decades and the street signs are still in both languages. There is a French hospital building, a small museum and a graveyard of sailors who did not go home. Quietly one of the more interesting small towns in the east.

Worth seeing

• French Museum
• French sailors' graveyard
• Harbour

Tours in this area

One woman spent a lifetime collecting stones from these fjords and filled her house with them; Petra's collection is now the reason anyone stops. It is a genuinely strange and rather moving place. Fifteen minutes off the Ring Road.

Worth seeing

• Petra's Stone Collection
• Harbour
• Old fish factory arts space

Tours in this area

A small harbour at the mouth of a wide valley, with more hiking than the size suggests. There is a hotel and not much else. Useful if the east fjord towns are full.

Worth seeing

• Breiðdalur valley
• Geology centre
• Coastal road

Tours in this area

Well off the Ring Road on the north-east coast, which is why it stays empty. Salmon rivers here are famous and expensive. Selárlaug is a small geothermal pool beside a river with almost nobody in it.

Worth seeing

• Selárlaug pool
• Bustarfell turf farm museum
• Coastal road north

Tours in this area

The only place outside the capital that works as a proper base — restaurants, a pool, an airport, and Goðafoss, Mývatn and Húsavík all within ninety minutes. Winter flights from Reykjavík take 45 minutes and save you a long drive. The botanical garden this far north is a genuine oddity.

Worth seeing

• Akureyrarkirkja
• Botanical garden
• Forest lagoon
• Goðafoss 40 minutes east

Tours in this area

The whale boats out of this harbour have the best sighting record in the country, though nobody can promise you a whale. Season runs roughly April to October and peaks in June and July. The wooden church by the water is worth five minutes, and the whale museum genuinely explains what you are looking at.

Worth seeing

• Whale watching from the harbour
• Húsavík Whale Museum
• GeoSea sea baths
• Húsavíkurkirkja

Tours in this area

Reykjahlíð is the village; Mývatn is the lake and the reason to come. Pseudocraters, a lava maze at Dimmuborgir, boiling mud at Námaskarð and the Nature Baths, all within twenty minutes. The midges the lake is named after are genuinely bad on still summer days — bring a head net and do not be proud about it.

Worth seeing

• Mývatn Nature Baths
• Dimmuborgir lava formations
• Námaskarð mud pots
• Skútustaðagígar pseudocraters
• Grjótagjá

Tours in this area

A fishing town with its own whale watching fleet, usually cheaper and less crowded than Húsavík for a similar chance of sightings. The ferry to Hrísey leaves from here. In August the whole town cooks fish soup in the street and gives it away.

Worth seeing

• Whale watching trips
• Hrísey island ferry
• Ski area above town

Tours in this area

An island in Eyjafjörður with no cars to speak of and three marked walking routes. The ptarmigan here are tame enough to walk past. Fifteen minutes on the ferry from Árskógssandur, and an easy half day.

Worth seeing

• The three waymarked walks
• Old shark-fishing house
• Ferry crossing

Tours in this area

A small village on the quiet eastern side of Eyjafjörður, mostly visited by people going horse riding or walking into Fjörður beyond it. Laufás turf farm on the way is the better-preserved of the two turf sites near Akureyri.

Worth seeing

• Laufás turf farm museum
• Fjörður hiking
• Village harbour

Tours in this area

Reached through single-lane tunnels from either side, which sets the tone. There is a good pool, a lake behind the town and very little traffic. Part of the same municipality as Siglufjörður since the tunnel opened.

Worth seeing

• Ólafsfjarðarvatn lake
• Swimming pool
• Tunnel drive to Siglufjörður

Tours in this area

For fifty years this was the herring capital of the North Atlantic and one of the richest towns in Iceland; then the herring went and it nearly emptied. The Herring Era Museum across three buildings is the best museum in the country outside Reykjavík. The harbour has been done up well.

Worth seeing

• Herring Era Museum
• The harbour and marina
• Folk music centre
• Héðinsfjörður tunnel drive

Tours in this area

A tiny place with an infinity pool built into the slope above the fjord, looking out at Drangey island. It is the single best-sited swimming pool in Iceland and costs the same as any municipal one. There is also an emigration museum about the move to Canada.

Worth seeing

• Hofsós swimming pool
• Icelandic Emigration Centre
• Basalt columns by the shore

Tours in this area

The main town in Skagafjörður, which is horse country — more horses than people in the district, and several farms run riding tours. Boats go out to Drangey, a sheer-sided island in the fjord with a climb up it and a great many birds.

Worth seeing

• Drangey island boat trip
• Grettislaug hot pot
• Glaumbær turf farm nearby

Tours in this area

A junction with a petrol station where the road to Sauðárkrókur leaves the Ring Road. River rafting on the Vestari- and Austari-Jökulsá runs from near here and is the best whitewater in the country. Otherwise it is a place you drive through.

Worth seeing

• Jökulsá river rafting
• Glaumbær turf farm
• Víðimýrarkirkja turf church

Tours in this area

Sits where the Blanda river meets the sea, roughly halfway between Reykjavík and Akureyri, which is its main function — everyone stops for fuel and a sandwich. The textile museum is better than it needs to be.

Worth seeing

• Icelandic Textile Museum
• Hrútey island walk
• Sea-ice exhibition

Tours in this area

A harbour under a flat-topped mountain, with an artists' residency that has brought a steady trickle of people from elsewhere. Twenty minutes off the Ring Road and rarely busy. Good for a walk up Spákonufell if the weather holds.

Worth seeing

• Spákonufell walk
• Harbour
• Museum of prophecy

Tours in this area

The seal centre here is the practical reason to turn off, and the beaches on the Vatnsnes peninsula north of town are where you actually see them — Hvítserkur rock at the top is the photograph everyone takes. Allow two hours for the loop.

Worth seeing

• Icelandic Seal Centre
• Hvítserkur sea stack
• Illugastaðir seal colony

Tours in this area

On the north-east corner, a long way round from anywhere. People come for the birds at Langanes — a peninsula ending in a gannet colony on a cliff edge — and for the emptiness. Roads out there need care.

Worth seeing

• Langanes and Stórikarl gannet cliff
• Ytra-Lón
• Harbour

Tours in this area

The northernmost village on the mainland, a few kilometres short of the Arctic Circle. The Arctic Henge above the town is a half-built stone circle aligned to the sun, and it is genuinely impressive at midnight in June. Almost nobody comes here.

Worth seeing

• Arctic Henge
• Harbour
• Melrakkaslétta bird plains

Tours in this area

A very small place on Öxarfjörður, flattened by an earthquake in 1976 and rebuilt. There is an earthquake centre explaining it. Mostly a stop on the way round to Ásbyrgi.

Worth seeing

• Earthquake centre
• Ásbyrgi canyon south of here
• Shore birds

Tours in this area

The capital of the Westfjords and the only town up here with a full set of services. Mountains come down to the water on all sides, which is spectacular and also why the airport approach is memorable. Boats leave for Hornstrandir from the harbour in summer.

Worth seeing

• Westfjords Heritage Museum
• Hornstrandir day boats
• Bolafjall viewpoint
• Naustahvilft hike

Tours in this area

Fifteen minutes from Ísafjörður through a tunnel. Ósvör is a reconstructed fishing station with a warden in oilskins who explains how rowing crews actually worked — much better than it sounds. The road up Bolafjall gives the best view in the Westfjords on a clear day.

Worth seeing

• Ósvör maritime museum
• Bolafjall viewing platform
• Natural history museum

Tours in this area

A single-street fishing village at the end of a fjord, through a one-lane tunnel. The whole place runs on geothermal water and they will show you the fish processing if you ask. Very quiet, in a good way.

Worth seeing

• Harbour and fish plant
• Coastal path
• Village pool

Tours in this area

An avalanche killed twenty people here in 1995 and the huge A-shaped barriers above the village date from after it. The old bookshop is the oldest original shop in Iceland. Sobering and worth stopping for.

Worth seeing

• The avalanche defences
• Old Bookstore
• Harbour

Tours in this area

On Dýrafjörður, with the Westfjords Alps behind it. Dynjandi is about forty minutes south and is the waterfall worth planning a day around — a broad fan of water with six smaller falls below it and a twenty-minute climb.

Worth seeing

• Dynjandi waterfall
• Sandafell viewpoint road
• Simbahöllin café

Tours in this area

The main town in the southern Westfjords, and the base for Látrabjarg — a fifteen-kilometre cliff at the westernmost point of Europe where puffins sit an arm's length from the edge. The road there is gravel and slow. Rauðasandur beach nearby is red, which is not something you expect here.

Worth seeing

• Látrabjarg bird cliffs
• Rauðasandur red beach
• Garðar BA shipwreck
• Pollurinn hot pot

Tours in this area

Small, tucked into its own fjord, with a set of hot pots up the valley that locals maintain and everyone is welcome to use. Bring your own towel and leave it as you found it.

Worth seeing

• Pollurinn hot pots
• Village pool
• Fjord walk

Tours in this area

On Arnarfjörður, which has more reported sea-monster sightings than anywhere in Iceland — there is a museum about exactly that, and it is played fairly straight. The fjord itself is one of the most dramatic drives in the country.

Worth seeing

• Icelandic Sea Monster Museum
• Arnarfjörður road
• Dynjandi to the north

Tours in this area

The Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft here covers the seventeenth-century witch trials, which in Iceland burned men rather than women. It is small, well done and darker than the souvenir magnets suggest. The main stop on the eastern Westfjords road.

Worth seeing

• Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft
• Strandir coast road
• Harbour

Tours in this area

Three hot pots built into the sea wall, free, open, and looking straight out at Grímsey island. You change in a hut across the road. Twenty minutes from Hólmavík and one of the better small stops in the country.

Worth seeing

• The three hot pots
• Kerling rock
• Puffin island boat in summer

Tours in this area

The main town on Snæfellsnes, with old timber houses and a small island you can walk up for the view over Breiðafjörður. The ferry to the Westfjords sails from here and saves a very long drive round. The library of water is an art piece, not a library.

Worth seeing

• Súgandisey island and lighthouse
• Library of Water
• Breiðafjörður boat trips

Tours in this area

Kirkjufell sits just west of town and is the most photographed mountain in Iceland; the car park by the waterfalls is the shot everyone knows. It is genuinely good, and takes ten minutes. The town itself is a working harbour.

Worth seeing

• Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss
• Harbour
• Coastal road west

Tours in this area

On the north side of the peninsula under Snæfellsjökull, and a departure point for whale watching — this is one of the more reliable places in Iceland for sperm whales and orca in season. The church is an odd sharp triangle and worth a look.

Worth seeing

• Whale watching trips
• Ólafsvíkurkirkja
• Svöðufoss waterfall

Tours in this area

At the western tip of Snæfellsnes, covered in large murals — the town has quietly become a street-art gallery. Closest base to Snæfellsjökull itself and to the Saxhóll crater, which is a ten-minute staircase to a very good view.

Worth seeing

• The murals
• Saxhóll crater steps
• Djúpalónssandur beach
• Vatnshellir lava cave

Tours in this area

A cluster of houses on the south coast of the peninsula with a cliff path to Hellnar — about two and a half kilometres each way past arches and a stone bridge full of nesting birds. Do the walk, then eat at one end or the other.

Worth seeing

• Arnarstapi to Hellnar coast path
• Gatklettur arch
• Bárðar Saga statue

Tours in this area

An hour from Reykjavík on a spit in Borgarfjörður, and the place everyone stops on the way north or west. The Settlement Centre tells the Egils saga properly in about ninety minutes and is the best thing to do in the town by a distance.

Worth seeing

• The Settlement Centre
• Borgarnes shore path
• Hraunfossar an hour east

Tours in this area

Just past the tunnel under Hvalfjörður, and usually driven straight by. The two lighthouses at the end of the spit are open — you can climb the old one, and the acoustics inside mean it gets used for concerts. Good beach walk beside them.

Worth seeing

• Akranes lighthouses
• Langisandur beach
• Guðlaug sea bath

Tours in this area

An agricultural university village in Borgarfjörður with a turf-roofed barn and a good wool shop. Mostly of interest if you are already in the area and want an hour off the road.

Worth seeing

• Ullarselið wool shop
• Agricultural museum
• Riverside birdlife

Tours in this area

Snorri Sturluson wrote here and was murdered in the cellar in 1241; his bathing pool is still in the ground outside and is one of the oldest man-made structures in the country you can walk up to. Twenty minutes from Hraunfossar.

Worth seeing

• Snorralaug pool
• Snorrastofa study centre
• Hraunfossar and Barnafoss

Tours in this area

In the Dalir, saga country and the route north to the Westfjords. Eiríksstaðir nearby is a reconstruction of the farm where Leifur Eiríksson is said to have been born. Otherwise a fuel stop.

Worth seeing

• Eiríksstaðir longhouse reconstruction
• Dalir valleys
• Coastal road north

Tours in this area

Rating and photo from Google. We have not visited every one of these ourselves — the towns list is where we say what we think.