Thórsmörk By 4x4: Wilderness Captured

A four-wheel-drive truck or van rebuilt for Iceland: raised suspension, huge low-pressure tyres and a snorkel, so it can cross rivers, drive on snow and climb glacier tracks that stop a rental car. Groups are small, usually eight to sixteen people. Super jeeps are how you reach Landmannalaugar in the highlands, ice caves under Mýrdalsjökull and dark northern-lights spots off the main roads. They are pricier than a coach, and rougher.

Slightly, for two reasons. A super jeep can leave the tarmac and find darker, more sheltered spots, and with ten people rather than fifty you spend less time waiting at stops. Arctic Adventures' Northern Lights Explorer (/experience/209/) and Northern Lights by 4x4 (/experience/1088067/) are the standard options. The sky is the same either way; a jeep does not make clouds part. If budget matters, a small-group minibus gets you most of the benefit.

Late June to September, once the highland roads open. The Landmannalaugar Safari (/experience/341/) is a twelve-hour day from Reykjavík with river crossings, a short hike and a soak in the natural hot river. The rest of the year the road is closed to everything except specially licensed winter expeditions. The dates the F-roads open vary each year with the snow, so if you are booking for June, expect a possible reschedule.

Comfortable enough on the tarmac, bumpy on the rough stuff. That is the point. Expect to be thrown about on lava tracks and river beds, and to sit in a bench seat for several hours. People prone to motion sickness should sit in front and take a tablet. The trade-off is access: you see places coaches cannot go, with a driver-guide who talks to you rather than over a microphone.