Sólheimajökull, Skaftafell or Vatnajökull — which glacier hike to actually book
Three glaciers sell almost the same walk at different prices and distances. Which one fits your route, what 'easy' means, and what blue ice really requires.
Search “glacier hike Iceland” and you get a wall of near-identical listings: crampons, a helmet, a guide, three or four hours. The tours really are similar. What differs is which glacier you stand on, how far it is from wherever you are sleeping, and whether the ice is grey or blue. Decide the geography first and the tour picks itself.
We list 84 per-person glacier tours from 22 operators. The median is €214, but that median is dragged up by full-day trips out of Reykjavík; the walk itself starts at €85 if you can get yourself to the ice.
Sólheimajökull — the one on the South Coast road
Sólheimajökull is a tongue of Mýrdalsjökull that reaches almost down to Route 1, between Skógafoss and Vík, about two and a half hours from Reykjavík. It is the busiest glacier in the country and the easiest to reach: car park, twenty-minute walk along a meltwater lagoon, crampons on at the ice edge.
Nordur Travel Services runs a Solheimajokull Glacier Guided Hiking Small Group Tour at €85 for three hours, and Arctic Adventures’ Glacier Experience is €93 for four. Both meet at the glacier, which is why they are cheap — you are paying for a guide and kit, not a coach.
The downside is that the surface is ash-grey. Mýrdalsjökull sits on Katla, and decades of volcanic ash are ground through the ice. It photographs as a grey moonscape, not a blue one. It is also crowded: on a July morning there can be six groups on the ice at once.
For the detail of what “easy” means underfoot, we wrote that up separately in what an easy hike on Sólheimajökull actually involves.
Skaftafell — the better ice, four hours further east
Skaftafell is part of Vatnajökull National Park, about four and a half hours from Reykjavík. The glacier tongues here — Falljökull, Svínafellsjökull — are cleaner, steeper and more broken, which is to say more interesting to walk on. You get proper crevasses, seracs and, in the right light, genuine blue.
Arctic Adventures’ Glacier Wonders is the entry point at €98 for about four hours. Melrakki Adventures’ Skaftafell 3 Hour Glacier Walk is €128 with a smaller group. Step up to Arctic Adventures’ Glacier Explorer at €141 for five and a half hours and you get further up the tongue, past the stretch that day-trippers reach.
The catch is obvious: you have to be in the southeast. Skaftafell is not a day trip from Reykjavík by car, and anyone who tells you it is has not driven it in February.
Vatnajökull proper — Höfn and the eastern outlets
East of Skaftafell, out towards Höfn, Blue Iceland and Ice Explorers run walks on the outlet glaciers off the Vatnajökull ice cap. These are the quietest tours on our list — you may be the only group on the ice. They suit people already driving the ring road who want a glacier morning without the Skaftafell car park.
They are also the least standardised. Route and length depend on conditions that week, so read the operator’s own description rather than assuming it matches what you saw at Sólheimajökull.
“Blue ice” is a season, not a product
Blue ice is winter ice. In summer the surface melts, refreezes dirty and holds ash and grit; in winter fresh snow is compressed and the exposed ice reads blue. So a tour sold as a “blue ice glacier hike” in July is selling you the same walk with a better name.
If blue is what you came for, the honest version is a glacier hike between November and March, on Skaftafell or Vatnajökull rather than Sólheimajökull, ideally combined with an ice cave — Arctic Adventures’ Skaftafell Blue Ice Cave & Glacier Hike Tour does exactly that for €155 in winter. Our ice cave guide covers which cave.
If you have no car
You can still do it, but you are buying a very long day. Glaciers and Waterfalls runs a Glacier Hike, South Coast Waterfall & Black Sand Beach from Reykjavík at €171 for eleven hours, which puts Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, Reynisfjara and an hour on Sólheimajökull into one coach day.
That is roughly €80 more than meeting at the glacier, and the €80 buys you transport and three stops you would otherwise have to drive to. It is fair value. It is also eleven hours, most of it seated.
Our honest take
If you are staying in Reykjavík and have one day for the South Coast, take the Sólheimajökull day tour and accept grey ice. It is the only version that works logistically, and an hour on any glacier beats no glacier.
If you are driving the ring road and have a night in the southeast, skip Sólheimajökull entirely and walk at Skaftafell. Better ice, fewer people, and at €98–€141 it is cheaper than the Reykjavík day trip because you are not paying for a coach.
The thing nobody selling these will say: a glacier hike is a walk. A gentle one, on interesting ground, with a guide who can read the surface. It is not climbing and it is not dangerous once you are roped into the group’s pace. If you want the adrenaline version, that is ice climbing, and it costs about twice as much for something most people try once.
More on prices across the category on our glacier price page, and every departure we hold is on glacier tours.
