Landmannalaugar is a summer place, and the road there is why tours use super-jeeps
The Highlands open for a few months a year behind F-roads your hire car can't legally use. How to get to Landmannalaugar, and what each way costs.
Landmannalaugar is the rhyolite valley in the central Highlands where the mountains come in orange, green and grey, a warm stream runs past the campsite, and the Laugavegur trek begins. It is also the place most likely to appear on your Iceland list and the least likely to fit your rental agreement. Here’s why.
The season is short and not up to you
The F-roads into the Highlands open when the snow goes and the rivers drop, which usually means some point in late June. They close again in September or early October, earlier if the weather turns. The dates move every year and are set by the road authority, not by tour operators or hotels. If you’ve booked a July trip you’re almost certainly fine. If you’ve booked one in early June, Landmannalaugar may simply not be reachable yet, and no amount of planning changes that.
Outside the season the valley is under snow and the huts are closed. There are no winter Landmannalaugar day tours in our list because there shouldn’t be.
The F-roads and what your hire car can’t do
Roads with an F prefix are mountain tracks: gravel, rough, steep in places, and crossed by unbridged rivers. Two things follow. Driving an F-road in a two-wheel-drive car is illegal, and nearly every rental contract excludes river-crossing damage even on a 4x4. Flood a hire car’s engine in a Highland river and you own the repair.
The main route to Landmannalaugar (F208 from the north) has a shallow ford near the end that a normal 4x4 manages in dry weather. The southern approach involves deeper crossings. This is the entire reason tours run modified vehicles. A super-jeep sits on tyres the height of a child, with the intake raised and a driver who has crossed the same river a hundred times. It’s not theatre.
Three ways in
The cheapest is the bus. Arctic Adventures’ Landmannalaugar Transfer (Both Ways) is €107 for a return trip from Reykjavík on a purpose-built highland bus. It’s a fourteen-hour day with about four hours in the valley: enough for the two-hour Brennisteinsalda loop and a soak in the hot stream. You’re unguided at the far end, which suits people who like walking alone.
The guided middle. Arctic Adventures’ Landmannalaugar Guided Hike & Hot Springs from Reykjavík is €185 for a fourteen-hour day with a guide on the trails. BusTravel Iceland’s Landmannalaugar Hiking, Nature Bath & Háifoss Tour is €199 for thirteen hours and stops at Háifoss on the way, one of the tallest waterfalls in the country and awkward to reach on your own.
The super-jeep. Arctic Adventures’ Landmannalaugar Safari Super Jeep Day Tour is €234 for twelve hours. Smaller group, faster on the rough sections, and the vehicle goes places the bus can’t, so you see more of the surrounding lava field. Two hours less on the road than the bus versions, which at the end of a Highland day is worth something.
Our honest take
Book the super-jeep if the Highlands are the reason you came. The €127 over the transfer buys you a shorter day, a guide who reads the rivers, and a vehicle that turns a road closure into a detour rather than a cancellation.
Book the both-ways transfer if you’re a confident walker on a budget and want the valley to yourself. The tradeoff is fourteen hours for four on the ground, and a bus that leaves when it leaves.
Don’t drive in. Not in a hire car, not on a first visit, not to save €100. Every summer people ford a river they shouldn’t have, and the story ends with a tow truck and a bill. Put Landmannalaugar in the planner as a tour day between the Golden Circle and the South Coast, in July or August, and let someone else worry about the water level.
