A Mývatn day from Akureyri covers Goðafoss and the lake, not Dettifoss

Everyone arrives in Akureyri with the same list: Goðafoss, Mývatn, Dettifoss, the Nature Baths. The geography doesn’t cooperate. Goðafoss is 35 minutes east of town. Mývatn is another 40 beyond that. Dettifoss is a further hour past the lake, then the same back. A six-hour tour can do the first two properly. It cannot do all four.

The arithmetic, before the tours

Akureyri to the lake is around 90 minutes each way on Route 1. That is three hours of the day gone before anybody stops anywhere. On a six-hour tour you have roughly two and a half to three hours left to divide between five or six stops, which is 20 to 30 minutes each. That is enough for Goðafoss, enough for the craters, enough to walk into Dimmuborgir and back, and not enough to feel unhurried anywhere.

Add Dettifoss and you are adding two more hours of driving to reach one waterfall. That is why the Dettifoss tours are eight hours, not seven, and why they cut minutes from everything else to fit it in.

The six-hour tours

Two we’d book. BusTravel Iceland’s Mývatn, Waterfall, Hot Springs & Volcanoes, from €157, six hours, with hotel pickup and drop-off. And Arctic Adventures’ Mývatn, Goðafoss & Grjótagjá Half Day Tour, from €121, also six hours, in a minibus rather than a coach.

The stop lists differ enough to matter. BusTravel runs Goðafoss, the Mývatn viewpoint, the Skútustaðir pseudo-craters, the Dimmuborgir lava formations, then Námaskarð and the mud pools. Arctic Adventures runs Goðafoss, Námaskarð, Grjótagjá — the warm fissure cave you can look into but not bathe in — then Dimmuborgir and the lake with the pseudo-craters. So Arctic Adventures trades the lake viewpoint for the cave. If you have seen photographs of a turquoise crack in black rock and want to stand at it, that’s the one.

What comes with them: BusTravel includes a sandwich, your choice of vegan or chicken, plus water and WiFi. Arctic Adventures includes the minibus, the guide and WiFi but no food. There is nowhere sensible to buy lunch between Goðafoss and Reykjahlíð, so on the Arctic Adventures tour, bring something.

Both set a minimum age of six. Both allow free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure. The BusTravel coach carries more people; the Arctic Adventures minibus is smaller and starts at 10:00 rather than offering the spread of early departures.

Downside of both: it’s a lot of bus for a half-day price. Around two and a half of the six hours are driving, and in December that six-hour window is most of the usable light.

Dettifoss and the Diamond Circle

If Dettifoss is the point, you need eight hours. BusTravel’s Diamond Circle Cruise Ship Express is from €178 for eight hours from Akureyri. It’s built for ships in port, but anyone can book it. The route runs Húsavík, Ásbyrgi, Dettifoss, Námaskarð, the Mývatn viewpoint and Goðafoss — so it adds the canyon and the waterfall and, usefully, takes in Húsavík on the way. Sandwich, Icelandic chocolate and a juice are included, along with pickup.

Oddly, its minimum age is two rather than six. The longer tour is the one that takes small children. If you’re travelling with a five-year-old, this is your only Mývatn option from Akureyri.

From Húsavík, the same operator runs Dettifoss, Ásbyrgi and Lake Mývatn, from €178 for five and a half hours — shorter because Húsavík is 76 km from Akureyri and considerably nearer Dettifoss. If you are sleeping in Húsavík anyway, this is the efficient way to do the Diamond Circle: same price, two and a half fewer hours in a seat.

The “express” in the Akureyri version is real: fewer minutes everywhere. Reviews for it sit lower than for the operator’s other northern tours, and the reason is almost always the same — people expected time at Dettifoss and got a brisk walk.

Downside: Dettifoss in winter depends on the road. The west-bank road is paved; the east-bank road is gravel and closed for the winter. When the forecast turns, this is the tour that gets cancelled, and you get a refund or a new date.

Where the Nature Baths fit

The Mývatn Nature Baths sit above Reykjahlíð on the lake’s east side and are open all year. None of the tours above lists a bathing stop. Read “hot springs” in a tour title as the Námaskarð steam vents and mud pools unless the page says otherwise — those are geothermal features you look at, not water you get into.

If you want the baths, self-drive, or book the six-hour tour and accept you won’t soak. Squeezing the baths into a tour day means cutting the lake, and the lake is the reason you came. For context on what you’d be paying: lagoon and spa experiences across our catalogue run from €43 to well over €1,000, with a median around €255 once transfers and admission are bundled. Akureyri’s town pool is a fraction of that and has hot tubs.

What it costs, and how the north compares

Volcano and geothermal tours across the catalogue have a median of about €170 and a 25th percentile near €114, so the €121 Arctic Adventures half-day is genuinely at the cheap end of the market for six hours with a guide. The €157 BusTravel tour buys you lunch, more departure times and a bigger coach. The €178 eight-hour tour is priced fairly for the distance covered — you are paying for 300-odd kilometres of driving, not for extra stops.

Booking these in practice

Check your dates before you plan the day. Coach and minibus departures in the north are scheduled rather than daily, and they cluster around the summer season and cruise arrivals — Icelandic operators open their calendars close to the date, so a thin forward calendar is normal and not a sign of a problem. Of the four tours here, the Akureyri Diamond Circle and the BusTravel six-hour tour have the most reliable published departures; the Arctic Adventures half-day and the Húsavík version open up nearer the season.

Practical consequence: search your real dates on the tour pages first, then decide. If the six-hour tour isn’t running on your day and the eight-hour one is, take the eight-hour one — the extra €21 buys Dettifoss and Ásbyrgi, and you were going to spend the day in a seat either way.

What to wear

Námaskarð is a geothermal field with no shade, no shelter and a strong smell of sulphur. Dimmuborgir is a lava field with uneven footing. Goðafoss has a spray zone and, in winter, ice on the path down to the lower viewpoint. Both operators say the same thing and they’re right: warm layers, a wind- and waterproof top, and sturdy shoes rather than trainers. Boots that have already been wet once are ideal.

Our honest take

Book the €121 Arctic Adventures half-day if Mývatn and Goðafoss are enough, and if it’s running on your date. That’s most people, it’s the cheapest of the four, and it leaves the afternoon free for the town. Grjótagjá is a better twenty minutes than a lake viewpoint.

Take the €157 BusTravel six-hour tour if you want the full lake loop, lunch included and a choice of departure times — or simply because it’s the one running when you’re there.

Book the €178 Diamond Circle only if Dettifoss is non-negotiable, or if you have a child under six, or if you’re staying in Húsavík and can take the shorter version. Go in knowing the stops are brief. In December the eight-hour day is longer than the daylight and leaves nothing for the town.

And skip the Nature Baths on a tour day. Use Akureyri’s town pool instead — hot tubs, a fraction of the price, no bus.