Horse riding in Iceland

Yes, and most people on the tours are beginners. Icelandic horses are small, calm and used to novices, and the one- to two-hour rides on the farm tours (/experience/164615/, /experience/170834/) move at a walk with a taste of tölt, the smooth fifth gait the breed is known for. You get a helmet and a short briefing. If you have ridden before, tell the guide; they will match you to a livelier horse.

Because Icelanders will correct you, politely. The Icelandic horse stands around 13 to 14 hands, pony height elsewhere, but it has been bred as a horse for a thousand years with no outside blood since the settlement. It has five gaits, including tölt and the flying pace. Once a horse leaves Iceland it cannot come back, to protect the herd from disease. Call it a horse; the guides will like you more.

Only if it has been disinfected. Iceland has strict rules to protect its horses from foreign disease: used riding clothing, gloves and boots must be disinfected before entering the country, and used leather tack, saddles and bridles are not allowed at all. The stables provide helmets and rain overalls, so most people bring nothing. Wear long trousers and closed shoes with a small heel if you have them.

Yes. Icelandic horses are small, and most stables set a rider weight limit somewhere around 100 to 110 kilograms, sometimes lower for longer rides. The tour page states the exact limit, and stables do enforce it on the day. If you are close to the limit, email us before booking and we will check with the operator. Minimum ages also apply, usually six to eight for a farm ride.

For a first-timer with one day, yes. Tours like BusTravel's (/experience/767709/) or Arctic Adventures' (/experience/164615/) pair a one- to two-hour ride at a farm near the route with Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss, ten to eleven hours in total. The downside is that both halves are shortened. If riding is the point, book a longer ride on its own and do the Golden Circle another day.

From €85 to €349 a person, with a typical price of €169. That is the median of 45 per-person day-tour fares we currently sell. Multi-day packages and private charters are priced differently and sit outside those figures.

01A - Countryside Charm with Eldhestar, at €85 a person. Read what it actually is before booking on price alone — the cheapest line is sometimes an admission ticket rather than a guided trip, and a large coach costs less per seat than a small-group minibus because it gives you less time at each stop.

1 of the 54 are priced on request rather than published, which almost always means a private charter where the cost depends on group size and pickup point. Ask us and we will get a quote from the operator.

54 of them, from 22 operators: Viking Horses, Eldhestar, BusTravel Iceland, Íshestar Riding Tours, Your Friend in Reykjavik, Viking Rafting and 16 more. Every one is a company we hold a contract with — we do not list everything in Iceland, on purpose.

Day tours run from 1 hour to 11.5 hours, most commonly about 5 hours. Pickup and drop-off are usually inside that figure, so a three-hour tour from Reykjavík can mean closer to four door to door.

2 of these are admissions or tickets rather than guided tours — Date the Icelandic Horse from €88, for instance. Worth knowing if you are driving yourself and only need entry.

35 of 54 (65%) offer pickup. The rest ask you to meet on location. Pickup is the single most common cause of a missed tour in Iceland: it runs to a window rather than a time, and the bus will not wait long.

8 of the 54 are private, the other 46 are shared departures. Private costs more in total but is priced per vehicle, so for four or more people it often works out close per head — and you set the pace.

Across the next 360 days of live availability we hold departures in October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September. That is a rolling window rather than the whole year, so a month missing from that list is not necessarily a month with nothing running.

3 of 54 run only part of the year; the other 51 run all year round. In Iceland that is usually about daylight or ice rather than demand.

Cutoffs run from 1 to 24 hours before departure, and 42 of them accept bookings inside 24 hours — so booking the night before is often possible. Popular winter tours sell out days ahead regardless of the cutoff.

37 of 54 (69%) allow free cancellation at least 24 hours before departure. The exact window is on each tour page and comes from the operator's own policy, not ours. If the operator cancels for weather you are refunded in full.

Operators rate them: 37 easy, 11 moderate, 5 very easy, 1 challenging. Iceland's ratings assume weather — an easy walk in still air is a different proposition in 15 m/s of wind.

45 of the 54 set one, ranging from 5 to 14 years. The rest have no stated minimum, which usually means infants are allowed but not that the tour suits them.

47 of 54 are marked family-friendly by the operator. That is their judgement rather than ours, and it usually means the walking is short and the vehicle has a toilet.

Varies by operator. Across these: wi-fi on board on 3, admission fees on 3, bus fare on 2, departure tax on 1, goods and services tax on 1. Anything not listed as included is not included — Icelandic operators are literal about this.

36 of 54 are guided in person, with guiding offered in Danish, English, French, German, Icelandic, Spanish and 1 more. English is standard on every shared departure in Iceland; other languages usually mean a private guide.

They start from Capital Region (Reykjavík), Akureyri & the North, South Coast (Hella, Hvolsvöllur, Vík), Golden Circle area (Selfoss, Flúðir, Þingvellir), Húsavík. Where a tour starts matters more in Iceland than how long it lasts: the same tour from Reykjavík and from Vík are different days entirely.

The operator cancels and refunds you in full — Icelandic operators cancel readily, and that is a good sign rather than a bad one. What they will not do is refund you for a tour that ran and simply had poor visibility. Wind cancels more tours here than rain or cold.