Reykjavík is base camp, not the destination.
Almost nothing you came to Iceland for is inside the city. The country arrives at your hotel door at eight in the morning and drops you back after dark. Here is which pickup to be standing outside for.
Four hours of light in December, twenty-one in June.
Iceland is not one destination with a high season. It is four of them, and they barely overlap. Book the trip your month can actually deliver.
Late Aug – mid AprAurora seasonThe lights need darkness, not cold. They are visible whenever the sky is properly dark and clear, which is late August through April — and never in a Reykjavík June.167 tours →
Nov – MarBlue ice seasonNatural ice caves are a frozen-glacier product: guides open them when the meltwater stops, roughly November to March. The tunnel bored into Langjökull is the year-round exception.49 tours →
Mid May – late JulNo night at allAround the solstice the sun clips the horizon just after midnight and is back up before three. Boats run at eleven at night because there is still light on the water.12 tours →
Late Jun – SepHighlands openThe F-roads into the interior stay shut until the road authority clears them, usually late June, and close again in September. No amount of planning moves that date.29 tours → Blue, Sky and Secret are three different lagoons.
They get booked interchangeably and they are nothing alike: one is out on the Reykjanes lava field, one is a twenty-minute drive from the harbour, and one is a hot pool from 1891 on the Golden Circle road.
The Blue Lagoon, Grindavík
Milky silica water in a black lava field, halfway to the airport — which is why so many people do it on the way in or out. Entry is a timed slot, bought ahead; there is no gate queue to join.
Sky Lagoon, Kópavogur
An infinity edge over Faxaflói bay with the Snæfellsnes horizon in front of you. The seven-step ritual — hot, cold, steam, scrub — is the point; go at dusk and stay in the water.
The Secret Lagoon, Flúðir
Built in 1891 and still fed by the little geyser that erupts beside it every few minutes. Cheapest of the three by a wide margin, and it sits on the Golden Circle road, so most people bolt it onto that day.
The tours Reykjavík runs most mornings.
Every review →Sorted by how many travellers have actually been and said something afterwards — not by what an operator would like you to see first.
1
Golden Circle Full-Day Tour with Kerid Crater
Reykjavik Golden Circle full-day tour with Kerid Crater: Strokkur geyser, Gullfoss waterfall, and Þingvellir rift, led by an English guide.
From · $82
Read our review →
2
Reykjavik Food Walk – Local Foodie Adventure in Iceland
from $146
3
Northern Lights Bus Tour with Hot Cocoa
from $74
4
South Coast Waterfalls, Black Sand & Glacier Tour
from $126
5
Whale Watching and Marine Life Cruise
from $87
6
Sky Lagoon Entrance Pass With 7-Step Spa Ritual
from $111
7
Golden Circle, Kerid, & Secret Lagoon Tour
from $132
8
Iceland South Coast Full Day Small-Group Tour from Reykjavik
from $139.07
Þingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss: one loop, one day.
All Golden Circle tours →
Three hundred kilometres, three stops everybody knows and a fourth that varies: Kerid’s crater, the tomato greenhouse at Friðheimar, or a soak at Flúðir on the way home. The fourth stop is the only real decision.
What leaves Reykjavík before breakfast.
Waterfalls, glacier tongues, a rift you can swim in and whales an hour off the old harbour. The days most trips get built around, and how each one is booked.
Iceland is expensive. Some of it needn’t be.
Every tour on the site sorted by real price. The gap between a seat on a full coach and the same route in a nine-seater is the whole story.
Harbour boats, the city on foot, a lagoon ticket, the airport bus. Half-days that leave the afternoon free.
The standard day out: Golden Circle, South Coast, glacier hike, Silfra. A coach seat sits low in this band, a minibus near the top.
Super jeeps, ice caves, snowmobiles on Langjökull, helicopters over the eruption sites, and the multi-day runs around the ring road.
The South Coast is 190km each way, and worth it.
Seljalandsfoss you can walk behind, Skógafoss you feel before you see, the black basalt columns at Reynisfjara, and Sólheimajökull’s grey glacier snout. Eleven hours door to door in winter light.
Three things that exist because Iceland is splitting in two.
Waterfalls and whales you can find elsewhere. Swimming in the gap between two continents, walking into a lava tunnel and standing inside a glacier are Icelandic geology, sold by the hour.
The Silfra Fissure
At Þingvellir the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling apart, and the crack has filled with meltwater filtered for decades through lava rock. Visibility runs past a hundred metres. You float in a drysuit at about 2°C with a plate on either side — which is why operators want your height, weight and shoe size when you book, not on the day.
- 1Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,001 reviews
- 2Silfra Snorkeling Between Continents Photos Included- Self Drive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,427 reviews
- 3Silfra: Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,139 reviews
The Lava Tunnel
Raufarhólshellir is a 1,360-metre tube left behind when a lava river drained out from under its own crust about five thousand years ago. It is a thirty-minute drive from the city, it is the same temperature in January as in July, and it is one of the very few things here that no forecast can cancel.
- 1The Lava Tunnel Tour – Raufarhólshellir★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,373 reviews
- 2Snæfellsnes Day Trip with Vatnshellir Lava Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,108 reviews
- 3Raufarhólshellir Lava Tunnel by Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 793 reviews
The Ice Tunnel
Most ice caves are seasonal, carved by meltwater and gone by spring. The tunnel bored into Langjökull, Iceland’s second-largest ice cap, is not: it runs the whole year, reached by a truck built on ex-NATO missile-carrier wheels. Blue walls, a crevasse you can see up into, and a chapel people actually marry in.
- 1Katla Ice Cave & South Coast Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,244 reviews
- 2From Húsafell: Into the Glacier Ice Cave Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 718 reviews
- 33-Day Ice Cave, South Coast, Golden Circle and Northern Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 634 reviews
Book these before you fly to Keflavík.
Most Iceland days can be booked from your guesthouse the night before. These four cannot — they run on lift capacity, drysuit sizing, a frozen glacier and a timed entry gate.
- 01Blue Lagoon Admission with TransfersEntry is a timed slot bought in advance. There is no ticket window at the door, and the late-afternoon slots go first.
- 02Inside the Volcano: Small-Group Tour and Lava Field HikeA short summer season and a lift that takes six people at a time down into the magma chamber. Capacity, not demand, is the limit.
- 03Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationDrysuits are fitted to a size list submitted when you book, and there are height, weight and age limits. Turning up hoping is not a plan.
- 04Katla Ice Cave & South Coast TourNatural ice caves open only while the glacier is frozen hard enough to be safe — roughly November to March, and the guides call it, not the calendar.
The forecast will rearrange your week. Have a plan B.
Iceland cancels tours for wind, not rain, and it does it at short notice — a red warning closes roads and every coach stands down. Keep one day in reserve, and know which bookings are indoors, underground or twenty minutes from your bed.
Langjökull holds its snow when Reykjavík has none.
The Golden Circle ends at Gullfoss; the glacier road keeps going. An hour above the falls there is enough snow for a machine in July, which is why snowmobiling here is not a winter product.
All snowmobile days →
The city glow is the enemy. Everything else is luck.
All northern lights tours →
Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik
Read our review →
#1 Northern Lights Tour In Iceland from Reykjavik with PRO photos
Read our review →By where the road goes
Golden Circle287 tours
South Coast164 tours
Snæfellsnes52 tours
Reykjanes35 tours
Jökulsárlón43 tours
The Highlands29 tours
All the way round17 tours- Every tour we have reviewed →
By what kind of day it is
The newest write-ups out of Reykjavík.
All recent →
Paragliding and South Coast Waterfalls Day Tour from Reykjavík
Read our review →
Private South Coast, Black Sand Beach and Glacier (Up to 8 Pax)
Read our review →
Private Magical South Coast, Black Sand Beach, Best price for groups
Read our review →
Snaefellsnes Peninsula Tour with Hvammsvik hotsprings bath
Read our review →
Private 2-Day Northern Lights, Glacier Lagoon, and Ice Caves
Read our review →
Special Magic Christmas Private Tour in Keflavik
Read our review →
Reykjanes Peninsula Private Volcano Hike and Sky Lagoon Spa Tour
Read our review →
Into the Glacier, Hraunfossar & Barnafoss Waterfalls in a new Mercedes V-class
Read our review →
Reykjavik Escape Game Experience – Prison Break 1
Read our review →