When you only have limited time to spend in Iceland, you’ll need to narrow down the number of cities you want to visit due to how spread out they all are.
Some things to consider:
What are the goals for your visit?
What is the weather/terrain going to be like the time of year I will be there?
Are you planning on renting a vehicle?
We arrived at Keflavik Airport early Thursday morning and had an early evening flight out on Sunday so we essentially had three full days. And we made the most of every minute!
Table of Contents
Reykjavik
We rented a car at the airport and headed straight to Reykjavik. Our first stop was Hallgrimskirkja (the largest church in Iceland) which was convenient because there was a large parking lot for us to leave our car and explore Reykjavik by foot. We walked down rainbow road, grabbed a quick breakfast at Te & Kaffe, and headed to the docks for our whale watching tour. We did the GetYourGuide Whale Watching Tour by RIB Boat tour and had a blast! We saw seven (yes, seven) humpback whales up close and a playful dolphin that swam back and forth, jumping around just feet from our boat!
After our tour, we grabbed lunch at Seabaron. Get the lobster soup. Just get it. You will thank me later. Unlike a traditional thick lobster bisque, this soup is just slightly thicker than a chicken soup. It has great flavor and little chunks of lobster throughout. And came with a personal loaf of soft, fresh bread to dip into it! They also have several different types of grilled fish. We decided to be somewhat adventurous and got whitefish. The fish itself I would compare to a cod, but the way they grilled it gave it a slight charred taste that complimented the spices perfectly.
On our last night in Iceland, we made our way back to Reykjavik to see Hallgrimskirkja at night (they light it up!) and get dinner. We had dinner at Brass Kitchen & Bar primarily for their gluten free fish and chips but everything was incredible. I had oven baked arctic char with a beurre blanc sauce which was to die for.
We enjoyed Reykjavik a lot in the limited time we had there. This is definitely a city we will come back to during our next trip to Iceland!
Vik
A change in plans due to bad weather (welcome to Iceland) had us drive straight to Vik from Reykjavik (about a 2 and a half hour drive) on day one. We had planned a couples photoshoot on Reynisfjara, a beautiful black sand beach with stunning basalt columns, during which my (now) wife proposed!
Quick plug for our photographer, Izabella, who was AMAZING to work with and whose photos turned out INCREDIBLE!
For our post-engagement dinner, we went to Black Crust Pizzeria where they infuse their dough with charcoal to get the black color and where they have the most unique pizza topping combinations I’ve ever had. We split a No 3: homemade date pesto, pepperoni, cream cheese, fresh basil, and cherry tomatoes. The No 5: selection of Icelandic cheeses, red current jelly, rose pepper, and parmesan was a close second.
We were back in Vik the next morning for our Katla Volcano Ice Caving & Glacier Hiking Tour through Guide to Iceland. We stopped on the way at Skool Beans, Iceland’s first micro roaster & tea lab coffee bus! They have an extensive menu including a Tiramisu Rooibos Tea Latte, a Chocolate Truffle Black Tea with Pistachio, an Apple Pie Hot Shake, and a whole Hot Chocolate Mixology menu, along with the staples.
Our tour began with us loading into a jeep/van crossover to drive to the 800-year-old Katla Glacier. Once we got the base of the glacier, the tour guide gave us safety gear including helmets with lights and crampons, little spikes to put on our shoes to help to walk on the ice without slipping. We hiked up the path on the glacier, our tour guide (who doubled as a photographer), stopped for us to take pictures and to tell us about what we were seeing. We used a pick axe to chip off some ice to look for troll poop (little rainbows in the ice chips). When we got to the ice cave, I could not believe that something like that existed, let alone was created naturally. It was such a unique experience, and not only because our tour guide told us that after a few months it would no longer exist. We ended the tour by doing some true hiking on the glacier (thank goodness for the crampons).
After the tour we decided to warm up with lunch at The Soup Company. I got a traditional Icelandic lamb soup that hit the spot. They also offer a soup flight and there are unlimited refills on all soups!
Hella
We stayed at Aurora Igloo in Hella during our stay. Not only was the igloo itself incredible (no explanation needed), but it is located halfway between Reykjavik and Vik which made it easy to go back and forth.
On our way back from Vik after our glacier tour, we stopped at two waterfalls.
Skogafoss
A very large and impressive waterfall. Due to the rain and wind when we got there we did not spend much time there or even get all the way up close to it.
Seljalandsfoss
Not quite as large as Skogafoss, but this waterfall has a very unique attribute: you can walk behind it. Yes, I’m serious and yes, it is safe. There is a pathway that goes all the way around the waterfall. This is the first time I was able to see a waterfall from literally every angle and it was absolutely breathtaking.
We went to Iceland in October with one goal: to see the northern lights. We stalked the forecast and cloud cover for the week leading up to our trip and were extremely discouraged to find that there was going to be at least 90% cloud cover for the whole time we were there. But, you only need a brief break in the clouds to be able to see the lights. And that’s exactly what we got!
On our last night, we set alarms to go off every half hour to check for the lights. The forecast didn’t look promising, but we wanted to give it our best shot. Around 10:30pm we were able to see some lights through our phone outside of the igloo. We were concerned there may have been too much light pollution where we were, so decided to try to find a darker area. So, we hopped in the car and drove west until we found a side road in the middle of nowhere. We pulled off to the side of the road and crossed our fingers. Outside of the car, we were able to see the lights with the naked eye! They were a pale green, but we could, without a doubt, see them dancing in the sky. We stood there looking at the sky for the next 10 minutes until the cloud cover came back. All we needed was a brief break in the clouds to see the lights. It was such a cool experience, but now I want to see more!
Reykjanes Peninsula
On our last full day in Iceland, we headed east to Reykjanes Peninsula with the goal of doing the Mt. Langihryggur Hike on the Fagradalsfjall Volcano. We had an adventure getting there, but we made it. We set our GPS for Fagradalsfjall Volcano and it tried to take us on a shortcut…on some unpaved roads. For those of you who are not familiar with road types in Iceland, F roads are rough, unpaved, gravel roads. These definitely seemed like F roads, even though there wasn’t any signage suggesting it. After getting about 20 yards onto the unpaved road we turned around for fear of getting the car stuck (again, but that’s a different story). We got back on the main road and headed toward Grindavik and as we got closer to the volcano, we found our way to parking lots. The plan was to park in P2 since it is the closest to the Route C trailhead, but the road to it was closed, so we ended up in the P1 parking lot. It was about a 20 minute walk from there to get to the trailhead.
We had a great (steep) hike up to the 2021 eruption zone – only about 1.5 miles from P1 lot. We decided to keep going toward the 2022 eruption zone viewpoint (Langihryggur) which was another 2 miles. We made it halfway before we decided to head back. On our way back we ran into about 10 minutes of miserable wind and rain blowing into our faces – welcome to Iceland, the weather changes every 10 minutes. BE AWARE: the path back down the mountain is not very clearly marked. We went a few wrong ways before we found our way back down.
Final Thoughts
Even though we only had 3 days in Iceland, we were able to see and do a lot!
I highly recommend renting a car as it gives you so much more freedom. It is very easy to drive in Iceland – the road signs are extremely helpful in navigating and the Icelandic people are surprisingly good drivers! Also, the public transportation system is not like the rest of Europe.