Iceland 2026 – The South

For our Iceland trip, as with most things we do, we decided to forge our own path rather than use a travel agent or tour company. Pete did most of the research, taking into account the scenery he wanted to see and photograph/video with his drone, and the birds I wanted to see.

Iceland Air flies direct between Orlando and Keflavik, which is their major commercial airport. It’s about 45 minutes outside of the capital of Reykjavik. We planned a trip of 13 days, not including the day we left Orlando (since we didn’t leave until about 10pm Florida time). The flight to get there was overnight, so we had a nice meal and then did our best to get a few hours of sleep. We did splurge on first class tickets, and despite the cost, I’m glad we did. We’re getting too old and ornery to deal with coach!

Day 1 – Reykjavik

We left Orlando Saturday night and landed in Iceland early on Sunday morning. Customs turned out to be a breeze, as did baggage claim and getting our rental car.

We had booked entry and lunch at the famous Blue Lagoon. However, because the airport was quick, we had some time to kill before our timed entry. So we drove out to the Bridge Between Continents. There’s a small rift there between the North American and European tectonic plates, and a bridge that spans them. Honestly, it’s not pretty and it’s very small, so I wouldn’t recommend making a trip out just for that. But we got to bird along the way and I got a lot of pictures I really liked.

Once it was time, we headed on to the Blue Lagoon. It’s a touristy spot but we felt we wanted to say we’d been and that the warm water would ease our bodies after the long flight. And we were right! We really enjoyed it, and it wasn’t too crowded. After enjoying the hot water and mud masks and a drink at the swim-up bar, we had lunch at their restaurant, named Lava. I got my first taste of Brennivín, Iceland’s version of aquavit, a distilled liquor that is caraway. I liked it! And our food was really tasty too.

Blue Lagoon is about halfway between Keflavik and Reykjavik. Once we left the lagoon, I drove us to our lodgings at the Hotel Eyja. It was a lovely facility, but far from all of the signt-seeing and shopping areas. So we had to drive further and find parting in order to see Reykjavik proper. This included the famous church, Hallgrímskirkja, that was designed to reflect the shape of the basalt columns you see in places throughout the country. Most everything else was drive-by sightseeing: the Viking boat sculpture and Harpa Concert Hall in particular. We found an (expensive!) pub for dinner, then went back to the hotel and were asleep by 8pm local time.

Day 2 – Golden Circle to Haimeay

On Monday, we left Reykjavik and drove through the Golden Circle. This and the next day were definitely the most touristy parts of our trip. Many people come to Iceland and just do day trips from Reykjavik. Plus there are cruise ships that unload passengers for excursions. So in this area you’ll see a lot of tour buses dumping a hundred people on a single location. We tried to get an early start so we could beat some of those crowds, and because we had to make a timed ferry departure that afternoon.

Þingvellir National Park

Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park, and there were only two other cars there when we arrived at the parking lot for walking the Almannagjá Gorge. Like the Bridge Between Continents, this is visually the split between the North American and European tectonic plates. But it’s much prettier and dramatic than the bridge was! There are a lot of paved paths to walk, so although there are hills and stairs, the footing made this easier than it would have been if left natural. I enjoyed some birding in this area and picked up a few new species, some of which I’d see regularly throughout the trip and others that I never saw again.

Geysir

From there, we went to Geysir. This is where the English word geyser (think Old Faithful) comes from. The Great Geysir itself is mostly dormant, and last erupted in 2016. However, right nearby is Strokkur, which erupts every 6 to 10 minutes. Talk about faithful! When it’s close to erupting, you can see the water start to bubble so you know it’s coming. But very quickly after that, it explodes and shoots water way up into the sky! Of course it’s roped off for safety, but you can absolutely feel the mist after the eruption.

Across the street from Strokkur is a gift shop and restaurant called Geysir Glima, where we grabbed lunch. The fish soup was outstanding.

Gullfoss

Gullfoss was our first of many waterfalls on this trip. To be honest, I was nervous about some of them before going, because I have a fear of heights. It never mattered; I never felt unsafe at any of the waterfalls we visited. That said, the sheer power of Gullfoss (and some others) means you really want to keep any intrusive thoughts at bay!

Pete and I went to the lower viewing area. Waterproof clothing was helpful due to the spray, but we got great views back from the falls and then again once we walked all the way to the end, where you couldn’t really see the main part of the waterfall, but you could see the river above it. It was a long walk with stairs, and Pete declined to go to the upper view point so I went by myself. The lower one is definitely the better of the two.

Kerið

Kerið is a famous crater with a beautiful lake inside it. I paid the small fee and walked up to view the crater, but Pete elected to stay in the car. By this point we were both sore from all the walking/climbing we were doing. It was a quick walk and in hindsight he should have done it, but between Kerið and Viti (near Mývatn), Viti is the more impressive one. So he didn’t totally miss out.

Somewhere along this day too, we found our first Iceland horses. Here is one of the beauties we came across!

Haimeay on Vestmannaeyjar

Haimeay, or Home Island, is the only populated island in Vestmannaeyjar, known in English as the Westman Islands. To reach Haimeay, we took our rental car across on a ferry. This crossing was amazing because of the various other islands you can see, and the cliffs you go past as you pull into Haimeay itself. I enjoyed this whole trip because I saw birds I was excited about both in the harbor on the mainland and on those cliffs. A cute teenager was very excited to see “puffins”, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was looking at murres instead. (Puffins nest on the tops of cliffs in burrows, while murres and other birds nest on the cliff ledges themselves.) I do hope she got to see some actual puffins on the island! We also noted sheep at the very edge of the cliffs, where there was a dropoff of probably 500 feet straight into the ocean. This was my first understanding of how crazy (or stupid) sheep are.

After we arrived, we went to the “Puffin Lookout” (that’s the name on Google Maps). It was such a beautiful drive out! However, the road was hilly and once we parked, we went the wrong directly up a 12% grade. Got to the top and nothing was there; came back down and found the right spot. There was a blind, so you think it would have been obvious to us… The weather was pretty good but there weren’t many puffins on the cliffs yet. There were a number of them down in the water, but it was too far for good pictures. Finally some started coming back to the burrows and we got some decent shots.

But eventually we gave up and made our dinner reservation at Einsi Kaldi. This was one of the best meals we had in our entire time there, I think. The reindeer carpaccio was especially delicious! It was attached to our hotel too.

Our hotel room at Hotel Vestmannaeyjar was nice, but so hot as to be almost intolerable. It had to have been more than 80 degrees when we came in. The kind young lady at the desk did find a fan for us to use, but it didn’t make a ton of difference. We slept with the windows open. The next morning, the included breakfast was in the Einsi Kaldi restaurant. It wasn’t nearly as good. But we discovered the joy of Skyr, which tastes like yogurt but is really a kind of cheese.

Day 3 – Haimeay to Vik

We had to catch the ferry at 11am, but we had some time to try and find more puffins. So we went to the “Beautiful Puffin and Shore View” (again, the name on Google Maps). It’s right by the golf course, and from it, you can see a rock that looks like an elephant head in profile.

Even better, we actually saw puffins up close! Also, I saw my first Razorbill and surprisingly, added Rock Pigeon to my life list. (They’re not countable in any of the other places where I have encountered them!) Then we explored the town a bit more by car, took photos of the pretty church there, and went down to the harbor and walked around a little more until time to board the ferry.

After we got back to the mainland, we started visiting the waterfalls that are popular tourist sites along the south coast. Waterproof clothing and boots were very helpful for this day! Here are the waterfalls we visited this day:

Seljalandsfoss

Seljalandsfoss is one of a couple of waterfalls that you can walk behind – and we did! In the photo above you can see some people on the right; that’s the line heading behind the falls. It’s slippery and the footing is rough, but it’s not super hard if you don’t have mobility problems. However, it’s very cold behind the falls! This was one place we definitely needed our waterproof coats and pants.

All of these waterfalls are very popular and therefore crowded.

I took my tripod to Iceland and only used it in two places, both times to get longer exposures of waterfalls and smooth out the water. With this one, I couldn’t figure out how to add a timer after pressing the shutter release button, so the surrounding landscape came out a little blurry. I figured out how to do this before I tried it again at Goðafoss!

Gljúfrabúi

Gljúfrabúi is another waterfall just a short walk from Seljalandsfoss. They share the same paid parking lot. In my opinion, Gljúfrabúi is much cooler! It’s partly hidden behind rocks, and you can walk through them to get closer to the falls. This one is definitely a harder walk, one where I had to watch my footing while also making sure not to hit my head or basically just fall in and get soaked.

Skógafoss

We first saw Skogafoss from the Ring Road; you really can’t miss it when you’re driving by. It’s huge! We parked across the road and took photos, which show some of the beautiful-but-invasive lupines in the foreground. Pete could even fly his drone from here, which you can’t do from the paid parking lots in many places, including Skogafoss. Once we finished, we went on to the paid parking lot that is much closer to the falls. Below the falls, the river is very shallow and you can walk across rocks without getting wet – as long as your balance is good! We enjoyed hanging out there; in fact, this was one of my favorite waterfalls just for that reason.

You can also hike to the top. In the photo above, you can see the path where people walk, to the right of the falls. We didn’t do that. We were very sore on this day and didn’t feel like we could push our muscles that far. However, I understand the view from the top is very pretty.

Kvernufoss

Kvernufoss is really close to Skogafoss, but has a separate paid parking lot. It’s very pretty and there’s a museum and cafe there with clean restrooms. We hiked to see the view of the falls, but we didn’t hike all the way there. You can go behind it as well, and it was much less crowded than Seljalandsfoss (the other one listed above that you can walk behind). But it would have required another big hill we just didn’t want to do.

Vik

We finally got to our hotel in Vik, but it was a steady rain the rest of the day, with wind gusts up to 33mph. We had planned to visit Dyrhólaey Cliffs and the black beach called Reynisfjara, but it was too miserable outside. We decided to wait until the following morning to see them. So we drove into Vik for dinner at Smidjan Brugghus, a local brewery that we enjoyed (and where I got a cool t-shirt), then returned to our hotel.

At dinner I realized I had lost my credit card. We went back to the N1 gas station, but they didn’t have it. We stopped at registration for our hotel, and they did! I had apparently dropped it in the parking lot, because it had been driven over and is a bit worse for the wear, but it still worked.

Day 4 – Vik to Hofn

If Tuesday was waterfall day, then Wednesday was definitely ice day! On the way out of Vik we took pictures of the famous red and white church there. Then we saw the moss-covered lava fields of Eldhraun. But then came the ice! We visited the Svínafellsjökull glacier tongue, and got close to it but not close enough to touch, as it was very slippery. Game of Thrones fans might recognize it as the filing location for “north of the wall”. You can actually take a tour to walk on it, but it requires a guide and crampons.

We were down to half a tank of gas, so we decided to fill up at a station that, as it turns out, had nesting Arctic Terns! They did not like us; the photo here is a cell phone snap out of the side car window as we waited for our turn at the pump. Of course I took lots of photos of them while Pete pumped gas.

After some more driving, we got to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon and Diamond Beach. They’re side-by-side and it’s where pieces of glacier ice float down to sea.

We finally got to Hofn, where we were staying at a place called Glacier World, actually nearby in Hoffell. We didn’t realize until we got there that it was named for being beside another outlet glacier called Hoffellsjökull. We could see it from our room! I had hoped for sunset photos over the glacier but apparently that’s not how anything works here. (There is a late sunset but it was behind mountains.) Our stay also had wonderful hot tubs. From the hot tubs, you could see a pasture where Iceland horses were grazing, and beyond that, the glacier.

We drove into Hofn itself for dinner. The restaurant we wanted to visit had an hour wait, so we ended up at a brewery that had delicious food – real food too, not just pub food. I had wolffish, which I’d never heard of but I liked it. And their beer was good too! Unfortunately they shut down the kitchen before we could order dessert.