Everything You Need to Plan your Icelandic Adventure:
Tools, Resources, Tips and more
What is your favorite part about traveling?
There is a whole gammet of answers out there anywhere from “The Food!” to “Experiencing the cultures” to “Seeing the joy on my child’s face seeing the (insert monument, theme park, ocean, etc)”
Chances are, you did not say, “Gee, I just love every part of the planning process!!!”
I mean, why not? All those choices, options, overwhelming amounts of information, who wouldn’t just want to just get lost in the huge world wide web!?
You would think that with the amount of worldly travels, trips and adventures we have taken that I would be a pro at planning trips, and while I definately know many tips and tricks to the trade, that doesn’t mean that the copius amounts of information available isn’t completely overwhelming!
Despite Iceland being a location that I have ALWAYS dreamed of going to, I just couldn’t get excited about planning this trip. I mean, I would sit for hours looking at pictures of the gorgeous scenery and reading stories of chasing the Northern Lights, but when it came time to planning an itinerary, I just couldn’t narrow it down! There were so many choices, options and plans available!!!
As Andy rolled his eyes at my computer’s ridiculous amount of tabs up as I spent hours researching, I just wanted to be rich so I could pay someone to figure this all out for me! But, I’m not…and chances are neither are you. Which only adds to the stress of planning Iceland because it is so.damn.expensive!!!
However, once I was able to take some deep breaths and get into the groove, I found some extremely helpful resources on planning my Iceland trip. Hopefully, if you are also trying to plan an Iceland trip, you will find them useful as well.
Other Articles You’ll Want to Read!
Iceland One Week Itinerary: Part I
Iceland One Week Itinerary: Part II
Touring Iceland via Campervan: What you need to know to enjoy the wilderness and flexibility of campervan camping
I) Time
This is probably the first thing you ABSOLUTELY need to figure out in order to help guide what is possible for your trip to Iceland.
A few Days: First, I don’t know who has the kind of money to just hop over to Iceland for a few days, but if you somehow finagled some cheap flight but only a day or two, Reykjavik is probably you’re best and only option. You can do a few things using Reykjavik as a base and still see the beautiful town itself as well as some really great surrounding things (Blue lagoon, Golden Circle…)
A Week: While still pushing it, many people will do the Ring Road in a week’s time. It is the perfect introduction to Iceland
Over a Week: Expand on the Ring Road and get into the interior (weather/season permitting).
II) Transportation Within
Cars: One of the best ways to really see and explore Iceland is to rent a vehicle and DIY. But then there are still many lingering questions, like “Do I need a 4×4?” or simply, “Who do I rent through?”
Note: We went Mid-October and were told that, generally speaking, until November you probably don’t need a 4×4, even for the Ring Road. However, if you are wanting to get more into the interior (mountains, snow, etc) then double check when you should be looking for a 4×4 vehicle.
Campervans/ RVs: Another extremely popular route to take is to rent a campervan. While the initial price tag might be staggering, if you consider that most hotels cost at least $100/night in Iceland, knowing that the campervan will be not only your mode of transportation but also your lodging, it isn’t THAT mortifying. There are countless campervan options available, but most of them have similar, basic vans that double as a bed and even a place to cook a simple meal. We ended up going with GoCamper, which was the cheapest, even with add-ons, at the time.
Tours: Of course you can take a tour through Iceland. However, as the Economical Excursionist, I will tell you that paying for tours is almost always more expensive than just doing it yourself. Yes, they figure it all out for you, but that also means you are on their time, have to eat at their restaurants, sleep at their accommodation and probably stick to more of the “touristy” stuff.
III) Lodging
Campervan: One of the reasons why I chose the campervan option was so that I didn’t even have to figure out lodging! It was just one less thing that I didn’t have to plan. When going this route, you can stay at any of the countless campsites (http://en.camping.info/iceland/campsites). Alternatively, if you see a great place for the night, pull over and rest pretty much anywhere that doesn’t have a “No Camping” sign! We really liked this because it meant that we weren’t locked into any certain amount of things we had to get to in a day, so if we ended up spending longer at, say,Reynisfjall chasing Puffins , that was no big deal. We didn’t have to rush to the next city because we had reservations, instead, we could just pull over, call it good and pick up where we left off the previous day.
Hotels: There are plenty of hotels that you can stay at in the towns along the Ring Road, but, as a budget traveler, I cry a little at the thought of having to pay $100+ for a room (and not even a super nice one, at that!)
Hostels: Depending on how many people you are traveling with, hostels can be a great option for lodging. There are hostels in most of the major stops along the ring road, making it easy to find accommodation. At only about $30/night per person (low season), it was far cheaper than the hotel route. However, we found that after paying for 2 adults for hostel plus a car to get around with, we weren’t saving THAT much money over the campervan option. Granted, knowing you had a place to take a shower and a warm room may be worth something to many people.
Farm Stays: Another popular choice for lodging in Iceland is the FarmStay option. There is nothing like living with the locals and seeing their life up and personal. However, even this alternative lodging didn’t prove to be that much cheaper than staying at a hotel.
Sleeping Bag Accommodation: Iceland is one of the few countries that is known for giving discounts in certain accommodations for bringing your own sleeping bag. These are usually the more budget type hotels, but is still a worthwhile option to look into. You can simply type in “Name of city sleeping bag accommodation” to see what pops up. We found that there were a few options along the way for this, but not enough to warrant packing a sleeping bag just for this purpose. If you already are carrying a small, light-weight one with you already, this could be a great pairing to hostels and couchsurfing choices to round out your cheap lodging accommodations.
Couch Surfing: Couch surfing is another perfect budget traveler’s option. There are countless hosts in Reychivik and even many cities along the Ring Road. However, we found that not all hosts on the site were active and barely got any responses from the ones who were. However, if you found just a few hosts who accept to take you in and can knock off even just a few cities where you don’t have to pay for lodging, you could end up saving a decent amount.
IV) Itineraries
There are so many different itinerary options for Iceland, and they all look absolutely beautiful and necessary, so it is difficult to narrow them down. My best suggestion is starting with things you KNOW you want to see. Just start with something simple like Trip Advisor and don’t even pay attention to the locations, just start making a list of “Want-To-Sees.” For example, many people will say things like:
- The Blue Lagoon
- A chance to see Puffins
- Glaciers
Once you have a list, then start pinning them onto a google map and see if there is a cohesive route that could get you to them all. Then, it is just a matter of finding out how much time you’ll need at each stop and how long it takes to get in between. Once you know this, you can start to roughly plan each day and find cities to stay at overnight.
Ring Road: Even if you narrow down your trip to the “Ring Road” there are still countless places to stop at, things to see and towns to stay overnight in. How did I come up with our itinerary? Honestly, it was whoever I could find the most throughough explanations of itineraries through online. So, I ended up combining:
- Trip Advisor: This person’s particular thread on TripAdvisor was superb!
- Expert Vagabond had great, detailed information on where to go. I also pinned his information on photographing the Northern Lights as well!
- Extreme Iceland also has a decent itinerary example
Looking at these different options, I made notes about which towns were recommended by several sources so that we could highly consider these locations. I also noted where the others were on the map so that as we drove on, we could make decisions on the whim about if/when/where to stop.
Knowing we had the campervan, I wasn’t worried about finding lodging and we decided that instead of feeling like we had to stay on a designated timeline and itinerary, that we would just see what we could each day.
Helpful Planning Websites:
Renting Vehicles:
Campervans: I looked into several campervans and found that GoCampers and CampervanIceland were two of the cheapest. These by no means are the only options and prices could vary, especially depending on your wants and needs
Cars: Of course look into companies like Budget and Enterprise, but I found that CheapCarRental Iceland also had very affordable rates
Camping:
Map of campsites in Iceland: http://en.camping.info/iceland/campsites
Wild Camping Rules: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/sep/29/iceland-wild-camping-hitchhiking
Lodging:
- Airbnb.com
- Farm Stays: http://www.farmholidays.is/
- Hostels: http://www.hostel.is/
- Couchsurfing.com
- Sleeping Bag:http://www.south.is/en/where-to-stay/sleeping-bag-accommodation
- FlipKey: Similar to AirB&B, but more like Vacation Homes https://www.flipkey.com/iceland-vacation-rentals/g189952
Looking for Puffins:http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/spotting-puffins-here-our-map-showing-best-places-around-iceland
Chasing the Northern Lights: http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/
Planning trips are hard and overwhelming!!!
Help others out and tell us what resources you found helpful when you went to plan an Iceland trip
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LeAnna Brown
Author and Creator at Economical Excursionists
Former teacher turned blogger turned mom turned full time travel addict, LeAnna has never been one to live life by the rules. Whether she is moving to a farm in Switzerland to learn to make cheese (Yes, CHEESE), jumping off a mountain to paraglide over Cinderella castles, or taking her baby all over the world with nothing but a backpack on their backs, LeAnna designs and defines her OWN life.
LeAnna, her husband Andy, and kiddo, "Lil B" love to live a minimal lifestyle, not only for the "thrill" of pinching pennies but in order to save for traveling the world. Considering over 40 countries and 90+ cities have been explored, we'd say they are doing something right!
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Great blog, by the way is the flyermiler site not functioning properly? Somehow no results come up after searching.
Thanks
Thanks for reading! We love knowing we are helping our readers. As you can see from the new updates, we are working hard on the FlyerMiler, and with that came a few glitches. We are working on them now and hope to have it up and running in no time! Thanks for your patience!
This was very informative ! Good ideas…
I’d LOVE to visit the Blue Lagoon one day and see what 100m visibility is like! I personally hate planning with a passion but luckily my partner does all that. I was surprised camping and couch surfing are so popular in Iceland – no idea why, but for some reason I thought they just weren’t an option there – particularly camping as you have this stereotypical image of how cold it is.
Haha! We are the opposite. I am the total planner and Andy just goes with the flow (on the other hand, I can’t read a map to save my life, so he is always our navigator- so he figures out anything transportation related). Most of the campgrounds had closed by mid-October, but maybe they are so popular for the long summer days?
At first, I find planning a trip to Iceland so intimidating but seeing informative and extensive travel guides like yours make it so easy! 🙂 Northern Lights, here we come! 🙂
It’s amazing how you shared a very detailed plan for an Iceland trip. This is really helpful most especially for newbie travelers.
Thank you! I know when I plan, I like to know as much as possible. While it may be overkill for some, I know a lot of people appreciate the detail.
Thank you for this wealth of info- I’m heading to Iceland in two weeks and still haven’t finished planning my trip. I had no idea about sleeping bag accommodations and that is definitely something for me to look into. I’ve bookmarked this- thank you!
Glad we could help, don’t forget to check out all the other posts on Iceland and enjoy your trip, I’m sure you’ll love it!
Great post and resource guide. I had a trip planned to Iceland for September (and that kickass low airfare from WOW) but my husband and I are building a project and really couldn’t take the time away in September so we had to pass. Sad but I love seeing all my fellow bloggers posts about their trip. Very good stuff!
WOW Air keeps coming out w/ really awesome deals. I bet you’ll see more and more as Iceland becomes an even hotter tourist spot. Hope you guys make it there soon, it was phenomenal!
This is a great guide! would love to visit Iceland soon, I’ve been reading a lot of great articles on the country. Maybe I try the farm stay website you recommended, that sounds like a thing worth trying.
Iceland looks fantastic on all pictures. No priority yet, but would be amazing to see the country. Your guide definitely helps and I think campervan would be the best for us as well.
I love the campervan idea! It allows so much more freedom … you don’t have to waste time waiting for check-in or leave an area you love because you need to get to the next hotel/city. Greg and I are pretty independent travelers and I really think the campervan would be the best option for us. Thanks for the idea!
For us, it was also financially better. We needed a vehicle anyway, might as well sleep in it!
We are heading back to Iceland again this summer and can’t wait! We are doing a campervan this time around and are really excited about it. I found that I had the opposite trouble, I wanted to do so many things I was already planning a second trip before our first even started, lol! Too many things on my list–hoping to see puffins this time around though! 😉
Exactly! There is just soo much to do that it can be hard to narrow it all down! If you are going in campervan, did you check out our post on that, too? http://www.economicalexcursionists.com/campervan-in-iceland/ It was cold…but we loved every minute of it!
I showed up in Winter with a car reservation and that was it. I just wanted to drive the ring road. I just went with local advice and my gut plus whatever the weather did. It was amazing.
This is definitively a complete lsit and I am forwarding it to a friend who is jsut planning a trip, will be super helpful to him!