Adventure Elopement in Iceland: The Ultimate Off Roading Guide

So you are getting ready for your trip to Iceland for your elopement.  You’ve booked your plane ticket.  You’ve got that beautiful AirBnb reserved.  You know, the one with that view from your bedroom of a waterfall flowing off a glacier onto a field of magical Icelandic ponies. Its all coming together. So what’s the next step? Read this guide on how to avoid the tourist traps and make your own adventure

Car selection

A precarious decision is one of the first realities of adventuring in Iceland: the rental car.  No problem right?  You just pull up one of the major travel fare aggregator sites like Expedia or Kayak.  Here you will be given a plethora of options from different rental agencies and car sizes.  Here is where mistakes can happen.  Lets break down the main categories to think about when booking your car for your adventure elopement in Iceland.

The first thing you need to think about is what type of car you will book.  The very first filter is not obvious to many visitors from North America making their first trip outside of the US.  Do you pick a manual or automatic transmission?  I have heard it jokingly called the North American tax.  I have never seen a manual transmission at a rental car company in the US.  The rest of the world is a different story.  If you drive manual, great news! You get to rent the cheaper car generally.  If you do not know how to drive a manual transmission ( probably do not try to learn on vacation) or you simply do not want it make sure you select a car with an automatic transmission.  

The next question that many people ask is what size car to rent in Iceland.  By that I do not mean they cannot count and need help deciding if a Toyota Yaris or Suzuki Jimmy with two seats is the right choice for them and their three friends.  Instead people are wondering if they need a certain size car to get around the country.  This comes down essentially to one thing.  Do you want to drive on F roads or not?  F-roads come from the Icelandic word Fjall, which means mountain.  So literally they are “mountain roads” although not all of them go into the mountains. In order to drive F Roads in Iceland, you must rent a specific type of vehicle. 

This can be confusing, but is vital for another topic we will discuss later which is insurance.  Despite the name, not all F-roads in Iceland are mountainous.  Some are, we drove one with a 30% grade.  Some F-roads are relatively flat, but all F-roads are dirt.  Confusingly though, not all dirt roads are F-roads. A flat F-road is likely to get its designation because of the most dangerous aspect of driving in Iceland: river crossings.  While all the paved roads in Iceland have bridges over the many rivers in the country, (honestly the country should be called Waterworld instead of Iceland) some of the more remote roads do not.  How do you get through?  You drive through the river.  For some rivers this is easy, for others you will drown the car.  If you drive an uninsured (we will get to insurance for river crossings later) into a river and sink it, your trip likely just got $20,000 plus more expensive. 

What kind of car you rent depends on the kind on the trip you want to take.  The first type of trip is one that is mostly around Reykjavik, the Golden Circle and Ring Road.  All of these roads are paved, with minimal potholes and maybe only small dirt roads to get to parking lots.  For this type of trip a small car like a Toyota Yaris is perfectly fine for two people with small amounts of luggage.  A typical Yaris gets 4.7 L/100km or 50 miles per gallon, which means a 500 miles range on a tank which is great because to fill up its 10 gallon tank is likely going to cost close to $100 with fuel prices that hover around $9 a gallon.  

The other option for a similar trip is to rent an electric vehicle.  Electricity is significantly cheaper than petroleum based fuels in Iceland.  Rental agencies offer a variety of packages but you can expect a cheap slow charger to cost about $15 with the super chargers going for about double that at $30 to $36 for average ranges of 250 miles or so.  The downside of an electric car of course is that you do have to sit at the charger for 20 minutes or so, whereas a gas engine takes less than 5 to fill up.  These are the tradeoffs that you just have to decide for yourself which is worth it.  

The other option is the more adventurous one.  This is the trip that will be using F-roads regularly, or at all really since you will want the proper insurance.  Vehicle choice here comes down to mostly what kind of F-roads you will take and your budget.  Far and away the most common rental car seen in Iceland is the Dacia Duster.  For North Americans this is an exotic car, but it is quite popular in Europe.  The Duster gets made fun of alot when people talk about Iceland.  This is mostly because it is the car every tourist is driving in Iceland and well not everyone has their thinking caps working when on vacation.  The Duster however is the car for the job if the job is small river crossings, steep roads and with only two maybe three people.  It is not a big car, so even though it has five seats with four people it would get cramped.  But since it is a diesel engine it has fantastic torque for going up the steepest of hills.  Its small wheel base is actually an advantage on bumpy roads because you are less likely to scrap the middle of the car.  For river crossings it has about 13 inches of clearance before you hit the alternator and fry the car.  It is also cheap and reliable which is why you see them everywhere in Iceland.  The next most popular F-road cars are Suzuki Jimmys and Toyota Landcruisers.  Jimmys tend to be cheaper than Dusters but because they are petrol burning cars do not have the torque or power the Duster has.  They only have two seats.  

It is often thought that bigger is better when driving off the pavement.  In some cases this is simply not true.  There is a reason that the Jeep Wranglers in Moab are quite short cars.  In Iceland however bigger is better if you want to go literally everywhere.  When we talk about bigger, what essentially matters is height.  An unmodified Land Cruiser has around twice the wading depth of a Dacia Duster, upwards of 28 inches.  If you want to get really serious you can rent modified Jimmys or Landcruisers with larger tires, lifts and higher clearances.  In Iceland these are often called “Super Jeeps.”  You will see them a lot around Borgarnes and Seljalandsfoss where there are a lot of glacial rivers that require serious wading depths on the car.  If you want to visit a place like Thorsmork without a tour this is what you are going to want.  Now for the bad news.  An unmodified Landcruiser is going to double to triple what a Duster costs to rent and a Super Jeep might be double even that.  Somewhere between $500 to $1000 a day depending.  There are really only a few routes and areas that require these types of cars so you only really need to look into them if you are visiting those specific areas. 

Agency: Where to Rent from On Your Adventure Elopement in Iceland

Where to rent your car from should be simple right?  Just get the cheapest car you find on the fare aggregator sites.  Honestly we do not recommend this.  Car rental companies like Hertz and Avis are popular choices on the fare aggregator sites like Expedia, but always remember that these are local franchises.  Although they attempt to piggyback off the brand names of their international partners they are essentially locally owned by someone.  We have heard some horror stories of major brands at Keflavik not honoring the price of bookings, charging exorbitant fees and looking for the smallest damages to the cars upon return.  In one case we heard of a $400 administrative fee for a parking violation.  Keep in mind that is not the parking ticket itself, but simply the fee the rental agency charges to act as the intermediary between getting the parking ticket and sending it to you.  

Instead we recommend looking at several of the local car rental companies that are not listed on fare aggregator sites like Kayak or Expedia.  These companies tend to be very upfront in their pricing, especially regarding insurance and fees, and be competitively priced.  One of the most popular with glowing reviews online is Blue.  You will see these cars everywhere in Iceland.  (Every rental car has a company sticker on them.)  We have never used Blue specifically but have used Lotus car rental several times and always had a good experience.  (We do not get paid any commission or have any association with any of these companies.) The reason we picked Lotus in the first place was their platinum insurance package.  They are the only car rental company that insures river crossings and their customer service has been awesome.

Insurance

Last time we returned our car at the Keflavik Airport to go home it was completely caked in mud.  There were a host of scratches along the drivers side of the car from a sand storm that involved 60-80 mph winds and a small crack in the windshield from a rock thrown up on a gravel road by another car.  The rental car company did not even take a second look at the car.  Why?  Because we had paid for the full insurance coverage and let me explain why you should too.  

As mentioned before we have rented from Lotus car rental several times and keep coming back mostly because of their platinum insurance package.  Let’s compare the packages with a major international brand that shall not be named.  Iceland presents a lot of potential damage to a car.  Using a set of random dates, if you plan to rent a Duster from the big brand insurance company for a week you will pay $62 a day for the car. If you want to add collision insurance, that is $32 a day.  However this only lowers your deductible (or excess if you are reading this from Britain) to $1400 at best.  To reduce it to zero you need $16 more a day.  If you want the windshield protected, as well as sand, ash and gravel protection that is $29 a day.  Roadside assistance adds $13 a day.  Do you notice what is missing here?  The first is tires.  Blow a tire with roadside assistance and sure they will come get you, but you have to buy a new tire.  The second is the underbelly, the chassis.  Rip the oil pan out on a rock and the engine grinds itself out of existence?  That’s all on your credit cards.  All this costs $169 a day.  Add the optional wifi at $10 a day and this car costs $179 now. 

Now lets compare Lotus for the same dates.  The car itself costs $77 a day.  The platinum insurance will cost you $45 a day which combined gets you to $122 a day.  Now what do you get on this one.  $0 collision deductible, $0 theft deductible, sand, ash and gravel protection, tire replacement, sinking your car in a river crossing, the chassis or underbelly of F-road cars, hitting a sheep as well as free wifi.  The wifi is a nice bonus that can save you $10-$15 a day in cell phone roaming bills.  The only thing that is not covered under this insurance is if you are drunk, burned holes through the seats, drove off-road (more on that in a second) or on a closed road, lost the keys, the wifi unit or pumped the wrong fuel into the car (ie diesel into a gas car).  It’s not hard to see here how picking the cheapest option on the fare aggregator site is not always the best option.

The weather in Iceland can be insane.  On our last trip wind gusts hit 100 mph.  It is very common for unassuming visitors to have their car doors blown off.  Ive almost seen it happen more than once. These winds can kick up sand and ash storms.  Sand can easily strip the paint right off a vehicle and ash, which is essentially small shards of glass like rock flying around in large storms.  They are mostly restricted to the remote interior of the region but the Ring Road portion of the south coast can get hit with them.  They can completely destroy cars.  Personally I consider driving with full coverage in Iceland borderline mandatory given the possible charges.  We know one visitor who had to pay $6000 just to replace a bumper.  Another had to pay $15,000 after drowning a Duster in a river.  In our example above the full insurance with Lotus will cost you $315 for a week.  Consider it paying $315 to not worry at all. 

A bit about semantics here.  North Americans often use the phrase off-road driving to refer to anything that is not pavement.  In Iceland many of the roads are not paved but driving on them does not mean “off-road” driving.  The use of the term off-roading in Iceland is very literal, it means driving on a place where there is no road.  If you tell an Icelander you are going off-roading they might look at you like you are a terrible person.  This is because you likely are not talking about the same thing.  Driving off of designated roads, the Icelandic version of off-roading, is a big no no, if you do it you will be shamed. The key thing for insurance purposes is F-road or not F-road.  If you are insured for F-roads then you are fine.  If you are not, you rented the Tesla mentioned above and you drive on the F-road and break something, you will not be covered.  

A final note on insurance.  There are two forms of third party insurance for car rentals.  The first is what you will see on a major fare aggregator website like Expedia.  This type of insurance is called third party insurance because it is provided not by the car rental company or by Expedia but by a different, third party.  Another form of third party insurance that is a bit more popular is the kind offered through credit card companies.  Expedia and other fare aggregator sites use a variety of different companies like Globalis or AIG to provide you with insurance.  Credit Card companies do the same thing, the most popular one is eClaimsline.  They all operate on the same model.  You rent the car, and if it is returned damaged you pay the car rental company for those damages.  You then take those damages to the insurance company and ask for compensation.  Even if this worked properly it requires extra work on your part.  To put it politely this almost never works properly.  These companies are built on a model of not paying out money as much as possible.  eClaimsline in particular is so bad that Chase bank has finally switched insurance providers because customers have gotten wind that this insurance essentially does not work.  The most common complaint is that companies like eClaimsline will ask for copious amounts of documentation, often repeatedly asking for the same documents.  

I used to rely on my credit card insurance for coverage until a trip to Spain.  When I returned my rental car at the Madird airport with a major brand’s franchisee, (another data point why I do not recommend major brands abroad), I was given a charge of $300 for a small scratch to the wheel of the car.  The scratch was superficial and there was no doubt I had caused it when I parked too close to the curb.  I was not about to fight over the charge when I had about 90 minutes to checkin and board my flight.  I assumed my insurance would cover it.  eClaims line as documented in multiple other cases took up my claim and repeatedly asked for me for damage assessments and other documents from the rental car company.  When I would submit these documents they would respond with asking for the same documents over and over.  After a few weeks of sending the same documents from the rental car company over and over I decided it was not worth $300 to keep fighting it and simply concluded that the insurance provided by my Chase credit card was useless.  I have heard from other travelers of serious incidents involved tens of thousands of dollars of damage that with repeated attempts to document the damage have resulted in payments, but is this really how you want to remember you trip.  I simply cannot in good conscience recommend you rely on third party insurance.  

Link : https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/eclaimsline-insurance-issues/

Local Customs/Food in Iceland 

Service might seem a bit more relaxed than North Americans are used to.  It is customary to wait to be seated, but after taking your order the server is most likely going to leave you alone.  So if you want something it is totally normal to wave them over to get their attention.  Unlike in North America nobody is going to bring you a bill so simply get up and go to the counter to pay when you are done.  Also wonderful about Iceland compared to the rest of Europe – water is free. Drink it up, it’s delicious. 

Do not be surprised if you never see your AirBnb host.  Most likely there will be a key code or lock box.  Icelanders are a friendly bunch, but they very much respect the privacy of each other and might see constant contact as overly intrusive.  

On the subject of dairy or food allergies, I did find that most coffee shops and the airbnb hosts that offered breakfast had options for this. Iceland, like the rest of Europe, has a tendency to eat regular food, which in the United States we would classify as ‘organic’. So the quality of the food you are eating is almost assuredly of the richest caliber. 

For vegetarians and vegans, I will say that you might be hard pressed as a vegan to enjoy eating out in Iceland. The culinary preference revolves around burgers, hotdogs and pizza at just about every restaurant. There are always options for vegetarians, but to be vegan and travel is not an easy feat. Either way I do recommend stopping at grocery stores along the way to stock up on snacks and if you can, food to cook your own meals. As we have already mentioned, Iceland is an expensive place to visit and restaurants are no exception. A hamburger at a roadside restaurant will run you $25-30. If you can make your own meals, grocery shopping is the most affordable option. 

For the coffee lovers I have excellent news – Icelanders do coffee very well. No matter the size of the town we stopped at, there was a cafe with both espresso and drip coffee options. If you’re anything like me, you have to pair that mid morning coffee with a baked treat and those are also done with tremendous wonder. When you land in Reykjavik, I strongly encourage you to stop in at Sandholt and pick up a baked good or three. 

Logistics of driving in Iceland 

Iceland is very easy to drive in for the most part, but there are some key things to know.  If you are coming from North America you are most likely going to arrive fairly early in the morning.  I don’t know about you but I don’t sleep well on planes, so my first advice is get a hotel or some place to stay near Reykjavik or Keflavik (the airport area is 45 minutes away from the city) for the first night at minimum.  Driving around a new country delirious from sleep deprivation is just about as bad as driving around wasted.  

The Reykjavik metro population is about 250,000 people.  With Iceland having only about 380,000 people you can see that Reykjavik is the only thing one could reasonably call a city in the country.  As such driving around Iceland is mostly rural with no traffic.  The most traffic areas are going to be the Golden Circle area southeast of the capital and the road from there on to Vik.  The further away you get from those areas the less likely you are to see other cars.  The roads are well paved, even the gravel roads are generally (does not apply to Westfjords) well grated, so driving is easy.  The only major thing you will notice is that Icelandic roads essentially have no shoulders on them.  There is not always a safe place to pull over so please do not be THAT guy who stops on the Ring Road to get a photo of that handsome horse looking all dapper and cause an accident.  

Reykjavik is pretty car friendly by European standards.  It is generally easy to park on the street or in garages, all of which usually requires some payment.  There is no right turn on red in Iceland, although you will see plenty of rental cars (probably North American drivers) and taxis (who give zero cares about anything it seems) doing it.  The roundabouts are probably the only main trick.  The key is to understand that the outside lane has to yield to the inside lane no matter what.  If this confuses you it usually is safest to just wait until there is no traffic in either lane approaching before you enter.  

Livestock on the road is a very common site.  Keep an eye out for sheep because if you hit them you don’t get to keep the lamb chops and they will seriously damage your car.  One lane bridges are a thing.  Usually the roads where they are located do not have much traffic so it is not an issue but you need to slow down.  Whoever gets their first gets the right away to use the bridge.  If you arrive at the same time the safest thing is to stop, flash your lights and let the other person go first.  There is a one lane tunnel south of Isafjordur in the Westjords.  Traveling southbound requires you to yield to northbound traffic in the pull outs.  The tunnel going into Akureyri east of the town requires prepayment with your license plate.  You can go around the tunnel but if you do not prepay and enter the tunnel the bill will be given to the rental car company which will likely car you $30-40 for an administrative fee plus the $12 tunnel fee.  This is the only tunnel where this applies.  

These administrative fees will also be incurred if you get a speeding or parking ticket.  Icelandic speed limits are capped at 90 kmh, which is roughly 56 mph.  This is only on major paved highways.  Gravel roads top out at 80 kmh and in towns the limit drops to 50 kmh.  Of course there are other speed limits possible but they will be posted.  Speeding is enforced by both stationary traffic cameras and traffic police.  With traffic police you can pay the fine on the spot but the cameras will send them to the rental agency which will charge you the aforementioned administrative fee.  Paid parking has become much more common in Iceland over the last 5 years.  It is also enforced by cameras, so if you enter the parking lot and do not pay, they will send a parking ticket to the rental car company which will charge you the administrative fee as well as the parking ticket.  If you enter the parking lot and leave immediately it is unlikely you’ll be fined but it is unclear how long you can stay in the parking lots before the fine is incurred.  Some parking areas will have a kiosk to pay, but not all.  All can be paid by mobile phone, hence why the wifi is nice.  

Lastly, Iceland has some of the most dramatic weather of any country in the world.  Road.is is a great place to check road conditions, construction updates, weather reports and even which roads are paved and unpaved.  The weather reports tell you temperature, wind direction and speed as well as alerts about fog and snow.  

What to wear in Iceland?

Oh boy, where to start on this.  Even if you are going in winter you probably don’t need a heavy set parka.  Although Iceland scrapes the Arctic, it generally does not get terribly cold in the winter thanks to the north Atlantic currents.  The Highlands do, but the way to access them in winter would be dog sled on your own expedition as all the roads close.  It rarely goes below 20 degrees fahrenheit in coastal areas for long.  Most people however are going to visit in summer or the shoulder season so we will address that since it is a major concern for many visitors.  

For some context on our last week long trip we had a 70 degree sunny day, a large storm that dropped about an inch of rain and at one point 100 mph wind gusts.  So now that we know what is possible here is how to deal with that.  It comes down to one word: layers.

A 70 degree day is easy to plan for.  You wear a shirt and some shorts or light pants and sacrifice one of the sheep to the weather gods for your good fortune.  When we get to 50 degrees and 20 mph winds its a different story.  If you get a solid storm like we did with consistent 60 mph winds and gusts up to 100 there’s really not a lot you can do.  No matter how you dress you will barely be able to stand up let alone walk around.  But winds of 20-30 mph can be handled if not ideally at least gracefully.  I would start like this.

First I want a very solid outer shell. If I have the money I’m buying a gore tex rain jacket. If I don’t have $400 for the elite jackets you can still get a solid $100 shell.  Do not try to use a plastic bag as I’ve seen some people do.  It will be a disaster.  A lot of people think the rain shell is for water, it is not.  I’m actually going to suggest you go with an umbrella for hardcore rain unless you are hiking long distances.  Although invented in southeast Asia to shield your skin from the sun, umbrellas just work for rain.  Rain jackets have seams, the cheap ones are not sealed.  You want to see how good your rain jacket is?  Take a shower in it with a t-shirt on and when you get out see how wet the t-shirt is.  Umbrella, ideally a good one that can handle 75 mph winds like this vortex one we got at REI, solves rain.  

So what is the rain jacket for?  Wind.  The impermeability of the rain jacket is going to be your best wind jacket.  Wind sucks away the insulation of your body, in other words that nice air you just heated by your skin just sitting there minding its own business is now washed away by 40 mph terror and replaced with 50 degree misery.  Rain jackets by their nature do not allow this.  So that’s your first layer.  

Below that is really going to depend on the temperature that day and your personal preference.  I always suggest a merino wool base layer.  I’ve had really good shirts from Ibex, smartwool, and Icebreaker.  The key is to make sure they are as close to 100% merino wool as possible.  90% merino with some spandex, that’s good.  20% merino with cotton and polyester, get the out of here.  Merino wool will keep you relatively warm when wet and has natural antimicrobials that will stop it from stinking. They are very hard to get stinky.  Merino is going to have a weight rating, called grams per square meter.  Basically the higher the number the thicker it is.  A light baselayer is probably going to be about 150.  250 will be a fairly thick layer just below sweater level.   300 to 700 we are starting to talk about flannel and fleece level clothing.  

If money is no option, slather yourself in merino layers.  Or heck, just get a yak sweater and never be cold again.  If you are a normal person, and money means something to you, the only layer that really needs to be merino wool is the layer against your skin.  Polyester layers will insulate and insulate well even when wet, they just tend to stink, but they are cheaper.  So while we have our 150 merino layer on our skin that probably costs $100, (unless you get lucky at a thrift shop or raise your own sheep) you will want another lighter long sleeve shirt, comparable to a 250 merino.  Then you want a heavier sweater or fleece jacket and then your rain shell.  This is likely going to keep most people warm down to about freezing.  If you really run cold you can look for a light weight down jacket, often called a puffy.  Just make sure you get a synthetic one, as a down will lose all its insulating power and be completely useless when it gets wet.  Iceland is wet.  With a puffy and a cheap rain shell I have traveled around Korea in 20 degree weather.  Your mileage may vary but the layers add up quick.  If you want a super nice souvenir get a hand made Lopapeysa when you arrive in Iceland at the Hand Knitting Association store in Reykjavik.  Keep in mind this is not a cheap purchase (think $250+) but it is worth it.  There are a lot of cheap imitations.  

Now keep in mind that just because it’s 50 degrees outside does not mean everyone will dress the same.  What you are doing matters a lot.  Standing around looking at pretty stuff, it is going to much colder than the person hiking up to Svartifoss.  If you are hiking, the rule you should think of is, “be bold, start cold.”  One, you do not want to overheat and sweat through your layers.  Two, you do not want to be stopping repeatedly to take off your layers because you will heat up!  Start with the merino and rain jacket and after 30 minutes if you are cold and moving add a layer.  When backcountry skiing it is not uncommon to see people shirtless on the climb because of how much heat they are generating. 

Next you will want to seal your seams.  Fleece gloves usually should do it unless it is winter time.  A neck warmer can be invaluable to keeping all that sweet sweat hot air you have built up around your torso inside your jacket.  Smartwool makes a 250 merino that I love and cherish.  A merino wool hat is nice, but I have found the carhartt acrylic to be even warmer and cheaper.  A good set of sunglasses are handy both for that random out of nowhere 70 degree sunny day you sacrificed the sheep for, and for keeping your vision when the horrific blindly sandstorm that is kicked up on the beach by 45 mph winds.

  

Pants are a little easier and more complicated at the same time.  Rain pants are generally not necessary in my view unless you are going to be outside standing around in the rain all day.  Most heavy duty synthetic hiking pants with a DWR coating will stay dry enough for casual wanderings around and even short hikes and dry quickly enough.  Rain pants tend to cause overheating and be fairly unwieldy and uncomfortable.  They are great for stopping mosquitos but great news, Iceland has none!  If you get really cold a long base layer under some heavy duty DWR coated hiking pants should keep most people very comfortable until water starts to freeze.  Royal Robbins Alpine Road are a great example of a reasonable priced offering, but if you are a member of the Saudi royal family the $160 Arc’teryx Gamma Pant will also work great.  You don’t lose nearly as much heat through your legs as your torso so you will find you don’t need as much layer down there.  The one thing to avoid is cotton.  Cotton gets wet and stays wet for a long time and loses its insulation when wet.  

Shoes are much easier.  In general I would suggest a pair of high top hiking shoes, ideally gore tex.  You won’t need heavy duty hiking boots necessarily unless you are going long distances with heavy loads.  Gore tex is great because you will want something water proof on most trails and the high tops will keep you from twisting an ankle.  Just about everyone else will be wearing something similar.  If you plan to go out on the town in Reykjavik you might want to bring something else but otherwise the hiking shoes are going to cover most bases.  Now if you hypothetically show up in Iceland and your somewhat old shoes have their sole detach from the rest of the shoe and the only other pair of shoes you have are crocs can you do all the hikes mentioned so far?  Yes.  Will you be cold? Yes.  Will everyone stare at you?  Yes.  Don’t ask my husband how I know.  

When To Visit Iceland for your Adventure Elopement

Another common question is when to go to Iceland.  There are a few advantages and disadvantages to different times of the year.  In general we would recommend late May, June or July.  The weather is such a crapshoot in this country that there is no way to predict it.  July statistically has the least amount of wind of any month in the year; averaging around 8mph.  It is also statistically the warmest month; 51 degrees.  August is the month when most Europeans take vacations so the crowds will be higher, as will costs.  August is statistically the sunniest month, but consider that number is only 34% of the time.  June will offer the most daylight hours; 21 hours in the south.  May will offer you the driest month.  

On the other hand the windiest month is January, 15 mph.  The wettest month is October, rains every other day on average.  The coldest is in January; 31 degrees fahrenheit.  Unless you are here to see the northern lights, December is probably the worst month to visit.  Not only do 92% of days in December have clouds, in Reykjavik you will have only 4 hours of daylight to do anything, from about 11:30 am to 3:30 pm. 

April – May and September – October bring the greatest risk of sand and ash storms with the higher winds and less vegetation to hold the sand down.  It also brings high variability. I photographed an incredible elopement in April in 2022 and the weather was *chefs kiss*.  It can snow the first week of September as it just did this year.  It can also be 70 degrees.  It is possible to see the northern lights even in August, but if that is your primary goal a trip in February or March is likely to balance enough daylight to see some things with cold clear skies you need to get Aurora activity.  

The Main Spots in Iceland

The assumption here is that you choose Iceland for your adventure elopement because of its natural splendor, so our suggestions here are going to be almost entirely places that are endowed with copious amounts of natural beauty.  There are a couple factors to consider when choosing where to spend your special day, or week.  The factors are basically as such, beauty (which we will break down even further), crowds and accessibility.  

Crowds and accessibility kind of go hand in hand, since places that are easy to get to are going to get the most visitors.  This is why the Golden Circle is so popular, it is less than an hour’s drive to places like Öxarárfoss and Thingvellir.  It is a little under two hours to one of Iceland’s biggest waterfalls, Gullfoss.  This is also the place that has the most crowds, because of this and because of more dramatic scenery elsewhere, we are going to skip it.  

Accessibility comes down to a couple factors here.  How far off of the Ring Road is something?  The Ring Road, also known as Highway 1, for those that don’t know is the main road that circles the entire island.  It is dual lane and paved the entire way, unless a section is under construction making access easy for whatever car you rent.  This was not always the case.  Full paving of the road was only completed in 2019.  The road itself only fully opened in 1974 and lets just say if you had a time machine and wanted to drive between Reykjavik and Akureyri it might reasonably be a full blown national geographic expedition.  

Accessibility mostly comes down to how far away from Reykjavik you go, since just about everyone entering the country flies into Keflavik Airport.  (I see you ferry riders getting off at Seydisfjordur).  The crowds decrease the further east you go.  The south coast is consistently the most popular part of the country for its natural beauty and for this we will break it into three sections.  

The first is what we might call Waterworld.  It starts at Seljalandsfoss about 2 hours drive from Reykjavik.  Seljalandsfoss is a very famous waterfall that is well known on instagram because you can walk behind it, or under it. The waterfall is spectacular but because it is so close to Reykjavik and walking behind it for a photo is so famous, during the day long lines can form for people waiting to get their picture taken.  You are also going to get wet here.  About 30 minutes down the road is probably Iceland’s most famous waterfall, Skogafoss.  If being the most photographed waterfall in Iceland were a sport, these two would probably be in the finals every year.  Skogafoss is bigger than Seljalandsfoss.  It is 82 feet wide and 200 feet tall.  The amount of water flowing over such a distance will on a sunny day almost always produce at least one or two rainbows that are a favorite to photographers.  You will get wet here too if you get too close.  There is a trail to the top of the falls that continues all the way over a pass between two massive icefields and into the magical world of Þórsmörk.  

Another 30 minutes or so down the road is an entirely different form of water, and perhaps Iceland’s most accessible glacier.  From the parking lot a mostly flat 10 minute walk brings you to a dramatic view of Sólheimajökull.  The path leads to a nice overlook as well as a more rugged trail down to the ice itself.  From here you can hire glacier guides to actually trek further onto the glacier.  Many people will walk up to the glacier itself to touch the ice, or simply find a piece that has broken off and floated to shore in the lagoon.  Signs warn of the dangers of actually getting too close or walking on the glacier, these are literally rivers of ice which can and do break off without warning.

Another half an hour down the road from Sólheimajökull is Dyrhólaey a rocky point overlooking Iceland’s most photographed beach, Reynisfjara.  Dyrhólaey is best known for its arch-like rock formation protruding into the sea.  During the early summer it also gives visitors a decent chance to see puffins on its cliffs.  It is a slightly less busy alternative to Reynisfjara which is, you guessed it, another 30 minutes or so down the road.  This is the location of the famous Hálsanefshellir Cave and Reynisdrangar Cliffs.  Be aware that this location might be the most popular place in the entire south coast and you will be sharing it with possibly a hundred other people.  It is best to visit either very early in the morning or very late in the day to avoid some of the crowds.  Here is a link to a blog about Eloping in Iceland, with a focus on the South Coast specifically. 

Further along the ring road east past Vik the crowds begin to thin out.  We are leaving water world, although there are still a few waterfalls, and entering the lava world now.  The drive between Vik and Kirkjubæjarklaustur is through a lava flow from the 1700s.  It looks like you are on the moon if the moon could grow moss.  Near Kirkjubæjarklaustur is the now famous Fjaðrárgljúfur, thanks to Justin Bieber.  It is an easily accessed canyon that provides a short hike to some nice viewpoints, although overcrowding has led to much of it being fenced off.  Heading east from Kirkjubæjarklaustur you enter what is personally my favorite part of Iceland.  

On a clear day Vatnajökull is visible from miles away.  It is Iceland largest and depending on your technical measurements of Europe, the continents largest icefield.  The Severny Island ice cap in Novaya Zemlya, Russia is larger, but you won’t be visiting that any time soon and not just because it is north of Siberia, but because it was a nuclear testing ground for the Soviet Union.  Anyway I digress.  The area south of the Vatnajökull icefield is a checklist of everything Iceland has to offer.  You want waterfalls?  You want basalt columns?  Svartifoss has both combined into one package.  It is about a 30-45 minute hike depending on your pace but the tradeoff is you won’t be sharing it with 100 other people.  Just down the road are two potential glacier hikes with Svínafellsjökull being the easiest, about 15 minutes from the parking lot and you can easily touch the glacier and if you are lucky watch a piece calve off into the lagoon.  
About an hour and half down the road are the twin glacial lagoons of Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón, which is often known as Glacier Lagoon because that is what Jökul (glacier) and sárlón (lagoon) mean. This location is famous for the massive icebergs that fall off the glaciers and get trapped in the lagoons.  It is a popular spot for boat tours and kayaking.  Just west of Fjallsárlón is probably the most beautiful canyon in Iceland: Mulagljufur.  Just so that black sand beaches are not forgotten we won’t forget to mention Vesturhorn and Stokksnes. This one does require more of an effort taking about 1.5 to 2 hours to complete, but the views are stunning.  If you ask us the perfect way to spend an Iceland adventure elopement, it is a day that packs in these sites and finishes off with a local lobster dinner at Pakkhús in Höfn.  Such a day requires a bit more traveling and hiking but it packs Iceland’s most dramatic scenery of waterfalls, canyons, glaciers and beaches without nearly the same crowds as the area around Vik.

Where to Go for your Adventure Elopement

For the couple that prioritizes serenity and lack of crowds over anything, the East Fjords region of Iceland offers dramatic scenery and far fewer people.  This is the place to go for dramatic mountain views like Stórurð or Bjólfur as well as dramatic waterfalls like Gufu or Hengifoss and a stunning canyon Stuðlagil.  The only thing the east fjords truly lacks is easy access to glaciers.  

The east fjords are less visited than the south coast of Iceland but if your goal is to truly get away from other visitors, where you will hear Icelandic spoken more than English, then the west fjords might be for you.  Dramatic scenery is not lacking here.  Iceland’s largest nature reserve, Hornstrandir, is here.  Some of the other white sand beaches are here, as are dramatic cliffs full of enough different bird species to make an ornithologist swoon as well as one of Iceland’s most beautiful waterfalls in Dynjandi.  The westfjords are also great for wildlife watching.  It is the most likely place to see Arctic Foxes.  Seals and whales can easily be seen from the road.  Ísafjörður is by Icelandic standards a fairly decent sized town with a great brewery (Dokkan) and some lovely restaurants like Tjöruhúsið for when you want some civilization put back into your trip.  Unlike towns on the south coast like Vik which seem to exist solely for tourists, Ísafjörður feels much more lived in and you are more likely to be greeted in Icelandic than English.  

This brings up an important aspect that many people ask about before going to Iceland, interacting with the locals.  A lot of people ask how easy it is to get around without speaking the language and how to interact with the locals.  The first thing to note is that 20% of Iceland’s population are foreign born.  Tourism has seen a huge boon in the past two decades since the financial collapse.  In a good majority of cases these new service industry related jobs have been filled by foreigners.  There’s a good chance that the people you interact with whether at restaurants, the car rental place or in tourist locations are probably from Poland, Lithuania, Colombia and might not even speak Icelandic.  Indeed sometimes the locals complain about not even being able to order drinks in their native language because the server might not speak it.  

Suffice to say that getting by in English is not a challenge in this country.  Every Icelandic kindergartener begins English lessons in their first year of school and continues with it every year after.  Many small children will actually enter kindergarten with a decent proficiency in English, mostly due to almost every video game and youtube video being in English.  Iceland has a population of just under 400,000 people and being the only country that speaks Icelandic, a lot of the media consumed is in English.  Just about the only people we ever met in Iceland who did not speak English were very old ladies who worked in the state liquor store in the remote westfjords.  No one expects you to speak Icelandic and it is totally normal to enter a store and make a greeting in English.  

Budget

Now for the worst part of Iceland, the cost.  Because of its location, unfortunately Iceland is a fairly expensive place to travel.  Just about everything other than cod and sheep has to be imported.  The good news is that it’s much less expensive after the financial crash when the Kroner lost half its value.  The bad news is you don’t have a time machine, unless you do, in which case, let me know.  Here are some of the baseline prices.  These prices represent a nice but not luxury option.  Hotel rooms can always be more expensive.  Meals can always be more expensive.  You can rent the super jeep but these prices represent the sort of baseline comfort experience.  Restaurant prices mostly stay static but when you see dynamically priced goods like rental cars and hotels, assume these are summer prices.

A 4×4 is realistically going to cost you $100 to 150 a day with insurance.

A small compact might be as low as $50 to $75.

Gas and diesel are around $9 a gallon but a Dacia Duster gets 40 mpg driving at 55mph, Iceland’s highest speed limit.  The ring road is about 828 miles.  At 40 mpg that trip is gonna take 20 gallons of diesel fuel, for a trip cost of $186.  Of course you will need a bit more than that because you are not going to just drive the ring road and go home without stopping anywhere, right?  Right?  

Hotels in Reykjavik start at around $200 a night for a room.  Many Icelanders have built small tiny homes on their farms in rural areas.  Expect to pay about the same ($200 a night) for a small self contained home that includes a kitchenette, bathroom and bedroom.  The Vik area will be significantly more expensive than anywhere else however, with a small place like this probably $250-300. If you are boogie and want the glass ceiling with a private hot tub at your airbnb or want a fired sauna those are upwards of $500-$600 a night.  If you have an early flight from Keflavik be wary of hotels in that area that offer airport shuttles.  Some offer the airport shuttle for merely 2 hours out of the day, say from 8am to 10am.  Taxis charge exorbitant rates to people who only the morning of their flight realize their hotel has an airport shuttle in name only.  

A basic meal in Iceland will probably run somewhere between $21-28 for an entree at a basic restaurant for pizza or a hamburger.  Nice restaurants, or if you order fish or lamb might be more like $36 to $43.  Beer will run you about $12 at a restaurant, $3-4 at the state liquor store.  A bottle of gin might be $70 or more at the state liquor store.  Cocktails are easily around $20, more if you are at a fancy place or a night out in Reykjavik.  The good news is Icelandic tap water is perfect to drink and given out at every restaurant.  

As you can see, meals add up fast if you are dining out.  We stayed at one hotel in Reykjavik that charged $30 for the breakfast buffet and $70 for their dinner buffet.  If you eat out simply, pizza and hamburgers for every meal that is easily $150 a day for a couple.  More if you add booze or fancier entrees.  The best way to cut down on food costs is to get an AirBnb or accommodation with a kitchen.  We found we could easily make breakfast and a simple dinner for $30 or so each day for two people.  

Unfortunately many of the more popular sites, especially on the south coast are on private land.  The result is that private landowners have started charging for parking.  The usual charge for this is about 1000 Isk or $7.  This might not seem significant but if you were to say visit Seljalandsfoss, Reynisfjara, Sólheimajökull and Fjaðrárgljúfur in the same day you would quickly spend $28 in just parking.  

If you are looking to have some drinks while you are in Iceland we would highly recommend you take advantage of the Duty Free at the airport when you arrive.  If like us you enjoy the occasional gin and tonic a bottle of gin at the Duty Free might save you about $15.  

If you are a coffee fiend at least know that espressos and drip coffees were around $4.  

You can save money on accommodation by renting a camper van, although personally I do not find this an appealing option in Iceland simply for one reason.  Everything gets wet.  It is very hard to dry out when you get back into your van with all your wet clothes.  We have seen camper van rentals for $150 though which given the cost of accommodation and rental cars saves a lot of money.  You must however stay in a designated campsite.  You can’t just sleep where ever you want anymore.  

You can of course book the Blue Lagoon or Sky Lagoon or Mývatn baths for $100 or so.  But if you want the authentic experience, a public pool, which is essentially the main social activity in many parts of rural Iceland will only cost about $7.  

We don’t have a lot of experience with tours around Iceland but having asked around, expect to pay about $100 for a zodiac tour at Jökulsárlón.  A glacier walk tour might range from $112 and $287 depending if you want to ice climb or not.  Whale watching will be between $75 and 150.  The Silfra snorkeling tour might run about $200 a person.  If you really want to go crazy, a fly fishing guide and private tour might run $700-1000.  I am much more of the personality type to make my own tours, that way if I want to stop and enjoy a place in solitude I can. Either way, you can’t go wrong,