Iceland - Recommendation for tour companies in Iceland

I went on several day tours with Reykjavik Excursions...while some trips were more fun/interesting than others, each was a positive experience. Iceland is very pricey - so be prepared for that (I think it was much more so when I went - which was before the financial crash).

https://www.re.is/

Iceland is really easy to do yourselves. I just got a flight and booked car hire and took Trip Advisor recommendations for accommodation. There is very little traffic, so driving is easy.

We used Nordic Saga on our first visit to Iceland. Our particular tour roughly followed Route 1 around the country and there were about 25 in our group. We stayed in everything from the Hilton in Reykjavik to the little tiny hotels in some of the smaller communities. All of our accommodations were clean and modern. The food each evening was excellent. Due to the small size of the country, there's not a lot of miles to travel per day, so we usually had a good amount of evening time to ourselves to explore. We never felt that we were on the bus for too long. There were also number of optional excursions such as whale watching, horseback riding, and snowmobiling, but this of course will vary from tour to tour.

http://nordicsaga.com/iceland-tours

Iceland is easy to get around, but my wife and like to take tours as we feel that we can get much more into our trip when someone else is guiding us. On future trips, we'll just do our own thing now that we've had a great overview to the country.

Thanks to all for your replies. My wife and I travel a lot in Europe both on our own and on RS tours. They each have their advantages depending on how much time you've got.

I cannot be more enthusiastic in my recommendation of Ymir and Hrefna at http://www.magicaliceland.is/.

The tour listed on their site is a gourmet tour, but I took a different tour with Ymir in 2012, to Snaefellsness peninsula. I don't know if they are still offering various tours, but contact them and see if you aren't blown away by how committed they are to your having a wonderful time in Iceland.

It's true that you can see a lot of Iceland on your own, but Ymir knows places that you'd never find. He took us to a hot spring in the middle of nowhere. And there was no schedule; as long as we were willing to keep going, he was willing to keep driving.

Ymir and Hrefna have become Facebook friends, along with the two English gentlemen who shared the tour. It was like taking an excursion with friends and family.

Check out the reviews on TripAdvisor.

Thanks again for all the advice. We had a lot of trouble getting hotel reservations for August. Seems the travel agencies block book rooms at the most desirable hotels for the popular travel periods so the hotels have few rooms available for individuals to book. We got a booking at Guesthouse Odinn in Reykjavik but for the rest of the 2 week drive around the island we ended up booking a self-drive tour through Nordic Visitor.com. They will book hotels and a car for us. Booking process was clear and cordial, and their visitor information packet was quite good. Don't know which hotels we'll get yet, so I'll have to withhold judgement until all the pieces fall into place.