10 day trip to Iceland

Iceland is very different than most any other place and trying to base out of a place means a lot of backtracking.

With 10 days you could do the ring road, but if you really want to stay in just a couple places, then you will only be able to see a very small area of the country.

I hate to be negative, but I honestly cannot imagine staying in just 2 or 3 places for a 10 day trip. SO much time would be wasted backtracking. If you are set on that though, then look at Reykjavik for arrival night, but then a few nights in the Golden Circle or a bit further. Then a few nights on Snaefellsness.

Would you be open to a bit of a compromise? You could do mostly one night stays with say two locations having 2 night stays.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We realize we can’t see everything, but we thought if there were a couple of places we could stay that we could see some beautiful parts of Iceland without moving every night. We are in our late 70’s and moving every night is too much for us. Thank you for responding, I really appreciate it.

My sister and I (65 and 69) are taking my niece in June as a graduation present. We are renting a car and this is how we are splitting our days:
Night 1, Reykjavik, explore city and get over jet lag
Nights 2-3, Snaefellsness peninsula
Nights 3-4, on the Golden Circle
Nights 6-7, southern coast
Night 8, either Reykjavik or somewhere closer to the airport
While the aunts are both fit and active, we want a slower pace, not feeling like we are racing from place to place. We booked guesthouses and one farm stay. Book accommodations soon, they are filling up quickly.
Hope this helps in some way.

Katheryne that is a good itinerary:). You are right, lodgings book out far in advance. Usually 9-12 months. Some of our trips have been on a whim, so have had to rework our itineraries due to what was available (or not) for lodging. Have a great trip!

A couple of thoughts:

-- You should start with what you want to see and do in Iceland before figuring out accommodations. My husband and I got a couple of guidebooks and read some blogs to learn about the country. We like waterfalls and starting making lists of where ones were located that we found interesting. Still had to pare it down!

--We used our 12 days driving the Ring Road, which meant that we had only two or three two-night stays. Perhaps you could concentrate on the Golden Circle, south coast, and Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Even then you will probably do some backtracking if you want longer stays in one place.

--Start looking for lodging ASAP. Once you get outside of Reykjavik, there are not a lot of accommodations. I've used Booking.com to help find hotels and guesthouses. Another thing you could do is go to an area on Google Maps, zoom in, and just start clicking on all of the bed icons.

--TripAdvisor Iceland forum has lots of suggestions for tentative itineraries.