Amount of time for rental drop-off/passing through security at KEF

Answer: it depends.....

• just like any other airport, there are on-site car rental companies and off-site car rental companies.
  You can walk from the on-site offices to the terminal in 5 minutes or so. I assume there is a shuttle
  for off-site companies, but have no experience with this. Returning a car is no different either, with
  the potential exception of damage on your car. To expedite the return, you should take pictures of
  your car at the rental facility, before you drive it. If they want to charge you for damage to the rental
  car which they think you caused, you need the pictures to avoid a protracted argument and delaying
  your pre-flight schedule. The car rental companies in Iceland are very picky about this.

• security timing - again, it depends. If you are on a flight to the US, check the airport schedule and
  see how many flights are departing in the same timeframe as yours. My flight was to Europe in the
  early afternoon and the airport was empty - I had the security checkpoint to myself.

• if you're driving back from Vik and finishing a clockwise drive of the entire Ring Road (i.e., you have not
  seen this section of Iceland), there is a lot to see, and you will not make it in 3 hours. If you're just driving,
  and there are no volcanoes erupting, then 3 hour drive sounds ok. If you don't have checked bags, I think
  getting into the rental car return (assuming on-site) around 2 ought to work. Add 30 minutes if you plan
  to check bags.

But a lot can change in a year.

Thanks Shoeflyer for your ideas. We flew into KEF ate breakfast and flew out in 2018 and we had the airport to ourselves then too, but no experience flying out of KEF and not sure how busy it would be or what the car rental situation would be like. The tentative plan is 8 days between staying in Reykjavik, Selfoss and then Vic. We will have seen most of the south coast so on the return just taking our time and doing anything we may have missed earlier, but not wanting to take too much time and not having to spend too much time at KEF.
Agreed, things do change and probably will.

If you are renting a car from Blue, they are literally right across the parking lot, so 5 minutes tops of a walk. There are other car rentals, and some have shuttles, so either way it should be very quick to pick up the car. Returning at Blue, it has always taken us about 5 minutes to return it.

Coming home from Iceland, you want a full 3 hours at KEF. This is the airport run down. As you enter, Icelandair has kiosks right inside so you can check yourself in with a quick scan of your passport, and print luggage tags for any bags you will check. Put the baggage tags on and then head towards the check in desks, but go to the left of those and that is where your self tagged luggage will go. They have a scanner so you scan your tag, put your bag on the conveyor and off it goes. Then you go upstairs to security. You will need to scan your boarding pass before you get there. Security is pretty quick. Then it dumps you into the duty free store and then out to where the restaurants/shops are. Many people hang out here waiting for the gate announcement. Don't do this! All flights to the US go out of the D gates. The gates are not announced until about 45 minutes before. So grab a bit or shop, but then head over to Passport Control when you see the line is short. This is where people get caught off guard as the lines can be very long. So do this when there is a lull. After you go through there, you scan your boarding pass yet again and then go downstairs to the D gates. There are more shops and restaurants down there. Seating is very limited, so you might just hang out in a restaurant. The gate announcements usually come to our phones before they are on the boards in the airport. Once the announcement is made, head over to the gate. Boarding is a bit of chaos. There will be 2 lines, Saga and regular. Get in line early. Agents will come around looking at bags to make sure they are proper carryon size and if not, they will make you check it. Most of the time, the planes are not right at the terminal, so after you get your passport/boarding pass checked, you will go into a small entry area and load up into a bus. When you think there is no more room, people will still squeeze in. The bus will take you out to the tarmac to the plane and then you board.

For a 4:45 flight, I would return the car about 1:30.

Our 8th trip is coming up soon, so I am very familiar with all of this, lol.

I would suggest not coming from Vik on your last day. Weather in September can be anything, and there is a pass you go over as you head south from Vik. So if winter weather hits, you could easily get stuck there and miss your flight. It would be wise to stay closer to KEF that last night, even like Selfoss etc.

If you need any help with planning, just ask:)

With 8 days, you can do more than what you have planned. You can easily do the south coast up to Jokulsarlon, the Golden Circle and Snaefellsness. On my last trip, this is the amount of time we had and I was with a friend who had never been. It was not too rushed, and she got to see so much.

Lastly, you will notice a HUGE difference in the number of visitors from 2018! Our first trip was in 2015 and then we have just kept returning a few times a year since covid. Even from 2021/2022, the amount of visitors is astonishing.

Thanks mikliz97 for all your specific information. Tour books and youtube are one thing, but getting information like this is such a great help.
It has been a puzzle to try to see what we can fit in and how far to go each day. I was looking at Midgard Adventures and Iceland Mountain Guides for trips to "Porsmork" and an ice cave, thinking each of those would take up most of two days. I wanted to make sure we got as far east as Diamond Beach one day out of Vic and not knowing how much time we would have to go a little further and then back to Vic.
I picked September because of the kind of equal time between night and day and (i read somewhere) that chances for northern lights improves during the equinoxes. I will do some work to get us closer to KEF at the end.

I was pretty sure it would be busier than when we breezed through in 2018. I didn't pay attention to prices of things before going then since we were just stopping and going again, but the prices in the ten thousands for a simple breakfast items was kind of a shock. We are use to high airport prices, but that was a whole different experience!

Thorsmark is awesome!!! We spent a few days there hiking around on our own.

Ice caves don’t open until October, except for Katla. A glacier hike though is a lot of fun as well. Icelandic Mountsin guides are the operator at Solheimajokul for the glacier hike and they are excellent. We did this one February.

Vik(note the spelling) is pronounced Veek. Rick’s video got it wrong. It’s a tiny little town but Reynisfjara is nearby and a must.

Diamond beach is hit or miss. We have been there when the ice chunks were numerous and huge, and also when there was absolutely nothing. At Jokulsarlon the zodiac boat tour is a lot of fun! We’ve done it a few times, including last September.

Yes September is sort of a sweet spot. Although it isn’t unheard of to have a storm roll in. One always has to be flexible in Iceland no matter what time of year.

It is also a good time for the northern lights. Don’t go driving to find them. Either just stay out and keep an eye out or take a tour. The reason is it’s not that safe to drive in the pitch dark on unfamiliar roads. Aurora Experts is who we have used a few times and he is excellent. I have a discount code if you are interested. Heimar is a one man operator and just excellent. Small bus, does not follow the masses so you are not in a field with dozens of big coaches and hundreds of new best friends;)

Again thanks for all the info.

According to the Icelandic Mountain Guides webpage they have a tour of Askur Ice Cave from August to December.
The zodiac tour was also on my radar.
I will have to take a look at Reynisfjara.
I just checked out the Aurora Experts website and that looks fantastic. A discount would make it even better, I'll take it, thanks!

I envy all the time you have been to Iceland. We were suppose to go in March of 2020, but just days before we were to leave the world just stopped. Other places and plans and just now trying to get there again. I appreciate all your help.

Jeff--I am intrigued by that new ice cave. IMG are great, but last year an ice cave collapsed, killing one person, so the authorities shut all of them down until October as October is when they are deemed safe. So while this looks great, I would email them and ask about it. We too were all booked to go in July 2020, so that trip got pushed back to 2021. That time we took the 3 adult kids and did the ring road with 12 nights. Fantastic trip! My husband and I just keep returning over and over though since there is just too much to see and never enough time. I will message you my code.

I just looked up Askur Ice Cave and apparently it was closed after it flooded but now is open again. Reykjavik Excursions has trips going to it all year long. IMG has it open August to April. Both groups use "buggies", some kind of ATVs that you need to drive to get to Askur.

What I also found was that Katla was the cave that had a collapse and it will not open until October. So maybe the October opening time is only for Katla because of the collapse it had.

The cave that collapsed and killed a person last summer was not Katla. Katla does collapse every year, but part of it is still accessible year round. I would be very cautious in any ice cave in the summer, but at least in September things start to get cold again, which means the ice caves are re-forming. On our trip last year, at the end of September Katla was the only option and I had done it before, so we were out of luck.