Itinerary help for 10 days doing the Ring Road?

You will have the time of your life! We love having a camper van in Iceland:)

Day 1 looks great.

Day 2, you would be backtracking if you do Reykjadalur after the GC, so I would swap those and then camp somewhere east of Selfoss. Dinner at Ingolfsskali would be romantic, is a viking sort of way;) We love it there with the atmosphere and excellent food. You can also axe throw there.

Day 3 looks good. When you are at Skogafoss, go further down the road to Kvernufoss. It is a great waterfall that you can walk behind and there are FAR fewer people here than at the others. Also, when you are at Seljalandsfoss, follow the path to the left and at the end is another great waterfall, sort of inside a canyon, Gljufrabui. You definitely want boots on here as you cling to the side wall to avoid the rushing water (it is not deep), but you will get wet regardless. When you are at Reynisfjara, be sure to read the yellow warning board and pay attention to what light is on. It shows the level of danger, as this beach has swept many people out to sea, so you always want to be behind the water line and never turn your back on the ocean. The sneaker waves here are every few waves, so very common. Not far from Reynisfjara is Yoda Cave. Kind of a cool place to check out. If you make it to Vik this evening, stop at Black Crust Pizza. It is worth the hype.

Day 4 is very light and day 5 is too much, so split those up a bit. This morning before you leave Vik, stop by Skool Beans for coffee/hot cocoa etc. So good!!! You don't mention if you are planning to do a boat ride at Jokulsarlon, but I highly recommend it! We have done the zodiac boat there a few times and it is always a hit.

Day 5 If there are "diamonds" at Diamond Beach, that would be a beautiful spot to propose.

Day 6 I would camp at Myvatn vs Akureyri. That way it gives you a bit more time to see places such as Husavik etc.

Day 7 FWIW, Myvatn Baths are my least favorite in the country in all of our trips. Have you looked at GeoSea and Forest Lagoon? Also, you have plenty of time to do the Trollaskagi Peninsula. So much to see up here.

Day 8 I would push a bit further than Borgarnes, say up to Snorrastadur campsite. That will make the next day easier.

Day 9 It takes MUCH longer than 3-4 hours for Snaefellsness. Double that. You will be stopping often. You might want to do the Arnistapi to Hellnar hike (basically a walk). It is 45 minutes each way and very scenic. I would not camp at Grundarfjordur, but rather make it further south around Borgarnes.

Day 10 On your way back to Reykjavik, hit Hvammsvik Hot Springs as early as you can. FWIW, this is our favorite commercial hot spring in all of our trips. Be sure to allow enough time to turn in the camper and have it looked over, and for the shuttle to KEF. Also note that often times you need the full 3 hours that is recommended for the airport. Security is not the issue, but passport control. That can backup like crazy! All flights to the US leave out of the D gates, so don't wait for the gate to be announced before heading down to those gates. Go through passport control early when you see there is no line.

For more ideas of where to propose, what are things you both really enjoy? Hiking, scenic views, etc?

Editing to add that your drive times are very optimistic. Driving in Iceland takes quite a bit longer than what Google maps says. It is 2 lane roads, one lane bridges, tunnels, etc. Also note that September weather can be anything, so keep an eye on road and water conditions several times a day. Hunker down if you need to as campers as well as cars can literally fly off the road in the strong winds.

Thank you so much! This is immensely helpful and I'm applying all of your tips.

I felt lost and overwhelmed trying to plan this, never planned a road trip in another country before. I wish I had a bit more time but gotta work with what you got. For days 4 and 5, I'm gonna split those up so that we're hitting the Skool coffee place you suggested, Vatnajokull NP and Mulaglufur canyon on day 4 and camp in Svinafell if its open. On day 5 we will do Jökulsárlón & Diamond Beach and look into the boat ride, stop in Hofn village on our way to the Egilsstaðir campsite.

I'm relieved about the camper because it is super flexible. Im used to car camping since I live in Appalachia and camp all the time here, but vehicle camping for 10 days will feel a bit different :)

We usually backpack, but sometimes car camp. The camper van is such a great way to go! We used Happy Campers and were very happy:) If you get the Happiest Bundle, you can grab anything you need without being nickel and dimed. A camp table and chairs is a must, but we also were happy we grabbed a propane grill. We did not use their bedding as we brought our own sleeping bags/compact camp pillows/pads since we backpack anyway, and later on that trip we needed those items. If you want a list of helpful items for the camper, let me know.

What a coincidence, we're also going with Happy Camper!

Yes a list would be much appreciated, thank you :)

Here are a few things I wrote down.

We rented through Happy Campers and had the 4x4 van that slept 2, but seated 4. We liked having that extra space as it allowed us to leave the bed down the entire time and still have room between the bed and the front seats. One night it was very windy, so we set up the little camp table inside the van and sat on the bed and it worked perfectly. Smaller size vans do not have this extra space, so you need to put the bed/seats up to have any room.

When you get to a campground, find a spot that is level. You do not want your feet higher than your head, nor do you want to be rolling to one side. Park into the wind, and tie something to an antenna, snorkel, etc so that you can see the direction the wind is blowing. Do not park right smack next to another vehicle unless that is the only spot let. Sort of like personal space, same goes for vehicles.

Crack the windows a bit at night to keep condensation at bay. Do not do this if the winds are strong though!

If you have a van with a tad more room, just leave the bed down instead of putting it up each day. So much easier, especially when you just want to crawl into bed after a long day.

I am very short and the van we had had higher clearance, so I had a hard tike getting in. Getting into the front passenger seat was ok as I could use the "oh sh*t" handle to pull myself up. However getting into the van fro the sliding door was an issue and thankfully I noticed it before we left the camper company. They loaned me a small step stool. They don't normally do this, but they had one for a short employee;) So if you are like me, stop and buy a small step stool. Preferably one that folds up and has a handle so that you can grab it after you are in the van.

We bought a door mat which turned out to be a great purchase. We put it on the ground and were able to wipe our feet before getting in the van, which kept everything much cleaner. Just shake it out every so often. We bought this at Costco.

Happy Campers has an area that campers can donate their leftover whatever and you can pick up whatever you like from it, at no cost. So we picked up a few things like olive oil, cup of soup, etc. We donated the door mat and a few dry goods.

Bring from home some freezer Ziplock bags in gallon and sandwich sizes. We did not see the stronger feezerbaggies at Bonus etc, just the thinner ones that can be iffy at times. Bring more than you think you will need as you will use them for many things. We also brought a few 2 gallon bags which came in very useful as well.

I brought a large mesh laundry bag. That helped keep things organized. I also brought along laundry detergent sheets. I cut then in half and put them in a small ziplock bag inside the mesh bag so that it was all together and I didn't have to go hunting for them when I was ready to do laundry.

Laundry at campgrounds really varies. Usually you will need coins for the machines, and often times there will be washers but no dryers. It typically ran about 7-900 Kr to wash and the same amount to dry. The campground in Isafjorder had large capacity machines (only one of each), yet the campground at Grindavik had the tiniest machines I have ever seen, and again only one of each. At the Grindavik campground, you paid the host for laundry, so did not need coins. We had a regular load, but the machines were so tiny that we split it into two and did not bother using the dryer. At Isafjordur, the camp host had change for the machines.

Paying for campsites also really varies. Sometimes you pay via an app such as Parka, other times the host will come by and you can pay via card We never needed cash to pay for the campground. Rates for two people typically ran us between $20-$28 per night. Showers were included in the places we stayed. Some hosts just collect the money and go, others are super friendly and give you a little tour and are very welcoming. This last comment is mostly about the one just west of Dragsnes. Best campground we found!!! Most of the campgrounds we stayed at had a common kitchen facility to use. Some were bare bones, and others were extremely nice (again, talking about the one near Dragsnes).

Happy Campers has laundry lines if you need, but we brought two along. I think theirs probably would have worked better, but we made do. We brought very strong magnets along and hung things from the inside the van with those. We did string the laundry line across the front seats from the "oh sh*t" handles and let things dry overnight.

We brought a handful of clothes pins, and wished we would have brought a few more. They are great for keeping the curtains closed tight at night as well as for laundry.

Quick dry towels are great as they take up no space at all. They did double duty by hanging them across the windows at night to keep the light out. Happy Campers had regular towels we could use, but drying those would take forever. Next time I would probably take a towel from them but also bring along a quick dry so we would have the best of both worlds.

The bed is not very comfy since it is the seat just folded flat. Happy Campers had bedding for us, but we didn't really use it. We do a lot of backpacking here at home, so wee brought our sleeping pads, sleeping bags and Campincomfort pillows. That was the ideal solution! We also brought basically a pillow case made for our pads (twin sheet sewn up lengthwise) as when we camp I the summer we just put that case over the pad and then unzip our sleeping bags and use them more as a quilt. Our bags are down, so quite warm. We never needed the bedding they provided, although we did put the duvets on the bed, then our pads, just to make room in the camper without the big bedding bag taking up room.

Packing cubes were our friend. I bought sets in 3 different colors. Bright orange for me, bright blue for my husband and bright green for shared stuff. Immediately we knew whose stuff was whose and it was so easy to organize this way. Our camper had a shelf area on one side of the bed, so the cubes got stacked there and it worked well.

Happy Campers had a gas grill as as option. They warned us and said people don't use them a lot because they are hard to keep lit with the wind. We had no issues at all and used it to cook almost every night. We were very happy to have it!

The camper was well supplied as far as cooking items went. We did grab an extra pot as I had seen that recommended before, but we never needed more than one. There is a refrigerator in the van which held quite a bit. No freezer though.

When the seats are down in the bed position, there is room to store things underneath that. We stored shared gear there and our duffel bags that we used as luggage. Duffel bags are So much easier than suitcases since you can just squish them down and stuff them under a seat. Regular luggage would get in the way. We saw many people at campgrounds leave their luggage outside at night because there was no room for it in the camper.

I can't thank you enough for this helpful advice! I'm way more confident about this trip now :)

I am happy to help:)

A couple other things we took were magnetic LED lights that we stuck to the ceiling in the van, and strong magnet hooks to hang things. All from Amazon:)