July Itinerary Review

Posted by delaney5297 on 05/29/26 04:06 PM

Hello,
My mother and I are planning to visit Iceland for a long weekend arriving the morning of 7/24 and leaving the evening of 7/27. We plan to stay in Reykjavik and are not planning to rent a car, so will be limited to what we can visit using public transit and tours. My tentative plans are as follows:
Friday: morning arrival. Explore Rejkyavik, possibly visit a lagoon. I would love recommendations for Reykjavik, where to eat, and which lagoons might be most accessible. We love art, culture, history, and food; so anything centered around these things is a plus.
Saturday: Golden circle full-day tour with lunch at Fridheimar tomato farm. We are especially interested in visiting the tomato farm and it seems difficult to do so without a car unless we take a tour. I am looking at this one but am open to other suggestions: https://www.getyourguide.com/kopavogur-l156917/reykjavik-golden-circle-fridheimar-sky-lagoon-day-trip-t420350/?ranking_uuid=23f24986-8f92-4cd8-adbf-2a1974f33dc2
Sunday: Westman islands full-day puffin tour. Our primary goal of the trip is to see puffins, ideally from land/somewhat closely. I have only found one tour that offers such a thing, as it looks like most puffin viewing opportunities are either from a boat or very far from Reykjavik/inaccessible without a car. https://www.getyourguide.com/reykjavik-l30/from-reykjavik-puffin-and-volcano-tour-in-westman-islands-t604557/?ranking_uuid=a860e2b6-1692-4cc4-a704-3b52db052e04 If anyone has gone on one of the shorter puffin tours from Reykjavil, how was it? Were boat tours satisfying?
Monday: Half day in Reykjavik before 5pm flight home

Overall, I would like feedback on this itinerary. Is there a location that would be a better base if not Reykjavik? Are there other tours or activities I should consider instead? Thank you!

Posted by Mardee

Duluth, MN🌲

05/29/26 05:36 PM

12270 posts

Hi, Delaney5297, I myself will be in Iceland in early July with my daughter, although we will be renting a car and driving around so probably not much help to you. Plus, we’re there for a full week.

But there’s another frequent poster here on the forum that was there last year and generally did what you did, which is stay in Reykjavík and took tours out of there to other places. So you might want to read her trip report for some ideas: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/6-nights-in-reykjavik-a-trip-report

Posted by Mardee

Duluth, MN🌲

05/29/26 05:44 PM

12270 posts

I did want to mention that I was on Arctic Adventures the other day just getting some general information about itineraries, I noticed that they have a tour to Heimaey, which is in the Westland Islands and they go to see the puffins. They’re pretty highly recommended so you might want to check out this tour. They actually go on the island and see some other things there as well as the puffins.

Of course, if you can get to where the ferry is, you could easily do it on your own. Keep in mind that the puffins are usually there early in the morning and later in the evening. During the day they’re out flying around. So it would be best to spend the night there, then you could easily walk down to them as it’s not very far from town. I’m sure you could probably get a bus to the town where the ferry is. I forgot the name of it off the top of my head, but it’s easily looked up.

Landeyjahöfn! I remembered it! It’s about a 30 minute ride on the ferry and from what I understand, you can see lots of animal life from the ferry as well. Puffins and possibly even whale, although you never know.

https://adventures.is/iceland/day-tours/sightseeing-tours/vestmannaeyjar-island-tour/

Posted by mikliz97

Snohomish, WA

05/29/26 06:57 PM

3972 posts

Are you completely against renting a car? The would make it so much easier, and you could see a lot more.

For your day of arrival I highly recommend the food tour. It is 3 hours and has plenty of food to cover you for both lunch and dinner. Plus you learn a lot about the country. There is also a Citywalk "free" walking tour that is excellent. That one starts taking bookings about a week in advance and they go fast, so if you are interested mark it on your calendar. It is free, but you tip what you want at the end.

For a lagoon on arrival day, I would head straight to Reykjavik and skip the Blue Lagoon. Yes, the BL is close to the airport, but IME, it makes me sleepy and on arrival I want to stay awake as long as possible that day. So in Reykjavik there is Sky Lagoon and you could do that that evening, or even do a local pool that night. This lagoon is in town, but not in the heart of town, so about a $35 taxi ride or you can do a transfer with Reykjavik Excursions. The regular city bus you can take as well, but you have do do a few transfers and still walk quite a ways.

The tour tours you mention, I would not book though as Get Your Guide is a third party reseller. It is generally better to book directly with the operator. On both of those, if you scroll to the bottom is says who the operator is. The GC tour is operated by Bus Travel Iceland and the Puffin one is Arctic Adventures, which Mardee posted the link to it.

The problem with the Westman Islands tour is what Mardee mentioned is that the puffins are only on land in the early mornings and later at night, so any day tour will only see them flying around, not up close.

Honestly though, I would rent a car and do both of these days on your own. At Westman Island, you definitely want a car for two reasons (if you are not on a tour). One is that if the ocean conditions are rough on the return trip, they will pull into a port 3 hours away, so if you don't have your own vehicle you are stuck as they do not provide transportation back to the usual port. Also, the puffin lookout is a good 90 minute walk from where the ferry pulls in (opposite ends of the island) and there are no sidewalks for most of the way.

So all that said, if this were my trip I would keep your first day as you planned, but then rent a car and do Westman Island the next day, staying overnight, then do the Golden Circle the next day and then head back to Reykjavik for the night.