Our Iceland Itinerary

I would challenge your assertion that you don't have time to do the entire ring road in 9 days, assuming you spend Day 1 in Reykjavik. What you are suggesting instead seems like a silly compromise. And driving all the way from Reykjavik to Akureyri in one day is, forgive me for being blunt, ridiculous.

Rethink your plan. Read about others who have driven the ring road and put together a plan for doing it in the time you have.

I would cut out the Akureyri section and focus on Reykjavik, Golden Circle, and the south coast (from Reykjavik to the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon). Including Westman Islands. I suppose you could do the reverse and cut the south coast part, focusing on the north.

Do you like to hike? Many places will have short to medium day hikes that are spectacular but will limit your time on the road. Which is good, IMO - more seeing, less driving. Example is that if you climb the stairs at Skogafoss and keep walking on the path you get away from some of the crowds and pass more and more waterfalls. It goes many miles, I only went 2 or so then turned around, but still - a 4 mile hike takes time out of your day :) There are plenty more places like this, my airbnb had a book full of suggestions. Some were maybe a little less technically spectacular that the famous ones but make up for it in being less crowded and giving you more a feeling of accomplishment that you "found" something instead of driving into a huge parking lot.

I don't think you plan is so far fetched if you don't mind the long drive. One thing you could do is leave Reykjavik and go to the Golden circle on your 3rd day, rather than 2nd, and stay somewhere long the way to Akureyi in order to break up the long driving trip. You have to allow some time to pick up the car, but you could probably get a few hours of driving in after seeing the Golden Circle.

I would skip the Day 3 : Reykjavik and just start heading to Akureyri.

Day 7: start early. It took us all day to get to the Iceberg Lagoon area. This of course included about 4 stops for getting there. Waterfalls and a black sand beach.

Day 8: possibly seeing the icebergs in the morning and heading towards Reykjavik but stopping for hiking. Check out the RS Iceland book. Was very handy. Or, I saw this after we came home, go for an ice cave tour. Check out Extreme Iceland’s website.

Day 9: Westmann Islands: We went there during the summer and the ferry to the island is weather dependent. The day we went, the ferry was delayed. Return for that day was cancelled. Luckily, we were staying the night on the island.

Have a great time!