Ring Road *OR* Snaefellsnes/South Coast/Golden Circle for 7 day trip in early July?

First things, you are extremely late to planning for this July. Finding available lodging may dictate your itinerary. A ring road trip needs much more than 7 days. We did it in 12 and still felt rushed, and have been back many times. With 7 days and two kids, it would not be enjoyable to even attempt.

I would not stay in Reykjavik for 2 nights Just one, day of arrival to get over jetlag. Then head to Snaefellsness the day day and stay the night around Grundarfjordur or Stikkisholmur. The following day head to the Golden Circle. Stay I that area for one night, then continue on up to the south coast. If you can find lodging, then head up towards Jokulsarlon. They have two boat rides, the zodiac and an amphibian, but the zodiac ride is a minimum age of 10. We have done the zodiac and it is great, but can't comment on the other since we have not done it.

If you get a camper, again, if you can even get one at this late date, that will give you way more flexibility. They are not cheap though, especially not with booking this close. We used a camper for 10 days last July and it slept 2 and ran us $3000 for the 10 days. Granted it was a 4x4, but still. Even with a camper there is no way I would try for the ring road. No matter a car or a camper, make sure you book with a reliable company. There are many that are not. We always use Blue for car rentals and used Happy Camper for the camper. We will use HC again as they were so good, and we have Blue reserved for our upcoming trip again.

Westmann Islands are fantastic, but I highly suggest staying over for a night. The reason is the puffins. There is a puffin lookout on the south end of the island, but they fly around during the day. So to see them, you need to go early in the morning or late at night, and that doesn't work with a day trip. You can take the ferry with a vehicle or on foot, but to get to the south end you definitely would want a vehicle. We were very glad to have ours with us. The Ribsafari boat tour there is so much fun! Your kids ages are fine for it too. We did the 2 hour tour and loved every minute of it. We lucked out too as a pod of orcas popped up right in front of us. The captain turned the engine off and we just sat there, and the orcas came to us. Everyone was just silent and in awe. That was a definite bonus since it was not a whale watching tour!

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/western-iceland-by-car-summer-2023

Thank you!

We know it's late to be planning a trip to Iceland for this July, but when the universe hands you a trip to Iceland, you say yes!! :)

This is all very helpful, thank you! My gut told me we didn't have time to do the Ring Road justice, and since that seems to be the consensus, we will stick with our original itinerary (with some tweaks here and there). I like the idea of heading up to the peninsula a night earlier, then maybe moving to south coast - I was trying to minimize driving/one nighters since we won't be doing the Ring Road. But, I know that most of what we want to see isn't in Reykjavic, so I'll see what I can find!

As for the Westman Islands - my original goal was to spend a night there, as we have enough nights on the South Coast to accommodate this. But, I watched the RS travel talk that Cameron Hewitt gave (caveat: it's 5 years old) and he said if there's bad weather, the ferries don't run! I got nervous about having to have the Westman Islands trip be on a specific date, which I already have to commit to in order to get a spot on the ferry. At least we'd only be out a ferry ride if it doesn't run. Does anyone know how the weather is in July with the ferry? Does it run pretty much every day as scheduled? If so, perhaps I'll book a night there and just roll the dice! I'll have to decide quickly, as spots are filling up, of course. We definitely want to see the puffins. I was going to try for an early and late ferry ride so we can maximize time on the island.

I honestly would not worry about the ferry. In the summer the weather is not normally an issue and yes the sailings typically go as planned. Yes, book a place there for overnight, you will not regret it! We had the best luck for the puffins going at about 6:30am. We had the lookout to ourselves even! At night it was a bit tougher as we finally left about 9pm as the puffins were not back on land and we were tired and didn't want to stay up. I definitely understand about taking a trip when the opportunity shows itself. I head back in September and knew it would be tough to find places, etc but I managed to make it work. Like you, I was not going to give up!

So helpful, thank you!! I will try to book the room I saw on Westman Islands ASAP. Right now I'm just trying to get all the rooms and dates to line up! It's definitely getting limited for budget accommodations, but I think it'll work out! It will be a wonderful trip.

Any advice on rental vehicles? I've found some options through Hotwire that have pick ups at the International airport. I checked Europecar as well, but now just have to figure out insurance. I'm having trouble figuring out if I need the Super CDW (the travel talk suggests good insurance due to wind whipping sand and gravel at the car), but that is for collision... so does that mean it wouldn't cover dings and scratches? I'm pretty sure we did the super CDW when we rented a car in Ireland back in 2011 (we don't often rent cars on our trips abroad, as we can usually get by with trains and public transit and walking!). The super CDW definitely helped us when we had some scratches on the car from getting too close to some bushes along a narrow road while waiting for a tour bus to come through on the Ring of Kerry!

We've been three times and always book through Blue car rental. And we always get all of the insurance. Wind is a major factor in Iceland, even in the summer, and you don't want to take any risks of damage from blowing sand, or rocks on the unpaved roads, etc.

There are lots of discussions on the TripAdvisor Iceland forum with itineraries similar to yours.

I am going up on my 7th trip, and we too use Blue Car Rental every time. We get the full insurance through them with the zero liability. It is so worth it as Iceland has such extreme weather/issues that you do not get elsewhere. Blue sis not the cheapest, but they are professional and don't play games like she, of the others. I know when I booked about a week ago for our September trip, they were having a birthday special, so see if that is still going and if you don't see it then email them and ask. They are very receptive to emails. I like the contactless pickup and drop off as it saves so much time. Plus, Blue is right there at the airport and you do not need to take a shuttle. You can see their office from the departures area, so just walk across the parking lot and it takes 2-3 minutes.

Such great advice here, thank you!

I compared cost and I can rent via Budget and Blue for about the same cost after all the insurance protection, so it seems like Blue is the winner for service and reliability! We will have 2 adults and 2 school-aged kids. I am a little concerned with the size of the trunk on the Toyota Aygo we are considering renting. It says it has about 168 liters of trunk space, compared to the Hyundai i20 at Budget, with twice as much trunk space (albeit they're both still very small). We want to avoid going up in car size for the cost. We definitely believe in packing light, but that means a couple of carry on-sized suitcases and 4 backpacks, plus any groceries we buy. I think the kids + backpacks will fit fine in the back seat, but I'm wondering if we should only try for 2 carry-on hard side cases in the trunk, then maybe do a duffel bag if we need extra layers that don't fit in the main suit case, etc?

We're from the Midwest and no strangers to cold and wind, although I am sure it will be at its extreme in Iceland. Do we really and truly need winter jackets in July, though? Or can we get by with layers under rain jackets plus hats and light gloves if needed? We don't usually don our winter jackets until it gets into the 30's here, either air temp or wind chill. Is the wind chill pretty extreme in Iceland?

Thanks for the tip about the TripAdvisor forum - I'll check it out!

If you can, do duffel bags instead of hard sized suitcases. W did that on the trip that 5 of us went and it was key in getting all of the luggage stowed away.

You don't need a winter coat, but you do need waterproof (not resistant). Layers are key at any time of year in Iceland. The only time I have brought a full on winter jacket was our February trips, and even then most days I just used my raincoat and layered up. Hats and gloves, yes. The wind is much more fierce than the midwest!

BTW, I am the DE on TA;)

Good call on the duffels. Perhaps we will rethink our luggage options... Good to know about the jacket situation, too!

I have made a lot of my bookings - refundable so far. Here's the new itinerary - I'm feeling good about this, except for the night in between Snaefellsnes and the South Coast. I can't decide if we should tour the peninsula all day, then drive halfway to the south coast (1.5ish hours) or drive all the way to the South Coast (3ish hours). I know daylight won't be a problem in July, but we will be traveling with school-aged kids who need some semblance of a regular bedtime! Also, which area deserves that extra hour or so of our time? We wanted to squeeze in a horseback ride while in Snaefellsnes area, too, as we are staying at a horse farm and it looks like a memorable and lovely add on to our experience there!

Day 1 - fly in / Blue Lagoon / Reykjavik sites (stay in Reykjavik)
Day 2 - Golden Circle / drive to Snaefellsnes (stay on south side of Snaefellsnes Peninsula)
Day 3 - Snaefellsnes Peninsula (stay in Borgarnes that night OR drive all the way to South Coast and stay near Hvolsvollur/Hella for 3 nights instead of 2)
Day 4 - South Coast sites
Day 5 - South Coast sites
Day 6 - Westman Islands (stay overnight)
Day 7 - drive back to Reykjavik / Reykjavik sites / thermal pool (stay in Reykjavik)
Day 8 - fly out

I'm glad we didn't try to do the Ring Road... I can barely fit in all the great things to see in the West and South!
We will plan a Ring Road trip next time!!