Please sign in to post.

Iceland June 2023

Our family of four visited Iceland in June 2023, and here's a few thoughts/highlights:

  1. We landed on a Saturday, did the Blue Lagoon the morning we landed, and headed to Reykjavik for one afternoon and evening. I liked Reykjavik more than I expected. It's central area is buzzy and it was fun to see the Phallological Museum (with an excellent cafe with waffles shaped like you know what). A wonderful, small food hall (Hlemmur Food Hall) is worth checking out for dining options. Center Hotel Laugavegur is an excellent, central option (and reasonably priced by Iceland standards - 2 double rooms for 525 euros total for one night). I would have liked another day in Reykjavik.

  2. As expected, the Blue Lagoon is pricy, but we found it worth it. It's massive, and a very unique experience. We also swam in heated pools at a local aquatic center in the tiny town of Hvolsvöllur (near where we stayed) for a completely different, more local and much cheaper experience. There we met the director of the aquatic center, who told us that (a) he was a waiter at the hotel where Secretary of State George Schultz stayed when Iceland hosted USSR and USA peace talks in 1986, (b) that it was Iceland's female leader's calming presence that led to the breakthrough in the conference / cold war, and (c) that the greatest American hero is Bugs Bunny. You won't meet that guy at the Blue Lagoon.

  3. We were based in an AirBnb near Hvolsvöllur most of the week. Selfoss, Hvolsvöllur, or Vik would each make excellent towns for South Coast home base (Selfoss and Vik are each more attractive than Hvolsvöllur which is just functional).

  4. We liked Vik a lot and visited twice. It's small, but very close to Reynisfjara (famous black sand beach) which is windy and wild. Vik has a gorgeous setting and a few small restaurants worth checking out (we enjoyed The Soup Company for lunch and Smiðjan Brugghús for beers/burgers).

  5. Selfoss is a little bigger town, also with a nice food hall near the center (in an old but nicely refurbished dairy barn) and a charming square of refurbished (colorful) buildings outside.

  6. Jökulsárlón National Park has a glacier lagoon (a couple of them I think), and this was one of the highlights of our trip. It's a long way there (3 plus hours one way from Hvolsvöllur). If you can get to this glacier lagoon, it's really amazing. There's a black sand beach just across the road, and it has chunks of glacier ice sparkling in the black sand (hence the name Diamond Beach).

  7. Our favorite day out was a ferry trip to the Westman Islands. The ferry port is near Hvolsvöllur, and takes 45 minutes to carry you (and your car if you wish) out to the island. The town of Heimaey is the only real town on the sole inhabited island, but it was the most charming of any of the towns we saw. The island has 2 volcanos you can climb, each about 45 minutes or so (no lava bubbling up or anything like that). We climbed Eldfell, which is the volcano that erupted in 1973 and caused evacuation and massive damage on the island. It helped that we had sunny weather for this day trip - that is very uncommon for this island (even less common than Iceland in general).

  8. The waterfalls are amazing. They are everywhere. And some of them are inundated (in June) with tour busses and people. Gulfoss is massive, but probably had 20 tour busses there when we visited. We loved Skogafoss. This was about 20 minutes drive from our AirBnb. We went two separate nights, at 10:30 pm (light out all the time in June), and the place was magical. There were people but not crowds. The point is that we loved Iceland's natural wonders, but we are not alone in that and it helps to visit popular ones early or late or to just pick random ones (there are sign posts along the road everywhere) and just take a chance on something less well known or that requires a hike to get to. For example, we found Porufoss was a favorite and we were there alone.

It was a great trip!

Posted by
82 posts

What wonderful experiences! I hope to visit Iceland next year.

How many nights were you there? Is there anything you might have done differently? Or still wish to do?

Garrison

Posted by
370 posts

@ Garrison:

How many nights were you there?

We arrived on a Saturday morning and flew out the following Saturday afternoon.

Is there anything you might have done differently? Or still wish to do?

I liked Reykjavik a lot, and we only had an afternoon and evening there. I think it merits 2 nights (or more). We had limited time, but I could see doing that differently next time.

It's a lot of driving, but doing the entire ring road around the Iceland (800 miles plus) would be a fun 10 days or so. Hopefully someday we can do that. There's a lot of diversity in the scenery, and it is a wild place still. The closer you are to Reykjavik, the more tourism you see of course (that's the same end of the country as the main airport). I think it is important to get away from Reykjavik a bit (if you have the time) as it makes it easier to see the most amazing natural wonders without as much tourist traffic.

Posted by
2640 posts

Thank you for sharing. it is always fun to read what people think of various areas. We have been there 4 times so far, with our next trip coming up in a few weeks. I too love Reykjavik and find there is a lot to see and do there. We too have stayed at Center Hotel Laugarvatn and enjoyed it. The food hall a block away is so good!

Did you do one of the boat tours at Jokulsarlon? We loved the zodiac boat tour there.

We will be on Westmann Island for a few nights on this upcoming trip as it is one place we have not hit on past trips. We are planning to hike Eldfell as well. I know there are several routes to get up to it. Which one did you take?

Posted by
3 posts

My daughter and I were in Iceland/Norway/Scotland last August/September for a cruise. My daughter and I fell in love with Reykjavik! We spent five days in Reykjavik pre-cruise and could easily have doubled that time. We too visited the Blue Lagoon and Phallological Museum (both highly recommended)! We took a Golden Circle Tour, went to Elf School and the Laugardalslaug Pool (the tourists go to the Blue Lagoon, the locals go to Laugardalslaug- its much cheaper and more modest). The people we met nearly all spoke English and were incredibly friendly. While Iceland is pricey, it's not that much moreso than other places in Europe. It was one of our favorite trips!
Lisa

Posted by
370 posts

@ mikliz97

There is a parking lot just off of the road called Fellavegur that is shown on Google Maps as "Eldfell parking for trail head" - the trail we hiked was from that parking lot. I think there are ways you can hike from town if you don't have a car.

We found it helpful to have a car there - the island is not big, but some of the most fun scenery (e.g., puffin viewing in summer) is on the far end of the island opposite the town of Heimaey, and I would not want to walk it out there even though that's probably possible.

Posted by
2640 posts

Steve--Thank you. The first 10 days of our trip is in a camper van up in the Westfjords. Then we swap it out for a regular vehicle and we head to Thorsmark for 3 days and then Westmann for 3 days then our last night near Selfoss. We will be taking the vehicle on the ferry, so will have it to get around the island. I appreciate the trail info!

Posted by
1418 posts

Steve, thanks for the nice trip report. It gave me some ideas for my upcoming first short trip to Iceland in late September. Appreciate that you liked Reykjavik because I will be based in the city and doing two day trips from there.

Posted by
15 posts

Thank you for the brief write-up. I look forward to the video on PBS someday. Cheers.