Getting to Iceland Without Losing Your Mind
Iceland is annoying. It is not dangerous, but it will drain your wallet and waste your time if you are not prepared. I have done this trip three times, and I learned most of what I know by making the same mistakes twice. The good news is that once you understand the logistics, it is straightforward. Here is my Quick Start Guide For Travel To Iceland, stripped of everything I wish I had known before booking. First, figure out if you need a visa. US, Canadian, EU, and many other nationalities can enter visa-free for up to ninety days. If you are from one of those countries, skip the embassy research. Everyone else should check the Iceland Police website before doing anything. Getting this wrong means you will be standing at Keflavik airport with a hotel reservation you cannot use. The visa waiver requires a passport valid for at least three months beyond your departure date, though airlines will sometimes enforce six months. I got told off at check-in once because my passport had exactly ninety-one days left. The flight attendant asked me to recalculate it three times. Flights land at Keflavik International Airport. There are no other commercial airports with international service, and the bus from the airport to Reykjavik takes about forty-five minutes and costs roughly twelve hundred ISK. If you are traveling in a group of three or more, a taxi might work out cheaper per person. I usually take the Flybus because it drops you at the main bus terminal in Reykjavik, which connects to almost every hotel and guesthouse in the city. Book the bus ticket online before you land. Buying it at the counter costs more and the queue moves slowly after big flights arrive.
Getting around Iceland without a car is possible but painful. Reykjavik has buses, but they do not run frequently and they mostly stop by midnight. The Ring Road is the main highway circling the island, and it is paved, but single-lane in most stretches. On the fjords in the west, single lane means passing a truck requires finding a turnout and waiting. Rental cars in Iceland are expensive. A compact hatchback will set you back eight thousand to fifteen thousand ISK per day during summer. In winter, prices jump another twenty percent because everyone needs a 4x4. You do not strictly need a 4x4 if you are only staying near Reykjavik or driving the Ring Road in summer, but if you plan any highland F-roads in July or August, you absolutely need one and most companies will not let you drive them in a two-wheel-drive vehicle. I found out the hard way that booking a rental car in Iceland is different from booking one anywhere else. Most companies charge based on a tier system, not a specific car. When I booked a "compact SUV" online, I showed up and got handed the keys to a Nissan Juke with seventeen thousand kilometers on it and a suspension that sounded like it was held together by tape. That was fine for the flat roads around Reykjavik. It was not fine when I hit a gravel washboard road outside Hofn that had a pothole the size of a washing machine. I ended up paying three hundred dollars for a bent rim because the rental agreement had a clause about gravel roads that I skimmed over. Always read the excess charge policy, and always take the full coverage insurance even though it seems like a scam. It is basically a scam, but it saves you from a surprise bill. Money matters early because Iceland prices are brutal. A coffee at a cafe in Reykjavik runs about eight hundred ISK. A meal at a mid-range restaurant is easily two thousand to three thousand ISK per person. Groceries are not cheap either, but they are significantly cheaper than eating out. Iodine deficiency is apparently not an issue there, but something tells me they charge more for cheese than anywhere I have been. If you are staying in accommodation with a kitchen, buy food at Bónus or Krónan. Those are the budget supermarket chains. Kaupþing is the wholesaler that supplies both of them, so the prices are comparable. Skip the Vínbýl or Bonus liquor stores if you want to save money; the state monopoly pricing on alcohol in Iceland is one of the reasons I stopped drinking there after night one.
Payment is almost entirely card-based. Contactless works everywhere, even at gas stations and rural hostels. Cash is basically extinct. I tried using a twenty-thousand ISK note at a vending machine outside Selfoss once and the machine just stared at me. There is a small ATM at the gas station, but the withdrawal fee is steep and the exchange rate on the card is what it is. You do not need to carry cash. Just make sure your debit card has no foreign transaction fees, because Iceland will charge you one anyway through the card network. The best time to visit depends entirely on what you want to see. Summer, specifically June through August, gives you nearly twenty-four hours of daylight and open roads. Winter, December through March, gives you northern lights and ice caves but also means some roads close and you have maybe four hours of actual light. Spring and autumn are the shoulder seasons where weather is unpredictable and some services are either just opening or already closed. I went in May once and the Highlands were still snowed in, so I spent three days driving around the south coast that I had planned to use for a highland detour. Not the end of the world, but it reshaped the trip in ways I did not expect. One thing most people miss about traveling in Iceland is the concept of Veðurstofa. That is the Icelandic Meteorological Office, and their website and app should be checked every single day of your trip. Weather in Iceland changes in minutes, not hours. A highway that is passable at noon can be shut down by a whiteout at two PM. Road conditions are managed by Vegagerdin, the Icelandic Road Administration, and their site road.is tells you which highways are open or closed in real time. In winter, I learned to check both sites before leaving each morning. One time I drove out toward Jökulsárlón because the forecast looked clear, and the road was closed due to a blizzard that had started an hour before I left. I spent four hours parked at a service station reading books until it cleared. That was not a fun four hours.
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Another nuance beginners overlook is the environmental levy. Some hikes and attractions have mandatory fees that are not always obvious. Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon, which blew up on social media a few years ago, now charges an entrance fee because foot traffic was destroying the moss. Many natural attractions do not charge, but the ones that do are worth it because the money goes toward maintenance. Bring exact change in ISK if you are going to a place that collects cash, even though card is standard elsewhere. If you are hiking, wear pants. Not shorts. Not yoga pants. Proper hiking pants or even just jeans that you do not mind getting destroyed. The wind cuts through everything, and the nettles are real. I saw a tourist in board shorts try to hike up a trail near Landmannalaugar and come back with bites all over his legs that looked like welts. The midges in summer are also not a joke, especially around standing water in the highlands. Bug spray from home will work, but buying it there is possible if you forget. Accommodation outside Reykjavik fills up months in advance during peak season. I booked a cabin near Kirkjubæjarklaustur for a summer trip and could not find anything within a hundred kilometers of the park I wanted to visit. The workaround was staying in Vík instead, which is about an hour away, and driving in each day. It worked, but I wish I had just booked farther ahead. Camping is an option if you have gear and do not mind the wind, which is not something you say casually. The wind in Iceland is not weather. It is a physical force.
Finally, a note on altitude sickness that nobody talks about. Iceland is not particularly high in elevation overall, but if you drive up to the interior plateaus, you can hit around six hundred to nine hundred meters. Some people feel the effects. I did not notice anything on my first trip. On my second, I got a mild headache at Seljavallalaug pool because I had been driving up and down mountain passes all day. Drink water, move slowly, and do not exert yourself more than usual on the first day if you are coming from sea level. It is not Everest, but your body might still complain.
