The Ring Road or Route 1 (Hringvegur in Icelandic) is a national road in Iceland that runs around the whole island and connects most of the inhabited parts of the country, Iceland has just around 320,000 inhabitants, by the way. Its total length is around 1300 km – so we have definitely driven a little bit more than that. I just don’t know how you can get the total distance driven after plotting the route in google maps, but if anyone knows, please teach me! So anyway, I am just putting our itinerary’s route here:
After studying all the travel itineraries offered by several tour companies, and after months and months of reading, here’s what we have come up with (I actually had a draft ready a week after we purchased our tickets, now who’s excited? :P).
The items in Bold are the ones that we were actually able to visit, other ones are in lower priority so we “sacrificed” them in place for the ones that we really liked to see:
Day 1: Arrival
- Keflavic International Airport to Reykjavik – pickup car rental from SADCARS
- Check-in at Airbnb in Reykjavik
- Hallgrímskirkja Church
- Harpa Concert Hall
- Árbæjarsafn – Icelandic open-air museum in Reykjavik
- Explore downtown Reykjavik and Laugavegur – shopping street in Reykjavik
Day 2: Golden Circle
- Thingvellir National Park
- Geysir
- Gullfoss
- Seljavallalaug – oldest swimming pool in Iceland
- Seljalandsfoss
- Plane crash site at Sólheimasandur
- Skogar
Day 3 : South Iceland
- Skogafoss
- Skogar Museum
- Vik
- Dyrhólaey
- Reynisfjara black sand beach
- Fjadrarglijufur
- Kirkjubæjarklaustur
- Skaftafell
Day 4: Southeast / East Iceland
- Skaftafell / Vatnajokull National Park
- Jokusarlon Glacier Lagoon
- Hofn
- Seydisfjordur
Day 5: North Iceland
- Seydisfjordur
- Myvatn Nature Baths
- Námaskarð hot springs
- Jökulsárgljúfur canyon / Ásbyrgi canyon
- Godafoss
- Akureyri
Day 6: North Iceland / Reykjavik
- Akureyri
- Reykjavik
Day 7: West Iceland / Snæfellsnes Peninsula / Reykjavik
- Grundarfjörður / Kirkjufell / Kirkjufellsfoss
- Stykkishólmur
- Olafsvik
- Arnarstapi / Hellnar Beach
- Reykjavik
- Hallgrímskirkja Church
- Harpa Concert Hall
- Baejarins Beztu Pylsur
- Laugavegur shopping
Day 8: Departure
Tip: In plotting out our daily itinerary, we applied what we have learned during our wedding planning – listing down non-negotiables and negotiables.
We both listed all the possible sites to see, then we listed our top 3 sites per day, if we ended up listing the same item, we get to add one more, yay! And then we just prioritize and rank whatever is left on the list for the day. The reason why we did this is, so we know how to plan the day well, and how to change our planned activities, if needed. If we end up having more time even after finishing off the top ones, then we get to check off more sites from our list for that specific day. Like what I’ve already mentioned in the previous post, Iceland has a very unpredictable weather, and your plan for the day really depends on it. In plotting the itinerary, we have even taken into consideration and listed down the following:
- Daylight – time of sunrise and sunset per day
- Driving time – length of drive from one site to the other
Do not forget to take into consideration possible storm/rain, snow, road closures, etc. One important reason why we did this, is mainly because even though this is a very short trip, we still didn’t want to rush ourselves by allotting only a few minutes per site – that’s the main reason as well why we don’t join packaged tours 🙂 We want to be able to spend as much time as we want in a particular place and just really enjoy, because that’s what a vacation is really for!
If you need any help in planning your itinerary, just holler!
Train With Tin 