The Definitive Guide for Your Campervan Trip to Iceland

Camping card? Heating in the van? Getting to see auroras? Weather? Driving? Get here all my key hints, some even contradicting what paid blogs say. With very few photos and only at the very end, to not break the charm of discovering all by yourself.

You’ll find online tens of blogs with information about traveling through Iceland in a campervan. While we traveled, we found much of that information to be true, but also several pieces of misinformation. Besides, it became obvious that many blogs were paid by companies so they were biased to promote certain cars, vans, camps, etc.

What I summarize here is not sponsored by any company, but rather distilled from our own experience -a couple in their mid-30s, no kids, traveling for 11 days around the whole island in a campervan.

The recommended places to visit are ok with all the blogs out there, so I will not touch on this too much in this story. Moreover, where you exactly go depends on your budget, time, and interests. On the contrary, I will give you here bullet points that turned out very important for a good overall experience, regardless of what exact trip you do. Notably, many of these tips are different from what others want to sell you.

* On arrival, get internet right at the airport. We got a chip that I put to my Swiss phone, and for the equivalent of around 10 euros, it provided us with an internet connection that I shared to our other devices. The internet quality was excellent, having signal everywhere at high speeds, so we used this connection for navigation, finding information, and even viewing online videos.

* The camping card, at least the one we got, is not worth it. It turns out that around half of the camping places we found did not accept this card. And in average, I would say that those that accepted it were less attractive than alternatives that did not. Moreover, in many places there was just one camping and the next one was at least one hour away, so the first situation (no card accepted) was dominant.

* Regarding the northern lights, just don’t go crazy. I’ve read blogs recommending ways to chase the lights. But the main recommendation is to just avoid peak summer, because nights are too short (we went in late august so there were around 8 hours of good night, also good to sleep well). A long stay helps increase the chance of spotting the lights, because most nights will be cloudy for a good part of the time. Besides, the weather changes all the time, so don’t be discouraged if by 10 pm you haven’t seen any lights yet. Just stay longer. It may well happen that an hour later the sky will be lean enough and you will be able to see the lights!

* Additional tips for seeing the northern lights: don’t chase them desperately, but do plan when to look up. Guide yourself with one of the aurora activity forecasts (such as https://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/). At least, to know if there is sufficient solar activity (notice that even small coefficients can be good enough to see the lights if the sky is clear and you secure a very dark place!). Finding a very dark place is critical: when we first saw the lights (yes, we saw them in two different places and nights) we were in a kind of chalet camping that had all its lights off. We saw the northern lights very clearly, but they became invisible as soon as someone switched on a lamp.

* Get ready for cold weather, even around summer. We went to Iceland by the end of August and were very lucky with the weather, having only one day of very strong wind (combined with rain, on our last day but luckily we had decided to sleep close to the campervan return site -a good, recommended move). But even considering our good luck with the weather, some nights were very cold, only bearable thanks to the heating of the campervan. One night we touched close to 0 degrees, and when we woke up the small mountains around us were covered in snow.

* What they say that you can have all kinds of weather in a single day is totally true. And multiple times! So bring replacements for clothes because you will get wet at least once per day. (Especially because most activities and visits are outdoors).

W* hen you are close to the sea, beware of sneaker waves, they have killed tourists. It’s serious sh*t. Check out this video that captured one.

* Also be careful if you go hiking in the highlands, where everything looks the same, trails are not very well marked, and it gets foggy very easily. We got kind of lost for 5 minutes and it was a very stressful situation that luckily we could resolve quickly. You lose references very quickly and everything looks the same, opposite to what I’m used to when walking in the mountains. And opposite to mainland Europe, the population density in Iceland is very low, so you risk not finding civilization if you get lost. Make sure you have a good GPS and map, or better a local guide, if you want to do long hikes, because to me, the indications given in-place are not enough.

* Completing the “be careful” part, pay close attention when driving. Max. speeds change all the time, and fines are serious. Don’t stay overnight outside designated camping sites. Be extra careful with sheep, they can just jump in front of you. Cliffs and rockfalls are also frequent, at least in very bad weather. But I’d say the sheep were by far the worst problem.

* Don’t take off-roads for 4x4 vehicles if you don’t have one. For some touristic destinations accessible only by 4x4, there are special “4x4 buses” that depart from towns on regular roads. These buses do not run many times per day, and they have limited places, so get informed.

* Talking about driving, get ready to pay parking fees in most if not all the main attractions, especially around the golden circle. And notice that billing is in many places automatic once the camera reads your plate, so a quick get-in to check if there is space usually means you already have to pay.

* Food: nothing special to try, and the quality of street and fast food is quite low. But I can recall some great sandwiches at Olis gas stations and at least one excellent ice cream shop in Akureyri.

* What campervan company? I won’t say which one we rented to avoid the bias I said every other blog has. Suffice to say the experience was perfect. It was not a luxury car, just the cheapest with heating (which turned out a must! don’t save on that…). During our journey we met tens of tourists on vans from several other companies, and I can say they all looked quite happy with what they got.

* Places to visit and activities are quite ok in most blogs. I will list here the places/activities I liked most, in no order, just as they come to my mind (well, maybe a bit anti-clockwise from the Golden Circle, but there may well be some jumps back and forth!):

- Most of, if not all, the Golden Circle tour. Walk the different places you visit, even if it rains and if there’s mud. Some jewels are just hidden and you need to get close to them to see them! Your whole journey will be muddy and wet anyway.

- The Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. Stay long enough to see icebergs tip over. Spot the seals. Play photographs with the icebergs stranded on the coast.

- Walking through the Jökulsárlón Glacier with professional guides (in fact I don’t think you are allowed to go by yourself) after driving to its base with a super-truck.

- Consider visiting some farms. Many are quite interesting, and some even provide camping places.

- East Fjords. For us, it was mostly about driving through them as part of our whole journey (we took the first days to do the Golden Circle and then toured around the whole island anti-clockwise). The driving day was long considering that the total distance traveled was not much, but the landscape was worth going slow.

- Hverir, this was amazing. Take your time to walk around all the spots and climb the low hills.

- Thermal baths: you cannot leave Iceland without taking some hot baths. There are natural, unmaintained ponds everywhere but scattered so not very easy to find, some free and others for which you have to leave a tip. We didn’t try any of these but know of people who did. We did visit a few places with infrastructure, of which I can recommend especially Geosea (north of Husavik) and Mývatn (near Hverir, a bit more natural but also more crowded).

- Akureyri was to me nicer than Reykjavik; quite nice indeed. And up north from there was one of the most relaxing hot springs we visited.

- Waterfalls: I think most blogs make quite good descriptions and recommendations about waterfalls. I wouldn’t add anything special except stressing the hike along the Glymur waterfall, which is the second tallest waterfall in the country (and if I remember well the tallest that you can reach as a tourist). You start this hike at the Botnsá Parking going up first gently and then sharply through cracks that gain altitude as you get sneak views of the waterfall here and there until you are high enough to get full views. Although you could come back the same way, the trail keeps climbing up to the plateau where the streams that feed the waterfall zigzag. You can go upstream for a few hundred meters until you can cross all the streams (actually this became so long that we ended up walking through the waters to cross them!) and then walk down back to the parking.

- Westfords: we did not visit them because we would have liked a few more days, as the distances are very long in this area and attractions are quite spread we far as we knew. Next time maybe!

A few photos, with no locations or names, just to inspire you