--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Iceland (City Guides) | Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Iceland: Reykjavik and the Golden Circle, the south coast, the north around Akureyri and the Westfjords." url: https://wimup.com/country/iceland type: Country guide updated: 2026-11-07 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Iceland From **Reykjavik and the Golden Circle** to **the south coast, the fjords of the east and the Westfjords**, Iceland distilled to the things worth your time, mapped and ranked. ## Quick answer Land at **Keflavik** and give **Reykjavik** two or three nights for the pools and the day trips: the **Golden Circle**, the **Reykjanes** lava fields and the whale boats. Then choose a base or a loop. The **south coast** gives the most for the least driving: waterfalls, black sand at **Vík** and the glacier lagoon beyond **Höfn**. The **Ring Road** adds the **east fjords**, **Húsavík** and **Akureyri**, and wants a week. The **Westfjords** need more time and a summer date. Go **June to September**, or **February and March** for snow and the aurora. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep - **Ideal length:** 7–10 days - **Budget per day:** $150–260 - **Language:** Icelandic - **Getting around:** A hire car on Route 1, buses and domestic flights - **2** City guides - **394,324** People - **1** Video guide Iceland travels as a loop or as a base. Reykjavik holds two thirds of the country in its metropolitan area, along with the museums, the restaurants and the airport bus, and the classic day trips all leave from it: the Golden Circle, the south coast waterfalls, the Reykjanes lava fields and the whale boats out of the old harbour. Ring Road 1 runs 1,322 kilometres around the island and takes a week to do without rushing, past the glacier lagoon at Jökulsárlón, the fjord towns of the east, the whale watching at Húsavík and the waterfalls and lava fields of the north. The Westfjords and the interior highlands are the two parts that need more time and a different vehicle, and the F-roads into the highlands open only in summer. Weather sets the plan more than season does: check road and weather conditions the morning of any drive, not the night before. ## 2 Iceland city guides 1. [Reykjavik](https://wimup.com/city/reykjavik.md): Iceland · 10 picks 2. [Akureyri](https://wimup.com/city/akureyri.md): Iceland · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 394,324 - **Area:** 103,000 km² - **Density:** 3.8 / km² - **Capital:** Reykjavik - **Major cities:** Reykjavik, Kopavogur, Hafnarfjordur, Reykjanesbaer, Akureyri - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Icelandic króna (ISK) Cards run everything, contactless by default, down to a coffee or a campsite. There is almost no reason to carry cash. - **Language:** Icelandic A North Germanic language that has changed little since the sagas, so medieval texts are still readable here. English is spoken almost universally. - **Calling code:** +354 Six-digit numbers with no area codes. Prepaid SIMs are sold at the airport and in fuel stations, and coverage follows the ring road and thins in the interior. - **Power:** 230V, 50Hz, plug types C and F The round two-pin European sockets. UK and US plugs need an adapter, and US devices need to handle 230 volts. - **Emergency:** 112 One number for police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue, answered in Icelandic and English. The 112 Iceland app can send your location to rescue teams. - **Visa:** Schengen, 90 days in 180 Iceland is in the Schengen area but not the EU, so a stay here counts against the same 90-day allowance as Germany or France. Check the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for your own nationality. - **Getting around:** Route 1 and a hire car There is no passenger railway. Route 1 rings the island in 1,322 kilometres, coaches serve the main towns, and domestic flights cut the long legs to Akureyri, Egilsstaðir and the Westfjords. - **Roads and weather:** Check before every drive The Road and Coastal Administration posts live road conditions, the Met Office the warnings. Check both on the morning of a drive. Interior F-roads open only in summer and need four-wheel drive. - **Time zone:** GMT, UTC+0 all year Iceland keeps one clock through the year with no daylight saving, so it sits alongside London in winter and an hour behind it in summer. - **Tipping:** Not expected Service is included in the price shown, in restaurants, taxis and on tours alike. Rounding up for something exceptional is welcome and never assumed. - **Tap water:** Drink it Cold tap water is unfiltered spring and glacial water, among the best anywhere, so skip the bottled kind. Hot water is geothermal, hence the faint sulphur smell. - **Alcohol:** Vínbúðin state shops Wine and spirits are sold through the state chain, whose opening hours are shorter than a supermarket's and shorter again at weekends. Supermarkets stock only low-alcohol beer. - **Pools:** Shower first, no swimsuit Every town has a geothermal pool and hot tubs, and every one of them requires a naked shower before you enter. The water is not chlorinated, which is what makes the rule non-negotiable. - **Energy:** Almost entirely renewable Electricity comes from hydro and geothermal plants, and around nine in ten homes are heated geothermally. It is why the pools are open all year and why the tap runs hot forever. ## When to visit - **Jan** - **Feb** (good) - **Mar** (good) - **Apr** - **May** (good) - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (best) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** - **Nov** - **Dec** (good) ## Fun fact The Althingi met for the first time at Thingvellir in 930 and still sits today, which makes it one of the oldest parliaments in the world. The site it was founded on is a UNESCO World Heritage site and sits on the rift between the North American and Eurasian plates. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Iceland is buried in ice **Reality:** The Gulf Stream keeps the inhabited coast far milder than the latitude suggests, and Reykjavik winters hover around freezing. The ice is real and it is concentrated: the big caps sit inland, Vatnajökull above all, and the coastal ring road is kept open all year. - **Myth:** Everyone here believes in elves **Reality:** Folk-belief surveys run out of the University of Iceland keep finding the same split: very few people say they believe outright, and a large share will not rule it out. What you actually meet is a respect for specific rocks and specific places, and the occasional road plan that bends around one. - **Myth:** You will see the northern lights **Reality:** The season runs from late August to mid-April, and it needs darkness, a clear sky and solar activity on the same night. A summer trip will see none at all, because the sky never gets dark enough. Give yourself several nights and treat any one of them as a bonus. - **Myth:** You can drive the Ring Road in a long weekend **Reality:** Route 1 runs 1,322 kilometres and is the longest ring road in Europe. A week does it without rushing. Three days buys the southwest and the south coast, which is a better trip than a sprint around the island. - **Myth:** Iceland is unaffordable **Reality:** The car, the rooms and the restaurants are what cost. Almost everything people come for does not: the waterfalls, the coast roads and the trails are free, the tap water is glacial and excellent, and the municipal geothermal pools are the cheapest good afternoon in the country. - **Myth:** Reykjavik is a proper capital city **Reality:** Around two thirds of Icelanders live in its metropolitan area, and the centre is still small enough to cross on foot in half an hour. Treat it as a very well equipped town with an international airport an hour away, and it makes sense. - Shower without a swimsuit before you get in the water. It is posted at every pool, it is not optional, and it is what keeps unchlorinated geothermal water clean. - Use first names. Most Icelanders have a patronymic and no family name, so the phone book is alphabetised by first name and nobody is addressed as Mr or Ms anything. - Take your shoes off indoors, in homes and guesthouses alike. - Check the weather and the road on the morning of the drive. Conditions here change inside an hour, and the forecast is the plan. - Never drive off marked roads. It is illegal, the moss scars for decades, and rescue callouts for stuck vehicles are a real cost to volunteers. - Buy wine and spirits at Vínbúðin, the state shops, and note their opening hours before Sunday. Supermarkets carry only low-alcohol beer. - Tipping is not expected. Service is in the price, and rounding up is an optional gesture. ## Famous Icelandic faces - **Björk**: Singer and composer, the most widely known Icelander of the modern era - **Halldór Laxness**: Novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955 and still Iceland's only laureate - **Vigdís Finnbogadóttir**: President 1980 to 1996, the world's first democratically elected woman head of state - **Hildur Guðnadóttir**: Composer, winner of the 2020 Academy Award for the score of Joker - **Snorri Sturluson**: Thirteenth-century chieftain and chronicler whose Prose Edda preserved Norse mythology - **Baltasar Kormákur**: Director of 101 Reykjavik and Everest, and the producer behind much Icelandic film - **Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson**: Strongman, World's Strongest Man in 2018, and the Mountain in Game of Thrones - **Ólafur Elíasson**: Danish-Icelandic artist of The Weather Project, and designer of Harpa's facades - **Jónsi**: Singer and bowed-guitar player of Sigur Ros, the sound most people mean by Icelandic music - **Ólafur Arnalds**: Composer and producer working between string quartets and electronics - **Jóhann Jóhannsson**: Composer nominated for Academy Awards for The Theory of Everything and Sicario - **Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir**: Singer and songwriter of Of Monsters and Men - **Arnaldur Indriðason**: Crime novelist behind the Detective Erlendur series, translated worldwide - **Andri Snær Magnason**: Writer on land, energy and climate, author of On Time and Water - **Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir**: Novelist, winner of the 2018 Nordic Council Literature Prize for Or - **Ólafur Darri Ólafsson**: Actor, the lead of the crime series Trapped - **Hlynur Pálmason**: Director of Godland, which premiered at Cannes in 2022 - **Jón Páll Sigmarsson**: Strongman, the first man to win the World's Strongest Man four times - **Gylfi Sigurðsson**: Midfielder in the squad that took Iceland to its first World Cup in 2018 - **Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir**: Iceland captain and record appearance maker, a Champions League winner with Lyon - **Jón Sigurðsson**: Led the nineteenth-century independence movement; the national day is his birthday - **Katrín Jakobsdóttir**: Prime minister from 2017 to 2024 - **Erro**: Pop-art painter and collagist whose donated collection anchors Reykjavik Art Museum - **Ragnar Kjartansson**: Performance and video artist, known for The Visitors ## Must-try Icelandic food - **Skyr**: A thick cultured dairy staple, eaten here for a thousand years and sold in every shop. - **Pylsur**: The lamb, pork and beef hot dog, ordered with both onions, mustard and remoulade. - **Rúgbrauð**: Dense dark rye, at its best as hverabrauð, baked underground by geothermal heat. - **Kjötsúpa**: Lamb soup with root vegetables and barley, the plainest good meal in the country. - **Plokkfiskur**: Cod or haddock mashed with potato and onion, served with rye and butter. - **Harðfiskur**: Wind-dried fish torn into strips and eaten with butter, the standing road snack. - **Humar**: Langoustine from the southeast, the reason Höfn puts its name on a festival. - **Grafin bleikja**: Cured arctic char, sliced thin over rye with a mustard dressing. - **Hangikjöt**: Smoked lamb, sliced cold at Christmas and hot in a white sauce the rest of the year. - **Icelandic lamb**: Free-grazed on herb and moss all summer, which is what you taste in it. - **Hákarl**: Fermented Greenland shark, cut into cubes and taken with a shot. It smells of ammonia. - **Svið**: Singed sheep's head, halved and served with mashed swede. A Þorrablót fixture. - **Slátur**: Blood and liver sausage sewn into casings, boiled and eaten hot with potatoes. - **Kleina**: A twisted fried dough knot, the standard companion to a coffee refill. - **Ástarpungar**: Love balls: spiced dough fritters studded with raisins, sold warm by the bag. - **Pönnukökur**: Thin cinnamon pancakes rolled with sugar or folded around whipped cream and jam. - **Brennivín**: Caraway schnapps, drunk cold and neat, and the traditional chaser for hákarl. - **Malt og appelsín**: Malt drink cut with orange soda, mixed at Christmas and drunk all year. ## By theme - [Hiking & trekking](https://wimup.com/hiking.md) - [Scuba diving](https://wimup.com/scuba-diving.md) - [Northern lights](https://wimup.com/northern-lights.md) - [Hot springs](https://wimup.com/hot-springs.md) - [Road trips](https://wimup.com/road-trips.md) - [Solo travel](https://wimup.com/solo-travel.md) - [Waterfalls](https://wimup.com/waterfalls.md) - [New Year's Eve](https://wimup.com/new-years-eve.md) ## Films - [Reykjavik Travel Guide](https://wimup.com/watch/reykjavik.md), 25:39 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Iceland? Seven to ten for the Ring Road without rushing it. Five buys Reykjavik, the Golden Circle and the south coast as far as the glacier lagoon. Three is a city break with one long day out, and it is a perfectly good trip if you plan it that way. ### When is the best time to visit Iceland? June to September, when the highland roads open, the light runs most of the night and every ferry and bus is on the summer timetable. February and March are the other case: snow, short bright days and the best odds on the aurora. ### Is Iceland expensive to visit? Yes, on the car, the rooms and the restaurants. Budget roughly $150 to $260 per person per day mid-range, and note that most of what you came for costs nothing: the coast roads, the waterfalls, the trails and the tap water. ### Can you see the northern lights on any trip? Only between late August and mid-April, and only when the sky is dark, clear and active at once. Book several nights, get away from town lights, and check the Met Office aurora forecast each evening. ### Do you need a car in Iceland? For the Ring Road and the smaller roads, yes: there is no passenger railway and rural buses are thin. Reykjavik, the Golden Circle and the south coast all work on day tours if you would rather not drive in winter conditions. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.visiticeland.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://www.government.is/topics/foreign-affairs/visa-to-iceland/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Roads and weather](https://www.vegagerdin.is/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.