Quite regularly I get a phone call or an email from someone who’s planning a trip to Iceland, asking for advice on what to see, what to do, and where to go. Since I have found myself repeating stuff I figured that writing a blog post about it was probably a good idea, so here it is: Gummi’s Guide to Visiting Iceland. And yes, for those who don’t know me, I was born and raised in Iceland ☺

Basic logistics

• The name of the capital is Reykjavik (Reykjavík) and the language spoken is Icelandic (íslenska)
• The name if the airport is Keflavik (Keflavík — KEF) but it’s sometimes called Reykjavik even though it’s about 30 miles (50 km) from downtown Reykjavik, and technically speaking not part of the city.
• It takes about 7–8 hours to fly from Seattle, 5 hours, give or take, from Boston or New York, about 3 hours from Copenhagen, and 2 1/2 hours from London.
• You can’t drive there from any country, it’s an island (yeah, you laugh, but you’d be surprised how many have asked me about this.)
• It’s a relatively young country, discovered by vikings from Norway in 874, and the initial settlement formed an egalitarian (at least among the chieftains) parliament in 930 and the whole country became Christian in the year 1000. Progressive.
• No, “Iceland is green and Greenland is ice” is not true both ways, just the latter.
• More information on Wikipedia.

Weather and climate

• The weather is extremely unpredictable, especially in the capital and southern/western parts of the country — it’s not unusual for a day to start off sunny and nice and then suddenly the clouds will be in, and it’s raining sideways before you know it.
• No matter what time of year you go, always bring protective rain gear just in case. You have been warned.
• Having said all that, a nice summer day can be crisp and beautiful, and the stormy days make for exciting scenery and fun activities, and overall the summers have been getting nicer in recent years (apparently a multi-year trend for the Northern Atlantic area.)
• The temperature range is surprisingly moderate in the south, winters hover around freezing and summers hover around 55–65F (12–18C). The north is more extreme, with colder winters and sometimes even warmer summers.

When to go

;tl dr; July.

The winters are dark, with short days and little daylight, which isn’t too much fun if you’re a tourist. On the flip side, the summer days are long and the nights are bright, which is an amazing experience. The weather is also nicer during the summer, which is yet another reason to go during June or July. The only exception would be to either see the New Year’s fireworks or the Aurora Borealis, see below for more details.

Places to see, things to do

In no particular order…

View Gummi’s Guide to Iceland on a larger map

• Blue Lagoon (Bláa lónið) — the famous outdoor spa and pool in a natural setting, supposedly good for your skin as well.
• Downtown Reykjavik — the city is probably where you’ll spend a good amount of time, and the downtown is the most interesting part of it. It has most of the good restaurants, hotels, coffee houses, and bars. It’s also where the main shopping street is, Laugavegur.
• Baejarins Bestu (Bæjarins Bestu) — not the most prominent place, but this is where you’ll get the best hot dogs in the world.
• The Golden Triangle — a very popular day tour, where you get to see Thingvellir (Þingvellir) where the parliament was established in 930 AD, and you can see the two tectonic plates meet; Gullfoss, a beautiful waterfall; and Geysir, the original geyser (yup, that’s where the English word comes from.)
• Thorsmork (Þórsmörk) — the most beautiful place on earth, but you can’t go there in your rental car, find a tour.
• Landmannalaugar — a very exotic place with yellow, orange and red mountains and natural outdoor hot springs you can bathe in.
• The other “Laugavegur” — a popular 4 day hike between Landmannalaugar and Thorsmork, highly recommended, but please plan ahead. Recommend joining a guided hike, which are quite frequent.
• Skaftafell — a beautiful national park with easy access and good camping facilities.
• Jokulsarlon (Jökulsárlón) — where the glacier meets the ocean, super awesome place. James Bond movies have been shot here, and Top Gear did a race between a hover-canoe and a souped Icelandic racing monster truck on this lagoon. What more can I say?
• Highway 1 (Hringvegurinn) — the road that goes around the country, a good trip if you want to see a lot, but you need at least 4–5 days to do it comfortably.
• Akureyri — the “capital of the north”, a nice small town to visit, especially if you are doing Highway 1.
• Reykjavik Excursions can take you to a lot of these places, and they have free wi-fi on their buses ☺
• Inside the volcano — never done this myself, but have heard really good things about it; you get to see a volcano from the inside!

Restaurants

• Fish is the recommended cuisine to try (surprise!) but perhaps less obvious would be to try the Icelandic lamb which is just fantastic.
• Kopar — right by the harbor in downtown Reykjavik, ask for a table by the window upstairs and you will get an experience you won’t forget.
• No name pizza (Hverfisgata 12) — a pizza place that really has no name, and no sign on the outside, so it can be hard to find the entrance for the first time. However, if you go, you will experience probably the best exotic pizzas you have ever laid eyes on. This place is not trying to be Italian or New York, this is pizza Icelandic style!
• Fish Company (Fiskfélagið) — specializes in fish food, comes highly recommended.
• Argentina Steakhouse (Argentína steikhús) — the names tells it all, very good food.
• 3 Frakkar (Þrír Frakkar) — recommend the whale steak; in fact, this was more fun when whale hunting wasn’t going on, you’d get some interesting responses from the servants if you asked them for more details.
• Laundromat cafe — only tried it in Denmark, but it was quite good there…
• Austur-India felagid (Austur-Indíafjelagið) — believe it or not, very good Indian food in Iceland. Their fast food variation, Hradlestin (Hraðlestin) is also excellent.
• Glo (Gló) — excellent healthy eating, recommend for big lunches that won’t make you feel stuffed.
• Apotek (Apótek) — newly renovated restaurant in downtown Reykjavik, semi-upscale and even a bit pretentious at times, but good food and a great location.

Interesting and unusual

• Aurora Borealis — there is no guarantee that you can see them, but as a general rule, the further north and the further into the winter, the more likely.
• New Year’s fireworks — you like fireworks? I’m not talking some small 4th of July celebration organized by the local city hall, this is all out crazy, everyone shooting their own fireworks for 30 minutes right over midnight for the new year. Probably one of my most favorite moments when I go back for the holidays.
• 1st weekends of July and August — these are the 2 most popular travel weekends for locals, so depending on your appetite, you might want to stay away from them or seek them out. Things can get a bit wild though in some spots, so ask ahead.
• Whale watching — I’ve never done it myself, but it’s supposed to be pretty cool. You can, for example, do it from my place of birth, Husavik.
• Cultural Night (Menningarnótt) — annual event held in Reykjavik the first Saturday night after August 18th, lots of concerts and cultural events throughout the city, wrapped up with a nice show of fireworks right in the downtown.
• Kexhostel — a very fun cafe/bar in Reykjavik that sometimes has live music. It’s also a hostel, if you’re looking for accommodation at a reasonable price.

What others have to say

Since I first wrote this post about in 2013, tourism has boomed in Iceland, and there is now so much more information on the internet for those who are interested in visiting. This section has links to articles and websites that I have found to be interesting and unique in some manner.

• 25 cool things to do in Reykjavik — what I like about this article is that it really calls out some odd things to do in the capital, stuff you wouldn’t even think of doing but are still fun, and will probably give you a better flavor of the people and culture than hopping on a guided tour to see a great waterfall.

That’s it for now, I’ll be updating this post regularly, and adding links as appropriate. Enjoy.