Iceland 6 Day Itinerary
Fewer than 400,000 people live in Iceland, yet over two million visit every year. That ratio shapes everything: the roads are emptier than you expect, the prices are higher than you hope, and the landscapes are so disproportionately dramatic that first-time visitors often pull over and just stand there, unable to process what they are looking at.
The 1,332-kilometre Ring Road (Route 1) is the spine of any self-drive trip. In six days you cannot complete the full loop without spending most of your time behind the wheel, so this itinerary takes the classic south and east route, picks up the Mývatn region by air or long drive, and gets the best of the country without burning a week on tarmac.
Day 1: Keflavik to Reykjavik
The Flybus from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik’s BSI terminal costs around 3,999 ISK per person and takes 45 minutes. If you upgrade to Flybus+, at roughly 5,199 ISK, the driver drops you at your hotel door. That said, if there are three or more of you, a pre-booked private transfer for around 22,500 ISK total is comparable per head and spares you the BSI connection faff. Skip the taxi rank outside arrivals: unmetered private hire vehicles at the kerb quote inflated flat rates.
Check in and walk to Hallgrimskirkja, the brutalist-expressionist church that dominates the skyline. The observation tower lift costs 1,000 ISK and the view over the coloured rooftops repays it. Then walk downhill to the Harpa concert hall, whose faceted glass facade reflects different colours depending on the angle and the hour. The Sun Voyager sculpture is five minutes further along the harbour front. It looks best in low evening light.
For dinner, Saegreifinn (the Sea Baron) on the harbour serves a lobster soup that has been a local institution for decades: 1,500 ISK a bowl, unpretentious, excellent. Skip the sit-down tourist restaurants on Laugavegur on this first night; you will pay twice as much for food that is half as interesting.
Pick up your rental car in the morning from downtown rather than at the airport, unless you plan to drive straight out of Keflavik. If you book a 2WD compact for summer travel, you do not need a 4WD for the Ring Road itself. Add the gravel protection and windscreen coverage to your insurance: volcanic grit is unavoidable and most base policies exclude it. Note that opening your car door in a sudden wind gust can shear it off its hinges. Iceland is not exaggerating when it says hold the door.
Day 2: The Golden Circle
Leave Reykjavik by 8am. The Golden Circle is popular enough that mid-morning arrivals at Geysir face full car parks. The route runs roughly 300 kilometres round-trip and is easily done in a day.
Thingvellir National Park is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet at the surface. You can walk between them. The Almannagjá rift is free to enter and the geology is more impressive in person than in photographs. The park is also where the Althing, Iceland’s parliament, first convened in 930 AD, making it one of the oldest democratic assemblies in the world. Allow 90 minutes here.
Geysir Geothermal Area is mostly about Strokkur, which erupts every five to eight minutes to a height of 20 to 30 metres. Geysir itself, the original geyser the English word is taken from, rarely erupts anymore. Stand upwind of Strokkur: the sulphur mist goes where the wind goes. Entry is free.
Gullfoss is a two-tiered waterfall that drops 32 metres into a canyon. It can be genuinely windy on the path above it, so the waterproof jacket you packed for Seljalandsfoss earns its keep here first.
On the return, the Secret Lagoon at Flúðir (Gamla Laugin) is a worthwhile alternative to the Blue Lagoon: entry is around 3,500 ISK, it fits fewer than 50 people at a time, and the water feels more natural. Book in advance online. This is the stop most generic itineraries skip in favour of sending you straight back to Reykjavik, which is a mistake.
Day 3: South Coast to Vik
The south coast drive between Reykjavik and Vik is 187 kilometres and takes about three hours without stops. With stops, plan for a full day.
Seljalandsfoss lets you walk behind the curtain of water via a path that cuts around the cliff face. Waterproof trousers matter here, not just a rain jacket. Skógafoss, 30 kilometres further east, is wider and more photogenic from the front. Climb the 527 steps to the top and you get a view up the river valley that most people driving past never see.
Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach is stunning and genuinely dangerous. Sneaker waves here kill people every few years, including experienced travellers who have been told about the risk. Stay back from the waterline when the surf is up. The basalt columns stacked like organ pipes behind the beach are a geological formation called columnar jointing, caused by slow cooling lava, and they are more impressive at close range than any postcard suggests.
At Dyrhólaey, a volcanic promontory with an arch big enough to fly a small plane through, Atlantic puffins nest on the cliffs between late April and mid-August. A pair of binoculars is worth carrying; they are small birds and easier to spot when perched than in flight.
Stay in Vik. It is the only town on this stretch with reasonable accommodation options and a few decent restaurants. Book ahead in summer: the village has fewer than 300 permanent residents and accommodation sells out weeks in advance.
Day 4: Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach
Jokulsarlon is 200 kilometres from Vik, which is a long drive east. Leave early. The glacier lagoon is filled with icebergs that have calved from Breidamerkurjokull glacier and drifted into a deepwater lake before eventually floating out to sea. The amphibian boat tour costs 7,100 ISK for adults and runs roughly every 30 minutes from May through October. It is worth doing once: you get close to icebergs the size of cars and can touch the 1,000-year-old ice. Zodiac tours, at around 57 USD, go further and faster and are better for photography.
Diamond Beach is immediately across the road where the lagoon drains into the Atlantic. Ice chunks wash up on the black sand and the contrast is arresting at any hour, but in the early morning or around midnight in summer (when it is still light), you often have it nearly to yourself.
Spend the night in Hofn, a fishing town an hour east of the lagoon. The langoustine (lobster) here is genuinely famous and cheaper and fresher than anything you will find in Reykjavik. Pakkhus restaurant is the most-cited option and justifiably so.
Day 5: East Fjords and Lake Myvatn
This is the day most six-day itineraries either skip or bungle. The East Fjords are some of the least-visited and most beautiful parts of Iceland, a series of narrow inlets with fishing villages at their heads and almost no other tourists. Djupivogur is a tiny arts village with 34 granite eggs by the sculptor Sigurdur Gudmundsson placed along the harbour wall. Seydisfjordur, reached by a winding mountain road from Egilsstadir, is a pastel-coloured town where the ferry to the Faroe Islands and Denmark departs. It deserves an hour at minimum.
Lake Myvatn sits in the north of Iceland and is about 320 kilometres from Hofn, depending on the route. If you are committed to driving, allow five to six hours. The alternative is to fly from Egilsstadir to Akureyri on Air Iceland Connect (roughly 45 minutes) and rent a separate car, which makes more sense for a six-day trip.
Myvatn is an active volcanic zone. Dimmuborgir is a field of lava formations created by a massive lava eruption 2,300 years ago; walking the marked loop takes about an hour. Hverfjall is a tephra crater 1 kilometre in diameter that you can walk around the rim in 45 minutes. The geothermal area at Namaskard is all sulphur pits and boiling mud pools with no barriers and no entrance fee. It smells strongly and looks like the surface of another planet.
The Myvatn Nature Baths (now rebranded as Earth Lagoon Myvatn) are the north’s answer to the Blue Lagoon: mineral-rich, geothermally heated, and considerably less crowded. Entry starts at around 7,900 ISK. The freshwater feel is softer than the Blue Lagoon’s seawater and most repeat visitors prefer it. Check the reopening status before your trip, as a 2025-2026 renovation may affect availability.
Day 6: Husavik and Departure
Husavik, 60 kilometres north of Myvatn, is Iceland’s whale-watching capital. North Sailing and Gentle Giants both operate tours from the harbour. Humpback whales are present from April through October and sightings are reliable rather than guaranteed, but the success rate is high enough that most operators offer a free return trip if you see nothing. Tours run about three hours and cost around 12,000 to 14,000 ISK per adult.
If you are flying from Reykjavik, you face a four-to-five-hour drive south. Leave Husavik by midday to reach Keflavik comfortably, with time built in for petrol, food, and the occasional photo stop. Return your rental car at least two hours before departure; Keflavik drop-off can involve queues.
Before you leave the car, photograph all four sides plus the roof: gravel chips appear on the roof more often than drivers expect, and having photographic evidence of pre-existing damage protects you from disputed charges.
Practical Notes
Iceland’s weather changes without warning. The forecast on road.is is more reliable than standard apps for conditions on specific roads. Check it every morning. The 112 Iceland app allows you to register your travel plan with emergency services, a sensible precaution that takes three minutes.
The Icelandic Krona (ISK) is the local currency but credit cards work everywhere, including small cafes and petrol stations. Tipping is not expected. Tap water is among the purest in the world and buying bottled water here is unnecessary.
Most nationalities from the EU, UK, US, Canada, and Australia do not require a visa for stays under 90 days. Iceland is part of the Schengen Area, so a Schengen visa covers it.
The single most underrated thing to do in Iceland: get off the main roads before sunset and drive a few kilometres down any unmarked track. The light at 10pm in July is orange and horizontal and the emptiness of the interior is something that a schedule of famous stops does not quite prepare you for.