With 5 days and an early flight out of Birmingham we figured we could fully explore the Mid, Lower West and South Coast of Iceland.
Venturing into the centre of Iceland is not possible during winter when all the F roads are shut. The east coast has limited sights to see and the north coast is very barren.
We expected to see waterfalls, geo-thermal activity, bathe in natural springs and visit the rift valley. We planned our visit during February when the moon was at it's
darkest to give us the best chance to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).
If we were to visit again or for a longer period of time we would definitely have visited the Snæfellsnes Peninsula on the far North West Coast.
In the run up to our trip both here in the UK and in Icleand the countries were battered by weeks of endless storms and cancellations of activities and flights.
All we could do was hope we'd still be able to get there, get home and hopefully get out to see some of our planned sights.
NOTES: We planned to arrive at 10:45am and booked the Blue Lagoon for 1pm. If you visit in winter you can't spend too long at the lagoon or you'll not make Thingvelir before nightfall. We also stayed away from Sixt rentals because they only had Land Cruisers on special request and tried to downgrade us even before arrival. Sixt is also the only major rental car company in Iceland which were situated entirely outside the airport. In the end we were glad we choose Hertz for our rental even if the cost was a little higher.
NOTES: This is a long day. Best case scenario the driving portion alone will take you 6 hours. If you have worse conditions or slower drivers / traffic it may take much longer. It is wise to start the day by leaving your Hotel at or shortly before sunrise.
NOTES: Again this will be a fairly long day. Spanning most of the day from Sunrise to sunset.
The helicopter tour is heavily weather dependant and so this is why I recommend booking a separate ice cave tour just in case.
We used Local Guide Iceland as we found they run the latest tour departing at 14:15 which gave us plenty of time to get to
Skafatafell for the first morning helicopter and still get back to Jokulsarlon for the second tour.
It is about a 1 hour drive without stops between the two sites.
NOTES: This journey will take you back up the sections of route 1 you have already seen for the most part. The only new section is towards the end and there is not much new to see here. I recommend doing as per our itinerary and splitting up the stops between the way out and return leg. This will help to keep the journey interesting and avoid making either of the days too long.
Iceland is an expensive country. Food costs are very high, options are limited outside of Reykjavík and mostly driven towards wealthy tourists. You can save some money by choosing accomodation with included breakfast and skipping / light snacking for lunches. Accomodation cost is also high and again your options outside Reykjavík are limited. Fuel prices are on a par with most western europe countries. Perhaps up to 10 pence per litre more at most. Fuel is cheaper closer to large cities and also cheaper if pumps are unattended / self administered.
You can see how our actual trip went along with photos here: Iceland 2022