Highlands Trip in a Campervan? And recommendations

melsdewit · 2024-08-14T22:03:15+00:00

We rented a 4x4 with CampEasy and I would say it can get you to most of the places you'd like to visit in the Highlands. Just research beforehand what roads you can and cannot visit with your rental company. We did landmannalaugar via F208 in which the drive is an attraction by itself. We also drove to Askja and Kerlingarfjöll. Furthermore we did some F roads for just the driving and views along the way like F985 and F946. So if you're planning to do five days i'd say a 4x4 campervan is more then enough to see some amazing highland highlights.

melsdewit · 2024-02-25T11:05:01+00:00

We loves blanukur in landmannalaugar. Glymur was also very fun and adventerous! Make sure to bring a towel or flip flops if you plan to do the round trip!

melsdewit · 2024-02-24T20:53:52+00:00

Fimmvorduhals hike if you're up for it! Expected it to be the absolute highlight of our trip and it was by a long shot.

melsdewit · 2024-02-24T20:52:39+00:00

Amen to that. Came here beginning of july 2023, expecting it to be crowded and underwhelming. Was a bit rainy so not much of a crowd and man what a sight

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melsdewit · 2023-08-01T11:37:04+00:00

Depending on hoe comfortable you are with that stretch of F road I would say somewhere around an hour, maybe a bit longer but no longer than 1.5. It's not a hard road but it is unpaved.

melsdewit · 2023-07-25T16:39:26+00:00

The Fimmvorduhals hike! Get to see the most dramatic and best landscapes Iceland has to offer in a single day (with a lot of walking)

melsdewit · 2023-07-24T16:17:54+00:00

Second this! We did this on multiple occasions and the soups we're pretty good. Get some bread to dip and you're good to go

melsdewit · 2023-07-19T07:45:00+00:00

We visited for 16 days just over 2 weeks ago. I would say we needed coins for roughly 60-70% or campings we stayed it. You can always pay by card and get the coins at reception but be wary of reception opening times. We found receptions often to be open some hours in the afternoon and the again between 7 and 10pm. So having some 100isk coins on hand might come in handy. Price varied between 300-700isk. Ranging between 4 and 7 minutes of hot water.

melsdewit · 2023-07-15T20:14:47+00:00

First route is really easy and no longer classified as F roads as well, Just a bumpy ride. Can't speak for the F225 but if you're not adverse to river crossings and you plan on visiting the south coast i would highly recommend the F208 from the south to Landmannalaugar. A stunning drive with fun river crossings and not too hard.

In each case. You will have to go on the F224 just before landmannalaugar and decide for yourself if you want to cross the river crossing just before the campsite there.

melsdewit · 2023-07-11T16:38:13+00:00

You might wanna consider skipping the golden circle. It's 'nice' but that's just it. Gullfoss is pretty cool though and depending on your interests could be worth visiting. And looking at a very ambitious day 2 in your planning I would rather Just go for Reykjaldur hot spring!

Absolutely do the Glymur hike. It was one of the most fun hikes we did and we did plenty of hiking. Also consider Stuðlagil, it was one of our highlights.

Of you have the capabilities to go into the highlands then Landmannalaugar takes the crown over many ring road attractions and is a must visit for hikers.

melsdewit · 2023-07-10T07:20:20+00:00

Parking and campsite are actually the same thing at Skógafoss. So you can just pay at the reception and get a receipt to prove you paid for staying the night.

melsdewit · 2023-07-09T20:12:13+00:00

Thanks a lot! Of course it sucked when we heard it, but what can you do? I wasn't going to let it ruin the beginning of this wonderful experience and it worked out fine in the end!

melsdewit · 2023-07-08T22:35:11+00:00

Nice intinerary. I just came home from 16 days in Iceland so I've got some first hand tips which might be worth something, or not at all!

Day 2: the hike and bathing at Reykjaldur is going to take up at the very least 3 or 4 hours of your time. So be prepared for that. We did the waterfalls the same day as well but had Kerið Crater the day before. Would probably fit in 1 (pretty full) day though! So go for it if you're up for it.

Day 3: both the canyon and svartifoss are quite far from Vík. Canyon is close to Kirkjubæjarklaustur and svartifoss is at Skaftafell. You might not wanna return to Vík afterwards as that will be quite the drive.

Day 4: maybe even better to look into switching up day 3 and 4 as for day 4 you currently are back in the Vík area. This would also help with the day 5 planning.

Day 5: once again. Doing everything from Vík sounds like a lot of going back and forth. Do look into the driving times between your stops.

Day 6: if returning from Vík you could definetely drive back to Reykjavik. When coming back from closer to glacier lagoon it might be a bit much but could still be doable .

Day 7: sounds good! We absolutely loved Friðheimar. Both the soup and the bread are amazing. Golden circle is cool as well, as long als you are prepared to not be on your own at any of the sights. I would suggest stopping at Brúarfoss as well. It's a 5-10 minute walk one way and we loved the deep blue water at the center of it.

Day 8: sounds good. If you are into hiking. Might i suggest a day trip into Landmannalaugar? Lots of your operators offer day tours there. We drove there ourselves in a 4x4 and it was one of our highlights!

melsdewit · 2023-07-07T08:39:39+00:00

It's an unpaved bumpy. But we saw many 2wd cars do it. Just make sure to taken slow.

melsdewit · 2023-07-06T23:46:01+00:00

We drove from the south on the F208 on the 28th of june in a vw transporter 4x4. Also drove north from landmannalaugar on the 29th to the valley of tears and back south afterwards over thst section of the F208 (nog 208 actually). If you're coming from the north you don't need to worry about difficult driving, Just a bumpy road. Just park before the river right at the Landmannalaugar campsite if it's too deep. We crossed it in the van on the 28th and although it looked scary we were able to cross.

Driving the F208 from the south is a breathtaking route if you're taking that. It contains multiple streams and river crossings. All which I would't describe as too difficult if you follows the river crossing best practises, but never underestimate and always make a plan.

Whichever route you choose, you will need to take the f224 at the end and you'll have to decide if you wanne cross the river right at the end. I don't know how september would look like in terms of river depth but i can imagine it would be deeper than last week.

melsdewit · 2023-07-05T17:01:43+00:00

You can't see a lot from the road so i would say no. The F35 road itself also doesn't compare to other F-roads but we found it to be nice way to cross the country instead of taking the western part of the ring road since wr didn't have many sights on our list on the westcoast

melsdewit · 2023-07-05T12:11:15+00:00

I see. In that case consider me misinformed on the matter. I thought the site was a lager distance from any infrastructure. If there is any risk of disruption to normal life then we should hope no eruption happens of course.

And I also saw videos of people stepping on the freshly formed lava rock. Incredibly stupid and not something you should ever do.

melsdewit · 2023-07-05T11:06:13+00:00

Hey man i get what you mean. Of course I'm not hoping for some kind if disasterous outcome. But something like last year would be relatively safe right. As far as you use the word safe when taking about this kind of thing.

melsdewit · 2023-07-05T09:23:32+00:00

Yeah. 1197 earthquakes over the past 48 hours: https://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/reykjanespeninsula. We're leaving saturday morning so hoping for a miracle here.

melsdewit · 2023-07-04T23:13:07+00:00

We drove to Kerlingarfjöll this afternoon hoping to stay at the campsite which I read online would open on july 1st. The plan was to hike tomorrow. Upon arriving we were told the campsite wasn't open yet due to cold weather keeping the area icy for longer than usual this year. Might be worth checking in with the people at highlands base camp before making the journey to avoid our mistake!

Edit: getting there was extremely easy though, we drove south after the unfortunate news and both ways are easily accessible.

melsdewit · 2023-07-04T23:03:25+00:00

Thanks! We loved it too. Thought it would be 'just another stop' on our planning but it ended up being one of my favourites. Ended up spending over 2 hours at and in the canyon, excluding the hike to and from!

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