REYKJAVIK · ICELAND
Waterfalls, glaciers and the northern lights.
Day trips out of Reykjavik to the Golden Circle, the south coast and the glacier lagoon. Blue Lagoon soaks, whale boats from the old harbour, and the aurora once the nights turn long and dark.
Only in Iceland
Iceland keeps a few things to itself.
Plenty of places do whales and waterfalls. Snorkelling the gap between two continents, walking inside a glacier, and a whole sky turning green after dark are the reasons you come to this one.
Between two continents
Snorkelling the Silfra rift
At Thingvellir the North American and Eurasian plates are slowly pulling apart, and Silfra is the flooded crack between them. The water is glacier melt filtered through lava rock for decades, so clear the visibility runs past a hundred metres. It is the one place on earth you can swim between two continents.
- 1 Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location
- 2 Reykjavík: Silfra Fissure Snorkeling between Two Continents
- 3 Silfra Drysuit Snorkeling with Free Photos – Meet on Location
Inside the glacier
Walking into a glacier
Each winter, meltwater hollows out caves beneath Vatnajokull, the largest ice cap in Europe. You step in under metres of ancient ice, packed so dense the air has been crushed out of it and it glows a deep, luminous blue. Every cave lasts a single season before the glacier takes it back.
- 1 From Vik: Katla Ice Cave and Super Jeep Tour
- 2 Jökulsárlón: Vatnajökull Ice Cave Guided Tour
- 3 Skaftafell: Ice Cave Tour and Glacier Hike
The winter sky
Standing under the aurora
From September to April the northern lights run over Iceland on any clear, dark night. Few capitals sit this close to them: thirty minutes out of Reykjavik the city glow drops away and the whole sky can turn green. You head out, you wait in the cold, and some nights it pays off like nothing else.
- 1 Iceland: Northern Lights Bus Tour from Reykjavik
- 2 Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik
- 3 #1 Northern Lights Tour In Iceland from Reykjavik with PRO photos
The classic first day
If you only take one day trip from Reykjavik.
More first trips to Iceland begin with this single day out than with anything else on the island.
The classics
Iceland's Most Popular Day Trips
The Golden Circle, the south coast, the Blue Lagoon and the aurora hunts. The days most first trips are built from.
Where to begin
The days a first trip to Iceland is built around.
The Golden Circle, the northern lights, the south coast, the Blue Lagoon, the glacier country and the whale boats. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and how to do each one well.
The big question
Blue, Sky or Secret?
Iceland runs on geothermal water, and the first thing every visitor has to settle is which lagoon to soak in. Three very different baths, each an easy half-day from Reykjavik.
Fire
The island is still being built.
Iceland straddles the mid-Atlantic ridge, where two continental plates pull apart and magma rises to fill the gap. The Reykjanes peninsula has erupted over and over in recent years, close enough to the city to drive out and watch. Hike a still-warm lava field, climb down into a colour-streaked magma chamber, or stand at the edge of fresh, glowing rock.
Read the guide: the best volcano tours from Reykjavik →Ice
Walk out onto a thousand-year glacier.
The other half of the island is frozen solid. Strap on crampons and climb the rippled blue ice of an outlet glacier with a guide, or in the cold months, follow that guide down into a natural ice cave hollowed out beneath Vatnajokull. Ancient, alive, and slowly on the move.
See the best glacier hikes →The glacier lagoon
Where the glacier reaches the sea.
At Jokulsarlon, a tongue of Vatnajokull calves straight into a deep lagoon, and the icebergs drift slowly out through a short channel to the Atlantic. The tide pushes some of them back onto the black sand, where they sit and glitter in the low light. People call that stretch the Diamond Beach.
The glacier lagoon & Diamond Beach →The south coast
The whole south coast in one long day.
A single road runs east out of Reykjavik past the best of the island in one sweep. Seljalandsfoss, the waterfall you can walk behind. Skogafoss and the spray it throws across the path. The black sand, basalt columns and heavy surf at Reynisfjara, the cliffs above Vik, and the glacier tongues reaching down toward the road.
- 1 Reykjavík: South Coast Waterfalls, Black Sand & Glacier Tour
- 2 Iceland South Coast Full Day Small-Group Tour from Reykjavik
- 3 South Coast Day Tour Black Sand Beach & Waterfalls from Reykjavik
By season
When you come decides the trip.
Iceland swings hard with the light through the year. Summer barely gets dark and winter barely gets light, and each end of the calendar opens up a completely different island.
June to August
The midnight sun.Daylight that never quite goes out. Puffins crowd the sea cliffs, whales fill the bay, the highland roads finally open, and the hikes run on past midnight.
May, September, October
The quiet shoulders.Thinner crowds and kinder light. Lupin fields and endless evenings in spring, then the first auroras of the year in autumn, with every road still open.
November to March
Northern lights and blue ice.The dark half of the year, and the best of it. Aurora over fresh snow, natural ice caves carved under the glaciers, and snowmobiles out on the ice cap.
The old harbour
Humpbacks and minke whales out in the bay.
Boats leave straight from Reykjavik’s old harbour into Faxafloi Bay, where minke and humpback whales feed all summer alongside white-beaked dolphins and porpoises. In the right weeks you might even cross a blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived. Puffins crowd the islands on the way out.
See all 58 whale watching trips →By place
Iceland from Reykjavik, six ways out.
The Golden Circle for the geysers and the falls. The south coast for the waterfalls and the black sand. The glacier lagoon for the icebergs. Snaefellsnes for a whole island in miniature. Vik for the sea stacks. And Reykjavik itself, for the nights.
By activity
Or pick how you want to spend it.
Aurora hunt if you want the night sky. Whale boat if you want the bay. Crampons if you want the glacier, a wetsuit if you want the rift. Horses, hot springs, and the rim of a volcano.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Iceland? Here is a long weekend out of Reykjavik that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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