Iceland advice?

[dancelnow]

DH has it in his head that we should go to Iceland over thanksgiving (provided travel has resumed). After learning it would only be average near freezing, not absurdly cold like I assumed, I agreed to research. Has anyone gone and have any recommendations?

Right now I’m seriously considering renting a camper van for us to explore and get outside of Reykjavík to be able to get the best chance at seeing the northern lights, which is definitely the driver for going.

[brewco]

We went last May and rented a camper van through CampEasy. I would 100% recommend! We spent 10 days driving the ring road - nearly 24 hours of day light allowed us to pack in a ton of stuff.You'll have a lot shorter days in November- how far out of Reykjavik do you plan to travel? If you head north, I'd recommend a stop at the beer spa (https://www.bjorbodin.is/eng). I can recommend more, depending on which direction/how far you plan to go. Iceland has been our favorite vacation ever!

[dancelnow]

We’re probably only going to have a couple of days so I’m thinking to just pick a couple of areas to explore.

[neonpink]

I wen to Iceland in December coming back on Christmas Eve. The country is beautiful but the days are short. We had a rental car and explored the Golden circle, went to the blue lagoon and explored Reykjavik We. Did a tour to see the northern lights. We were lucky and our late appointment at the blue lagoon also timed with the northern lights coming out. So I was warm and got to see them. It was really cool. Reykjavik is like a small town in America so you don’t need a ton of time to explore it. It’s lovely. Going at the time of year you want to go I would be concerned about the weather. We had to scrap a trip south to Vik because of a bad snow storm. The weather changes fast. It can go from no snow and sun, snow, sleet and back to sun in an hour.

Also food and drinking is very expensive. It was cheap fly there but expensive on the ground.

[dutchgirl678]

We are/were planning to go mid-June for 4 days. We are renting a car and found a place called Mosas Cottages on booking.com. They are located close to the Ring Road which offers a nice day loop by the highlights. We are also driving up and down the South Coast for a day. You can find popular stops for both on websites for organized tours. We didn't feel like we had enough time to drive around with a camper and like the central location of our cute cottage.

[gardengal]

I think the bigger issue that time of year is daylight hours. You may want to look at that and compare to the things you want to see & whether or not you'll actually have daylight to see them. Obviously this gives you more opportunity to see Northern Lights, but it also limits what other natural wonders you can see.

We just did a stopover add on as apart of a bigger trip to Europe (in summer) but enjoyed The Golden Circle (we DIY'd and added a few stops). Around Reykjavik, the Perlan museum was really great & I think a good intro to the types of things you'll see in Iceland. And, while it's expensive, we really enjoyed our time at the Blue Lagoon post-flight. We arrived there about 8 & left about 10:30. It was fairly empty when we arrived but it was becoming more crowded at 10:30.

[buckeyegirl]

We went last September and spent 3.5 days/3 nights. We did the Golden circle and then spent a day seeing a glacier with diamond beach. We stayed in some cabins along the way. It was beautiful and I would do the same itinerary again. We got lucky and were able to see the Northern Lights.

[rupertpenny]

I’m Icelandic and have been to Iceland at all times of year. I would not go over Thanksgiving, it might not be too cold but the short days are guaranteed.

Also, the weather in Iceland is notoriously unpredictable. I was there late last October and it was FREEZING and insanely windy. Even my relatives who live there were complaining that it was impossible to be outside for more than a minute or two.

If it is your first time to Iceland I would go between May and September.