My family will be doing a 2 day stopover in Iceland. We plan to enjoy the Blue Lagoon one day and drive the Golden Circle and see a bit of Reykjavik the next day. We are going early March. 2 questions. #1 should we try to drive the whole circle in a day or just choose a path to see some great sites. #2 We will be wearing our hiking boots and warm clothes, but is there any other equipment we should have on hand with this itinerary? I am afraid I may be underestimating the climate and want to be sure I am prepared. Thanks!
Do you have two full days? You can do the golden circle and blue lagoon in one day.
I’d argue the south coast to Vik and back has better views than the golden circle though.
Crampons could be very handy, gas stations sell them for about $35 CAD if you don’t bring them.
We will have our flying day, which gets us in early in the morning, which is when I plan to go to the blue Lagoon and where we’re staying is north of the airport so I feel like we could just relax and enjoy the area of the air, but the next day is a full day and that’s the day I thought we would do the Golden Circle in Reykjavik.
Also, I am really considering driving south as you said to see the beaches and sites there instead of completing the circle. Im certain we will be back!
When we last visited, we flew in at 6am, did the golden circle which took about 6 hours the ended the day at the blue lagoon. Our hotel was in a perfect little village called Eyarbakki, which is between the blue lagoon and Selfoss, and it set us up perfectly for the south coast. Really depends if you sleep on the plane or not, and if there’s more than one of you driving.
If you don’t get much sleep, you can also spend a few hours in the morning, check out seltun geothermal area, there’s a couple lakes there too, and the fagradsfjall volcano is quite neat then go to the blue lagoon. But yeah, we have lots of waterfalls at home and the ones on the south coast were able to impress us with the sheer size. The golden circle however didn’t impress us too much. Kerid was alright, geysir was cool but very packed, and gullfoss was an awful time, they had the trail to the falls closed so there were just hundreds of people crammed onto a few viewing platforms lol, couldn’t see anything. Pingveillr was a bit lackluster too imo.
Were you able to explore Thingvellir National Park?
Yeah, it’s ok. We went to oxarfoss and did a little walk in the area but that was about it.
Be prepared for a variety of weather.