Holidays in Iceland have always had a reputation for being on the expensive side, but with Iceland Air’s great flight and accommodation deals and Iceland’s depreciating currency we thought it was a great opportunity to visit the land of waterfalls, fire and ice.
With so much natural beauty to see and do outside of Reykjavik we pondered whether to take the many guided coach tours or to self drive to see the natural beauties around the Golden Circle and the Icelandic Southern Shores.
- The Golden Circle was a must see with sites such as Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park, Strokkur, Geysir, and Gullfoss.
- We also wanted to see the amazing waterfalls of Skogafoss and Seljalandfoss along the south shore of Iceland.
- Not to mention other Icelandic wonders such as the Aurora Borealis Northern Lights, dog sledding, the Blue Lagoon, and the capital city Reykjavik.
Researching the Iceland activities and tours we wanted to do, we calculated that it would cost £554 for two people. Pretty expensive, especially when you consider that most of the tours require you to be stuck on a coach for half a day.
We looked into hiring a 4×4 to do our own self drive tour, which surprisingly came out much less than the combination of tours, totalling £311 for 4 days hire including petrol via Thifty. Not only was it cheaper, but we would have more flexibility and could drive off in any direction at a whim (we did get stuck up a mountain though), and we wouldn’t be stuck on a slow coach for most of our time.