Grand Tour
The Ring
Six days around Iceland’s coast, fjord by fjord.
Iceland’s Route 1 is the world’s most famous circular argument: a ring of tarmac around an island that keeps inventing new landscapes to slow you down. This tour takes the long way round it, detouring onto the peninsulas where the driving is best: the Snæfellsnes under its glacier, the empty single-lane Westfjords, the Tröllaskagi tunnels and herring coasts of the north, the switchback passes of the east fjords, and the waterfall coast at the bottom of the map. Six days, endless light, and weather from all four seasons before lunch.
Snæfellsnes
Overnight: StykkishólmurWest out of Reykjavík to the peninsula Jules Verne drilled to the centre of the earth: the coast road under Snæfellsjökull, black churches, golden beaches and lava fields to the harbour at Stykkishólmur.
The Westfjords
Overnight: ÍsafjörðurRoute 60 into Iceland’s oldest, emptiest corner: fjord after fjord of single-lane road, the thundering tiers of Dynjandi waterfall, and hardly another car all day.
Tröllaskagi
Overnight: AkureyriThe Troll Peninsula: 72 miles of cliff road, one-lane tunnels and herring villages between Skagafjörður and Eyjafjörður, with whales in the water below and the northern capital at the end.
Mývatn and the pass to Seyðisfjörður
Overnight: SeyðisfjörðurRound the pseudocraters and steaming vents of Lake Mývatn, across the highland desert, then over the Fjarðarheiði pass, snow walls into July, dropping into the rainbow streets of Seyðisfjörður.
The east fjords
Overnight: DjúpivogurThe fjord-hugging coast road threads Fáskrúðsfjörður, where the street signs are still in French for the fishermen who never went home. In settled weather, Öxi’s steep gravel shortcut over the mountains is the quicker way south; if it turns, stay on the coast road.
The waterfall coast
Overnight: VíkThe grand finale west along the south coast: glaciers hanging above the road and the black sand and basalt stacks of Vík at journey’s end, with Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss still to come on the road home to Reykjavík.
