Iceland without a car...worth going north?

Iceland is such an incredible place that I think it would be a real waste to stay in Reykjavik for more than is really necessary. The beauty of Iceland lies outside the capital. I was there in July and found the city a bit dull, then again most cities would disappoint compared to the natural scenery of the island. You could buy a bus passport, or return ticket to Akureyri or see the South/Central area on a Beautiful South Circle passport, it really is worth it, but best seen if you don't mind camping.

bus passport

But check carefully what services will be running over the period, because not all services will still be running during the period you mention. Complete bus timetables, or links to them, can be found on www.nat.is

some day-hiking around Akureyri

You wouldn't get an interesting walk in the immediate vicinity. Akureyri and the immediate environs aren't specially interesting, it acts rather as a gateway to nice places some distance away. You can exhaust the interest of the town in a couple of hours. The main hotspot of sights is Myvatn, about 60km away, and even then the sights are spread around, the road around the lake being about 40km. On the very short timescales you mention, you would need to fly to Akureyri, here and hire a car locally to take advantage. Icelandic surface transport, with frequencies like once or twice a day, is not convenient for a tourist with very limited time. Seeing the sights around Myvatn necessarily involves quite a bit of walking, you can easily spend half a day walking around Krafla for example.

You could fly to Akureyri (or maybe fly one way and take the bus via Kjölur back).

Several bus tours are operated out of Akureyri:
http://english.sba.is/

Thanks for all your advice :-)

Toothache - I'm not keen on spending the whole time based in Reykjavik either (though we would be venturing out a lot, so not just hanging around in the city), but there's so much we want to try to do...

iviehoff - thanks, you're right on the buses; a lot of the nothern buses stop on 31/08 (we'd probably go to Akureyri on the 02/09...curses). I'd definitely be interested in flying to Akureyri and hiring a car, but unfortunately my girlfriend doesn't want to drive and I don't have a license (so can't really complain at her :-)

The bus company from the link rutep posted does still run a daily 'sightseeing tour' from Akureyri to Myvatn, though, so we could do that (could even do it as a day trip from Reykjavik, tho' that sounds a bit hard-core!). I think that's probably the easy option...

So a final question - in your opinion is worth flying to Akureyri and taking a 'sightseeing tour' round Myvatn, or would we be herded around like sheep? I've heard quite good things about icelandic bus companies, so maybe it would be a good way to see a different part of the country.