solo female traveler in iceland | Iceland - Lonely Planet Forum

ONLINE

Thu, 27 May 2010 09:03:07 +0000

hi -- would love to get your advice on my upcoming trip to iceland in august. it's a short trip, only 6 days. i know that within this time frame, i can only get a glimpse of iceland and i'm ok with that. i am traveling alone, a 30-ish woman (very comfortable traveling by myself).

my first thought was to base myself out of reykjavik and do day trips, thereby avoiding car rental. i found some day trips to (1) golden circle, (2) snaefellsnes, and (3) jokulsarlon. of course i will go to the blue lagoon on the way back to the airport. if i spend one day doing each of the above trips, then i will have 2 full days in reykjavik. it sounds like that is plenty of time in reykjavik.

questions:
1) would you absolutely advise dropping the idea of day trips and renting a car instead? i know that car rental in iceland is super expensive. the cost of renting the car for 4 trips is more than what it cost for me to rent a car in ireland for 2 weeks recently!

2) if you stick with the day trip idea, are there any places that you absolutely recommend seeing? again, since this is such a short trip, i know that i won't be able to see everything iceland has to offer, but i really want to get a good taste of what the country is like.

thanks so much.

ONLINE

Thu, 27 May 2010 09:31:54 +0000

I recommend you to combine three tours in one. Golden Circle - Landmannalaugar and Jokulsarlon. You can spend the nights in a country Hotel. My favorite is Hotel Ranga.

HalliEgils
info@auroratours.is

Copy and paste the url below to share the link.

ONLINE

Thu, 27 May 2010 11:52:56 +0000

Hi,

When exactly will you be in Iceland? We'll be starting our tour in Reykjavik by rental car the 3rd, first passing the spots you mention, and have 1 seat left, but I'd have to check with my fellow travel compagnons first. We're one woman (me) and two guys, end 30ish. You'd have to take the bus back though and that doesn't seem to be very cheap either, but I guess you can check that out.

Ciao

Copy and paste the url below to share the link.

ONLINE

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:04:51 +0000

hi ramonake, i will probably be in iceland later that you. i am arriving on aug 12 and was going to start hitting the road the next day.

for anyone else reading this, i think i have convinced myself to rent a car for four days.
day one - golden circle, spend night maybe in hveragerdi
day two - seljalandsfoss, skogarfoss, overnight in vik
day three - skaftafell national park, jokulsarlon, overnight in hali
day four - leisurely drive back to reykjavik, return rental car
day five - blue lagoon on the way back to airport

i think i would get a good feel for iceland with this itinerary. also, i checked traffic conditions and right now the ring road appears open (i know this could obviously change at any moment).

any other thoughts or opinions would be very much appreciated. thanks!

Copy and paste the url below to share the link.

ONLINE

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:05:00 +0000

Quick answer - don't do several day tours out of Reykjavik as you'll spend most of the time traveling in the buses and partially on same roads (as there are only one ring road ... you know).
Instead you might use bus service and go from place to place. In such a case even riding in the bus would be a new experience. And local tours will bring you to places you won't get to with day tours (for the simple reason - lack of time wasted to drive there from Reykjavik).
And as you are a solo traveler it shouldn't be a problem with overnight stay. I mean a family with two kids changing places everyday is not that easy.
So if you are interested - we can discuss this option in more details.

Copy and paste the url below to share the link.

ONLINE

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:52:58 +0000

I recommend that you rent a 4x4 car like Suzuki Jimny for your trip, you can go to this webside
http://www.car4rent.is/ for a better price on a rental car, hope this helps :)

Copy and paste the url below to share the link.

Pro tip