OK, a little more info about some of the places I posted about. We had limited time like you will (four nights for us), so crammed a lot into that time.
First day we stopped at Blue Lagoon from the airport, as I mentioned. If you're going to do this, which most everyone does, this makes the most sense. We also ate lunch at Blue Lagoon's restaurant, which was excellent except for the tendency of a few dudes to wear their damn robes to lunch. Blech. By the way, you need to make Blue Lagoon reservations in advance, so look at it
now.
We spent the rest of the first day/evening exploring Reykjavik. I'm sure you can find enough info on what to do there. As people said, dining is extremely expensive, even for my friends and I hailing from NYC, DC, and Seattle. One place I'll recommend because it was wonderful food and kid-friendly (as evidenced by the table of happy kids next to us) is
Snaps Bistro. Great service, great food, laidback atmosphere. I didn't eat anywhere else that I would recommend for kids - not that they wouldn't be welcome, I'm sure, but they just might not be happy with the higher-end places.
Oh wait, I take it back! Go
here, too. Not for a meal, obviously, but for a snack. We kept walking by it and I insisted on the last day that I MUST go there, and it was soooooo worth it.
Second day for us was driving the Golden Circle, which folks have mentioned on here already. If you haven't researched that itinerary yet, the three highlights of this tour are Þingvellir, Gullfoss and Geysir. Like
@Drunken Cowboy, I found Þingvellir absolutely fascinating - you can walk around for as long as you can stand it and see so much interesting historical stuff. Gullfoss is a gigantic, impressive waterfall - truly stunningly beautiful. Geysir was the least impressive part to me, but is notable as being the area for which all geysers are named. But if you haven't seen many geysers, it's cool. In addition to these main spots, we stopped at a variety of places that we came across along the way and looked interesting! Perhaps my favorite part of the day, though, was going
here. Yes, it's a tomato farm and restaurant, which might not sound impressive on its face, so you'll just have to trust me. The specialty is the tomato soup, served with bread on an all-you-can-eat basis. I don't know how to describe how good this is. But there are a few other options, too, including a tomato pasta and a tomato pizza. Plus a variety of cocktails and desserts that are - you guessed it - tomato-based. We had a green-tomato-and-apple pie that was outlandishly great, and some sort of tomato cocktails. Would also be potentially fun for the kids as they do some great education on the bees and you can watch the bees doing their thing. Two warnings: (1) you need a reservation, and (2) you need to like, or at least tolerate, tomatoes.
Third day we drove to Vik and the black beaches - extremely cool and even more so if you've watched Game of Thrones. On the way there we stopped at two more famous waterfalls, Seljalandsfoss and Skogarfoss. The first is cool because you can walk behind the waterfall - fun if you've never had that perspective before. You can also walk down farther from there to see some more waterfalls, including one that you can only view through a crack into a cave opening, which was neat. If you're stupid as I am, you can boulder up a whole bunch of rocks to see some more. I thought Skogarfoss was cooler than this one, though - it's massive and impressive, plus the best part is you can climb a billion stairs to the top of it and then walk as far as you want toward its source. It's more beautiful up at the top. On our Vik day, we also stopped and did a glacier hike, which was fantastic but I'm not sure would be recommended (or even available) for kids. Maybe depending upon age they could. If you're interested I'll find the name of our guide company, as they were great.
Last day we went to Reykjanes Peninsula, which is much less frequently visited by tourists but as I said might have been my favorite day. We essentially did the circle (counterclockwise) described
here, except we skipped the Pop Culture Museum at the end and the Blue Lagoon since we'd already been there. I thought the scenery on this day was more stunning and incredible than any of the other days, especially the hot springs at Seltún and the cliffs at Krýsuvíkurberg. But every stop there was amazing and so different from a lot of the rest of what we'd seen. Plus you have the benefit of fewer tourists at these stops. I just loved this area.
A few general thoughts:
- We were strongly encouraged to make reservations in advance for
all meals, which we did and were glad we had. You might have more flexibility with it being January, but something to think about.
- Re driving, I hadn't really thought about the weather while you are there, but it could be an issue, as someone noted. Probably not for the Golden Circle portion, but certainly for the other parts. I have a friend who rented a place near Vik in February last year, and saw nothing but the inside of their rental because of the snow. Something to keep an eye on.
- No problem getting anywhere I mention above in a normal car,
except for some spots we visited on the last day. For a couple of those, you MUST have 4WD and be comfortable with heavily rutted roads and possibly fording some water crossings. We had to do a couple of moderate fords, but it was extremely wet while we were there so that might have been a factor. We didn't have any trouble getting through them and the roads didn't bother me, but I'm comfortable driving on ####ty forest roads and in bad weather. YMMV.
- Our itinerary involved a
lot of driving, and with two kids in tow you might not want to do all that, but they do involve frequent stops to see things, so I feel like it wouldn't be too bad.
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Good site for daily northern lights forecast
If you’re going to do it, I recommend checking into a reservation for the morning you get in. Most N American flights will arrive in the early morning, and Blue Lagoon is about halfway between the airport and downtown Reykjavik, so it’s a good stop on the way to kill time since your hotel room probably won’t be ready yet anyway.
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