The Golden Circle

One of my last adventures during my trip to Iceland was the Golden Circle, a must if your doing a trip to Iceland. It’s the perfect day trip weather your doing a short weekend away  or an Icelandic road trip as it’s a great opportunity to see Icelands biggest attractions.

Top Tips

Rent a car and go – renting a car is much cheaper than doing a tour. I paid roughly £70 a day to rend a car and your looking at paying £70-80 each do to a tour. Its all so easily sign posted which makes it easy to do on your own and it makes you more flexible to stop when and where you like.

Allow all day – While I was reseaching I read that it would take you 3-5 hours. How anyone can do this in 3 hours (while actually stopping) is amazing because This took me all day to do. I left at 8am and didnt get back to the hostel until 5pm. I would recommend leaving as early as you can so you have enough time to see everything without rushing.

Go anticlockwise – most of the tours going clockwise so going the other way around means that your going to miss the crowds.

Icelandic Horses – If you haven’t seen any yet, this is your chance! There are plenty of opertunities to stop and get some pictures. There so cute so you cant miss them.

The Route

Kerid Crater

I’d recommend starting at Kerid crater, a volcanic crater which is now filled with water which created a lake. Its such a beautiful quiet stop with a short walk around the lake with amazing views. This is the only stop on the route that you have to pay for, although its a a small 350 ISK per person

Faxi

The next stop I took was Faxi, a big waterfall. What made this different to Gullfoss was that you can view this waterfall from the bottom as well as from above. I’d reccommend this stop because 1. Its beautiful and 2. It’s right in the middle of Kerid Crater and Geysir so breaks up the long journey.

Geysir

One of the most popular stops on this tour is Geysir, where you can see Strokkur plumit hot water into the air every 5-10 minutes. I probably spent a good hour here waiting a watching it explode a few times, getting the perfect picture from different angles. You only have a few seconds so be ready!

Tip- Geysir and Gullfoss are the only stop with toilets and places to eat.

Gullfoss

ovbiously with a 10 minute drive up the road you cant miss the big waterfall Gullfoss. This is defnitely an impressive view from the top of the waterfall. The advantage of this being a very popular stop is that theres quite a lot of information which was quite intersting and different to any other stop I’d had though Iceland.

Thingvellir National Park

Thingvellir national park is a UNESCO world heritage site where you can find the Silfra Fissure, which is the only place in the world where you can dive/snorkel directly between 2 continental plate, which are the north american and eurasian continental plates. If you dont fancy a swim, (I didn’t in the middle of winter) you can go on some beautiful walks and get a view of the lake.

I’d reccommend this as your last stop becuase you could spend as little or as long as you want here. There is so much to explore so I just spend the rest of my day exploring the different paths of the park.

Have you ever been on the Golden Circle? Have you go any other hidden spots?