Iceland Explorer: Drive & Hike

Eleven days, ten nights, and the long arc of Iceland's south and east coasts by hire car — Reykjavík out, Akureyri in, with the fjords and the lava country of Mývatn in between.

The southern arc and the empty east

Iceland's Ring Road is one continuous loop, but most short trips only take in the south coast and turn back. This itinerary keeps going. From Reykjavík you head east past the waterfalls of the south — Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss — then on through Vík with its black sand and the long flat outwash plains beneath Vatnajökull, Europe's largest ice cap. The glacier lagoon at Jökulsárlón sits roughly halfway, with icebergs drifting from the Breiðamerkurjökull tongue out towards the sea.

After Höfn the road climbs into the east fjords. This is the unvarnished part of Iceland — fishing villages, single-lane tunnels, hairpins above the water — and noticeably quieter than the south. The route then cuts inland to Mývatn, a shallow lake ringed by pseudocraters, lava fields and the geothermal area at Hverir, before a final stretch west to Akureyri on Eyjafjörður.

Driving days and walking afternoons

The format is self-drive with hikes built in. You collect a hire car in Reykjavík, follow a day-by-day route pack, and stop where the walking is. Macs Adventure provides the notes, GPS data and accommodation; you provide the petrol money and the willingness to spend real time behind the wheel. Days tend to follow a rhythm of two to four hours of driving, then a walk — a coastal path, a glacier-front trail, a lava-field loop — before the next night's hotel or guesthouse.

Distances aren't trivial. Iceland is bigger than it looks on a map, and the southern stretch alone runs to several hundred kilometres before you reach the fjords. The pace works because the days are long in summer and the road is generally good, but it's worth understanding upfront that this is a trip with real driving in it, not a series of short hops between hikes.

Booking, the car and what's not included

The trip starts and ends at different ends of the country, so the standard package includes a one-way car drop in Akureyri and an internal flight back to Keflavík at the end. Ten nights of accommodation are booked for you with breakfast included, along with the route documentation and 24/7 support if anything goes wrong en route.

Lunches, dinners, fuel, optional excursions (whale watching from Akureyri, a glacier walk on Vatnajökull, the geothermal baths at Mývatn) and entrance fees aren't included. Iceland is famously expensive for food and drink, so it's sensible to budget generously on top of the headline price, which starts at £3,199 per person.

It suits couples or pairs of friends who are comfortable with several hours of driving a day, want a bit of structure without a guide standing over them, and would rather see the quieter east than do another lap of the Golden Circle. Macs Adventure runs the trip independently — there's no group, no fixed schedule beyond which hotel you're sleeping in, and the days are yours to shape.