I’d wanted to visit Iceland for ages, and reading Hannah Kent’s incredible first novel, Burial Rites, sealed the deal: I had to go.
My plan was met with a key problem from the outset… Iceland is expensive. Renowned for it. Nonetheless, I felt confident I could knock this (rather pertinent) issue on its head pretty quickly. Ryanair flight, one shared holdall bag full of jumpers and me wearing as many layers in-flight as I possibly could? Check. Air Bnb right in the centre of Reykjavik, a short walk from the bus station? Check. I’ve got this, or so I thought. I booked our flights and accommodation, bought a guide book and sat back; happy in the thought that I’d beaten the system.
If only it were that easy!
As our holiday neared, we got excited about our upcoming trip and started making plans. What did we want to see? Where did we want to go? As we marked pages in our Lonely Planet, something became clearer and clearer. And it started to dawn on us as to why it’s hard to have a budget break in Iceland. If you don’t (or won’t) drive, then travelling around is difficult. Yes, Reykjavik is tiny; teeny-tiny in fact (technical term), but traversing Iceland as a whole, on what is essentially a giant ring road around the island, is nigh-on impossible without a hire car, and a 4×4 hire car at that, given it was January.
I wouldn’t wish my driving on anyone, not least the people of Iceland (they didn’t do anything to deserve it anyway). And yet, I’ve never been one for organised tours – I prefer to go off the beaten track and have the opportunity to do my own thing. It’s often cheaper as well as feeling more authentic (OK and full disclosure: I’m also a bit of a control freak.) To summarise, the thought of being herded from one overcrowded tourist site to another, waiting around at each stop whilst someone goes to the loo/gift shop/to take one last photo generally fills me with all-encompassing dread. And yet, here we were, two independent twenty-somethings admitting to ourselves that… we’d have to do it.
All in all, we did three organised tours during our five day trip to Iceland, all with Grayline Tours. These were:
- Horseback Riding & Golden Circle tour
- Blue Lagoon tour
- Northern Lights tour
For those looking to do a similar madcap dash around the key places, here are the upsides and the downsides for you to consider.
Pros
- Made Iceland’s iconic sights as easy-to-visit as possible
- Quick and easy to organise trips – we didn’t have a problem getting on any trip, and you could book online via the website as easily as going in in person
- The bus station was in a really central location, with hotel/hostel pick-ups available for those feeling lazier
- The chance to meet new people, which is often harder when staying in an Air Bnb rather than a hostel
- Not as expensive as getting taxis around to the sites!
Cons
- Questionable value-for-money: there was a sense that really the ‘USP’ is in that you can access the relevant ‘sight’ you want to visit – there weren’t really any niceties such as information about what you were seeing, other than on the Northern Lights tour
- No pick-up from Air Bnbs, though this may be down to driver discretion
- A LOT of people on certain trips – we couldn’t actually believe how many buses there were off on the Northern Lights trip. It didn’t impact on our experience overall, but it did make us feel a bit like cattle
If you do drive, and don’t mind trying it in Iceland’s various states of weather, then hiring a car would definitely provide you with a much more cost-effective, and authentic, experience. I would love to have been able to hop in a car and ride out into the middle of nowhere one evening, waiting to see whether the Northern Lights would grace us with their presence. Likewise, the Blue Lagoon and horseriding are both trips that can be arranged and driven to in their own right.
Overall, though, using bus tours worked for us in this situation. It meant that we got the most out of our short trip to Iceland with minimal planning, and didn’t have to worry about trying to drive in perilous conditions.