Five days in north Iceland: the ground is splitting and the coaches are all down south

Two nights at the lake and two in Akureyri, with a canyon day north to the waterfalls and a boat out into Skjalfandi bay.

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Length
5 days, 4 nights
Where you stay
Mývatn, Akureyri
Places
12 across 5 days
12
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North Iceland gets a fraction of the visitors the south coast does and has arguably the better half of the country's geology. Myvatn sits directly on the rift where the island is splitting, so the ground around the lake steams, cracks and bubbles, and everything within 20 km of it was made by an eruption somebody could date.

An hour and a half west, Akureyri is a real town of 19,000 people at the head of a fjord, with restaurants that stay open, a pool with slides and a botanical garden that has no business existing this far north. It is the base for Husavik, where humpbacks feed in the bay through the summer and the boats going out to them are converted oak fishing schooners.

Five days covers all of it without a long drive on any single day. The whole loop, Myvatn to Dettifoss to Asbyrgi to Husavik to Akureyri, is marketed locally as the Diamond Circle, and the marketing is for once not overselling it.

Highlights

  • Boiling mud and sulphur steam at Namaskard, on a hillside straight off the ring road
  • Dettifoss, 100 metres of grey glacial water going over the edge, felt through the rock
  • The horseshoe cliffs of Asbyrgi, which Norse legend puts down to a horse's hoof
  • Floating in the Myvatn Nature Baths at ten at night in June, still in daylight
  • A humpback surfacing beside a wooden schooner in Skjalfandi bay

Where to stay

Myvatn, two nights

A shallow lake formed by an eruption 2,300 years ago, with about 450 people living around it and a ring road 36 km long joining everything up. Pseudocraters on one shore, lava pillars on another, steaming ground to the east.

Reykjahlid on the northeast corner has most of the beds and the shop. Book early: the area takes far more visitors in a day than it can sleep.

Akureyri, two nights

About 51 km from Mývatn.

The largest town outside the southwest, about 19,000 people at the head of Eyjafjordur, hemmed in by mountains that keep it drier and snowier than Reykjavik. The centre is walkable, the town buses are free, and the traffic lights show a red heart instead of a red circle.

Two nights makes Husavik a comfortable day out rather than a dash, and gives you one evening in a place with a choice of restaurants.

Day by day

Day 1 in Mývatn

Into the steam: Namaskard and the Nature Baths

However you arrive, the last stretch into Myvatn does the introduction for you. Coming from the east the road drops over a ridge into a bowl of orange mud and blowing steam; coming from Akureyri you cross an hour and a half of lava before the lake appears.

Two things on a first evening, and both of them are about the ground being alive. Do them in this order, because you will want the second one after the smell of the first.

  1. 15:00

    Námaskarð

    Nature

    A hillside of boiling grey mud pots, hissing fumaroles and ground stained yellow and orange, immediately off Route 1 east of the lake. Keep to the roped paths: the crust between the vents is thin and what is underneath is well over boiling. Twenty minutes is plenty, and your coat will smell of sulphur all evening.

  2. 17:00

    Mývatn Nature Baths

    Nature

    Milky blue mineral water pumped from up to 2,500 metres down, in a pair of open pools on a lava ridge looking west over the lake. Opened in 2004, and a fraction of the price and the crowd of the famous one near the airport. In June there is no need to leave before midnight.

  3. 20:00

    Dinner at Reykjahlid

    Eat

    The choice around the lake is small and closes early out of season. The geothermal rye bread, baked in the ground and served with butter and smoked trout, is the thing to order.

With more time: The fissure just up the road, a cave with hot water in the bottom, is famous from a television series and no longer safe to bathe in since the ground heated up, but it costs nothing to look into. Sunset over the lake from the western shore is the other free option and in midsummer it lasts for hours.

Day 2 in Mývatn

Dettifoss, the canyon at Asbyrgi and the lava forts

North today, up the Jokulsa river, which drains off Vatnajokull and has spent ten thousand years cutting a canyon through the lava. Two of the results are an hour apart on the same road.

Leave early: it is 40 minutes to the falls and the light on the canyon at Asbyrgi is best in the middle of the day, when it reaches the floor. Back at the lake by late afternoon there is still time for the lava field on the eastern shore.

  1. 09:15

    Dettifoss

    Nature

    Usually called the most powerful waterfall in Europe: 44 metres down, 100 metres across, and grey with the silt the glacier is grinding upstream. Use the western approach on road 862, which is paved and has the better view. The spray soaks the rock and the rock is slippery, so stay behind the ropes.

  2. 12:30

    Ásbyrgi

    Other

    A horseshoe of cliffs 100 metres high enclosing a wooded floor, which Norse legend explains as the hoofprint of Odin's eight-legged horse and geology explains as catastrophic floods from under the ice cap. Easy paths run to a pond at the closed end and to a viewpoint on the rim.

  3. 15:00

    Lunch at Asbyrgi

    Eat

    The visitor centre at the mouth of the canyon has the only food between the falls and Husavik, and it shuts out of season.

  4. 17:00

    Dimmuborgir

    Other

    Dark forts, which is what the name means: a lava field of arches, pillars and collapsed tubes on the eastern shore of the lake, left by a flow about 2,000 years ago. Marked loops run from twenty minutes to an hour, and the short one takes in most of the strange shapes.

With more time: Two easier walks sit within five minutes of the lake road: the pseudocraters on the south shore are a flat half hour loop, and the tephra crater above the eastern shore is a steep gravel climb of about half an hour to a rim you can walk right round.

Day 3 in Akureyri

Godafoss, then Akureyri

A short drive west, 100 km with one famous stop in the middle, and an afternoon in the first town with a high street since you landed.

Akureyri sits at the head of a 60 km fjord with mountains on both sides. The old centre is a few streets above the harbour and the whole of it is walkable, which after two days of car parks is the appeal.

  1. 10:00

    Goðafoss

    Nature

    A wide horseshoe of falls on the Skjalfandafljot, right beside the ring road, with paths to viewpoints on both banks and a footbridge between them. The name means waterfall of the gods, from the story that the lawspeaker who declared Iceland Christian around the year 1000 threw his pagan carvings in on the way home.

  2. 14:30

    Akureyrarkirkja

    Religious

    The town church, up a long flight of steps above the centre and finished in 1940 by the architect who did the one on the hill in Reykjavik. Basalt shapes on the outside, a ship hanging from the ceiling inside, and usually nobody else in it.

  3. 16:00

    Akureyri Swimming Pool

    Visit

    One of the best town pools in the country: two outdoor pools, a row of hot tubs at rising temperatures, three slides and a view down the fjord. A few euros, and the shower before you get in is compulsory and unclothed.

With more time: The evening is the one on this trip with a choice: fish restaurants above the harbour, an Icelandic craft brewery with a lounge in town, and an ice cream shop on the hill that has a queue out of the door whenever it is not raining.

Day 4 in Akureyri

Out into Skjalfandi bay from Husavik

An hour north over the heath to a small harbour town that has built itself entirely around whales. Book the morning sailing: the bay is usually flattest before noon and it leaves the afternoon for the town.

Skjalfandi is deep, cold and fed by a glacial river, which is why the feed is there and why the whales are. Sightings in summer are close to reliable, and the operators will normally give you another trip free if you draw a blank.

  1. 09:00

    North Sailing

    Visit

    One of the two long established operators on the harbour, sailing restored oak schooners rather than inflatables, which is slower and much more pleasant. Three hours out into the bay after humpbacks, minke and dolphins, with overalls handed out at the gangway. Book ahead in July.

  2. 13:00

    Lunch on the harbour

    Eat

    The restaurants along the quay do fish soup and the day's catch, and they are five minutes from where the boat ties up.

  3. 14:15

    Húsavík Whale Museum

    Culture

    A serious museum in an old slaughterhouse by the water, with full skeletons of nine species hung from the roof, including a blue whale. Go after the boat rather than before: it explains everything you have just watched from a distance.

  4. 16:00

    Húsavíkurkirkja

    Religious

    The wooden church above the harbour, built in 1907 and the most photographed building in town, cruciform, white and green, with a painted altarpiece. Ten minutes, and it is usually open.

With more time: Husavik's sea baths sit on a clifftop north of the harbour, geothermal seawater with the bay in front of them, and they are the obvious way to finish a cold morning on a boat. The exploration museum in town, about the astronauts who trained in the lava fields here before going to the moon, is a genuinely odd hour.

Day 5 in Akureyri

The garden above the town, then out

The airport is five minutes from the centre and the ring road starts at the end of the street, so the last morning is whatever you want it to be.

The garden is the right choice. It has been planted since 1912 and holds most of the native Icelandic flora alongside a few thousand foreign species that ought not to survive at this latitude and do.

  1. 09:30

    Akureyri Botanical Garden

    Nature

    A botanical garden a short walk uphill from the centre, free to enter, laid out in 1912 and now among the most northerly in the world. Native plants on one side, a surprising collection of imports on the other, and a cafe. An hour, longer if the sun is out.

  2. 11:00

    Coffee before the flight

    Eat

    Cinnamon buns and a refillable filter coffee is the local habit, and the cafes on the pedestrian street open at eight.

With more time: With longer, the art museum in the centre and the industrial museum a little way out both take an hour, and the medieval trading site 11 km north of town is a field with information boards that comes alive for one weekend of reenactments in July.

Before you go

Getting here

Akureyri has an airport with several flights a day from Reykjavik, about 45 minutes, and a growing handful of seasonal services from Europe. Flying in and hiring at the airport turns a five hour drive each way into nothing.

By road it is 388 km up Route 1 from Reykjavik, about five hours, or the other half of the ring if you are already going round. Buses connect Akureyri, Husavik and the lake, but they run once or twice a day and stop nowhere useful in between.

Almost everything here is on paved road. The one exception worth knowing is the eastern approach to Dettifoss, which is gravel; the western side, on road 862, is sealed and is the better viewpoint anyway.

The midges, honestly

Myvatn means midge lake and the name is earned. From late May to early August, still evenings near the water bring swarms thick enough to walk into.

They do not bite, which helps less than you would think, because they go for eyes, ears and mouths. A head net costs a few euros in any shop around the lake and is the difference between an evening walk and a retreat to the car.

Wind clears them completely, so the days you would otherwise complain about are the good ones.

Whale watching from Husavik

The season runs roughly April to October and peaks from June to August, when humpbacks feed in Skjalfandi bay in numbers that make sightings close to routine. Minke, white beaked dolphins and harbour porpoise are common; blue whales turn up occasionally and are the ones the crews get excited about.

Tours run two to three hours and the boats hand out overalls, because it is cold out there whatever it is doing on shore. Take a hat, seasickness tablets if you are prone, and book a morning sailing, when the water is usually flattest.

Akureyri also has boats going out into its own fjord, which is a shorter drive and a lower hit rate. If whales are the reason you came north, drive the extra hour.

When to come

June to August is the obvious answer: the whale season, the birds on the lake, roads open and light almost round the clock. Midges are the price.

September and October give you aurora and empty car parks with most things still running. Winter here is a genuinely different trip: Akureyri is Iceland's ski town, the lake freezes, and the road to Dettifoss shuts.

The thing that stays with people about the north is the emptiness. Between the lake and the canyon you can drive for half an hour and see one other car, on a road with steam coming out of the ground beside it.

If you have a sixth day, spend it going further east to Seydisfjordur, or west along the Trollaskagi peninsula, where the road tunnels between fishing villages that see almost nobody.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is north Iceland worth a separate trip from the south coast?
Yes, and it is the better half for anybody who has already done the waterfalls. The geology is more varied, the crowds are a fraction of the size, and Husavik does whale watching better than anywhere else in the country. Flying to Akureyri makes it a five day trip rather than a nine day one.
Do I need a car?
Yes. Buses connect the towns but nothing stops at a canyon, a crater or a lava field, and the road to Dettifoss has no service at all. Hire at Akureyri airport and the whole loop is on paved road.
How bad are the midges at Myvatn?
Bad on still, warm days from late May to early August, and absent when there is any wind. They do not bite. A head net from any shop around the lake solves it entirely and everybody wears one, so nobody is looking.
Will I definitely see whales at Husavik?
Nothing is guaranteed, but in high summer the operators report sightings on the large majority of sailings, and most will offer you a second trip free if you see nothing. Humpbacks are the usual, minke and dolphins are common, blue whales are the rare prize.
Can I do this in winter?
Partly. Akureyri is Iceland's ski town and the lake in the snow is remarkable, but the road to Dettifoss closes, Asbyrgi is often unreachable, and the whale boats stop. If aurora and skiing are what you want, come in February and drop the canyon day.
Can I rearrange the days?
Copy it into JourneyComposer and the five days arrive as an editable plan with the drives already drawn, so swapping the whale trip for a second day at the lake takes a moment.