The heart of Iceland is without a doubt Reykjavik. For a country with an already small population, the overwhelming majority congregate in the nation’s cultural center. Despite its size, Reykjavik is a surprisingly cosmopolitan and hip cultural hub, chock full of trendy boutiques, design studios, coffee shops and restaurants. Located seaside and on the western coast of the country, this destination is an easy hop from New York and a great jumping off point for more lengthly travels around the entire country via a trip around the Ring Road.

My husband and I made another visit to Reykjavik in July of 2018 on our way in and out of Greenland. I will add a few additional notes to this post to add some updates and depth to our experience in this city.

EXPERIENCE

Interestingly, the primary international airport in Iceland is in Keflavik (KEF), not Reykjavik. This is a town of little interest about 45 minutes away from Reykjavik. I mention this because Keflavik happens to be nearby one of Iceland’s most popular destinations, the Blue Lagoon. These geothermal baths are a tad pricy but worth a visit. We made this our first stop upon landing in the country (well, after a quick nap in the rental car in the parking lot to recover from our red eye.) Arrive with a suit and ready for a unique experience walking and soaking with the locals and tourists alike. 

From here we headed straight for the Golden Circle. This is a small loop of highly concentrated spectacular natural destinations near the city. For folks who only have a short time in Iceland, a day spend visiting these is still a must! We loaded up our rental car, got our bearings with the wacky GPS and started toward our first stop on the Circle, Þingvellir National Park. This park straddles the North American Tectonic Plate and sits on the Continental Divide. Þingvellir is lovely to drive through, be sure to stop near the visitor center to get a lay of the land, the hike here was only mediocre, but impressive as it was early on in the trip. The entire valley of Haukadalur is geothermal active so stops Geyser and Strokkur have a bit of excitement to them. The highlight of the Golden Circle for us was a stop at our first of many major waterfalls, Gullfoss. This falls was totally spectacular! A short hike led us to a breathtaking view point where we stood amazed at the sheer force of the massive quantity of water dropping down this multilayered falls. In the parking lot above I tried by luck at learning stick shift which made for a fun memory, then we were off, me at the wheel. Though the weather turned rainy, we checked out the Kerio Volcano Crater. This was large, deep and filled with water. Not as impressive as craters further along in our trip, but again impressive as an early stop. From here we continued on to stops in Southern Iceland along the Ring Road… (see other post).

We did not return to this portion of the country to check out Reykjavik until the final day of our trip after the entire Icelandic loop. When we arrived we did not have a ton of time and stuck to the basics of urban exploration. We took a stroll down Laugavegur, which is the main drag. This city is notoriously windy, even in August it was quite chilly, but we enjoyed popping into various hip shops and bar hopping for happy hour until deciding on a place for dinner. We also checked out the harbor and took a peak inside one of the city’s most gorgeous architectural creations, the Harpa Concert Hall. While the minimalist style makes it seem hardly worth paying to go up, the exterior of the Hallgrímskirkja Church is quite impressive. From here we strolled along the chilly waterfront, (hoping the clouds would clear for one last glimpse of the mountainous landscape), until arriving at the Sun Voyager sculpture around sunset. We had a great evening in the city, and I’m sure there was plenty we missed, however it felt like the right balance of time for us given our priority was seeing the natural side of this amazing country.

On our 2018 visit, we had some additional time to explore the city. We continue to curse the weather but enjoy the low key vibe of Reykjavik. Tourism has grown considerably in the three years since our last visit and there seems to be many more dining and accommodation options.

STAY

Because of our limited time, we got going on the Ring Road quite quickly and only spent one night in Reykjavik at the tail end of our trip. We spent this time at a makeshift hostel of sorts we discovered on Airbnb. While I cannot recommend this specific accommodation, I can recommend trying to stay as close to the city center as possible. Iceland is expensive as all get out in the summer months, so anything you can do it make the trip possible is helpful- for us this came in terms of eating from the grocery store often and skipping hotels all together.

On our second visit we stayed in two new places in Reykjavik. One of which was a very affordable private hostel type room called the Reykjavik Rental Guesthouse, this place was in a great location. It was nothing fancy, but perfectly suitable for a night or two in town. On our way back through we stayed at the Alda Hotel, which is quite nice and I would highly recommend.

EAT

Hands down our favorite meal of the trip took place in Reykjavik at a wonderful vegetarian joint called Glo. We did happy hour at a variety of places including a place called Meza and the Chuck Norris Saloon (assuming the real Chuck Norris knows nothing of this…) Happy hour highlights include the Viking Ale which seems to be the most reasonable and Einstock, my favorite of the local beers. The Icelandic cuisine features some wild items like pickled shark fin, horse meat sausage and puffin– as previously mentioned we missed most of this by eating picnic style. While in Reykjavik be sure to get any nouveau nordic fantasies our of your system, because other than Hofn you will likely not see many restaurants at all around the rest of the Ring Road. If we had more time, there are several other eateries and coffee shops I would have liked to try. Oh well, things to save for next time!

On our most recent visit we had more nights to explore the very expensive but interesting cuisine of Iceland. We started our time in Reykjavik with a visit back to Glo, our favorite spot from last visit. We then had to stop into a historically prominent location of Prikid for coffee and a warm up. A new favorite find was Valdís for Ice Cream. This makes for an affordable treat between meals. One night we headed to the ward for a famous fish fry at Kaffivagninn for dinner. Another good stop if you’re feeling shell shocked by food prices is the famous Baejarins Beztu Pylsur Hot Dog Stand. One place we tried but could not recommend (for a so-so $36 mini pizza) was Prastarlundur on the Golden Circle though the location and space are really beautiful. As Iceland becomes more and more of a tourist hot spot, I would expect food options to increase. There is tons of fine dining to explore here if you are willing to stomach the price with the meal– we still couldn’t justify it.