7-Day Luxury Highlights of Iceland Tour

In the shadow of the snowy mountains and draped along the water, Reykjavik is Europe’s most charming capital city. The city feels more like a village with blocks of whitewashed houses with colorful roofs and church spires that seem so insignificant against the height of nature. Touch down in the morning, and it will be a quick transfer to a waterfront hotel. Check in and check out the view, as well as the crisp outside air. Settle in, and then set off on a walk through the city alongside your guide to learn about Icelandic culture as you go.

Stop in a cafe and gaze across the water, or visit a small pub and try Iceland’s beer, while asking the questions you have always wondered about Icelanders. Continue through the city, checking out rows of color-laden houses then the church which is visible from almost all of Reykjavik. It will not take long to walk the entire city, but how long it actually takes depends on how many little pubs and cafes you stop in. End your tour at a traditional restaurant, sampling some of the delicacies you will soon come to love during this tour. As you will be on a private tour, there are many options for customization and your guide will naturally tailor the afternoon to your interests.

Other than the Blue Lagoon, the Golden Circle is Iceland’s most popular highlight. It takes a day to loop around the highlights, and you will gain a great impression of nature’s power. The advantage of a private tour is not only to stop in places others do not, but also to time the tour so to avoid the groups. Most group tours leave at the same time from Reykjavik and visit the same places, so you only need to visit one hour before or after to have these places mostly to yourself, with earlier usually being better. First stop is Thingvellir, where you walk the gap between continents. Then to Haukadalur, where the original geyser spurts wildly but the more impressive Strokkur is just around the corner.

Flumes of water surge skyward every few minutes to spout wildly on a landscape that bubbles with heat and volcanic lava flow. Gullfoss Waterfall is nearby with two tiers that thunder and tumble in the most pristine environment. As with each of the other days, there are some beautiful and remote places to pause on route. The road itself is an attraction, and your guide will know some quiet spots that can be reached with a ten-minute hike.

Continue along the Golden Circle and head to Langjokull, an accessible yet wild glacier that stretches beyond the horizon. Glimpsing it from the edge you can certainly get some good photos, but you must explore to understand what a glacier is about. Zoom across the white on a snowmobile, the wind rushing past your ears are you are tucked into sub-Arctic snowsuits that will be provided. It is cold when you’re traveling at 30 – 40 mph, even if the sun is beating down. Stopping on the glacier and cutting the engine you will find solitude and silence with nothing around you but a blanket of ice. You will spend the night at a boutique wooden hut in the Golden Circle area, cut adrift from civilization, but with all of the necessary creature comforts of course.

Seljalandsfoss tumbles over a green cliff in the middle of nowhere with 40 meters of gushing water dropping into a river below. You will be on foot now and following a carved out section of the cliff-face as you walk behind the chute at the base of the falls. Once again, having a private tour makes all the difference. Standing behind this waterfall is so special when there is only you and your guide without the crowds of tourists waving cameras and phones and generally making noise. Seljalandsfoss is best when you are deafened by the roar of the water and all on your own.

Heading further towards the South Coast you will soon find Skogafoss, 60 meters high and probably the most photographed of all Iceland’s highlights. Mist rises and then floats across the air. Rainbows appear, often many of them in the same vista, usually a 360-degree circle that seems to float on the wind. Hopefully, it will be a sunny day, and you will get the full visual impression, but even if not, Skogafoss is a spectacular sight.

You arrive in the fishing village of Vik for a late lunch. It will be quiet and remote, almost a ghost village now that the harbor has been washed away. The rest of the day will be at your leisure. Within easy walking distance of the hotel you will find a black sand beach that is lapped by crystal clear Atlantic waters, plus the surreal rock formations of Dyrholaey and Reynisdrangar.

The roads will start getting bumpy now as they twist and turn, heading over glacial melt and bubbling rivers. Continuing your private tour, your guide will drive you to Iceland’s far southeastern corner, where nature will take a new turn. Although volcanoes still provide a backdrop, it is the ice that takes over here. Icebergs float around the glacier, glistening turquoise when they hit the light. Some are small, fragments beneath the boat, while others seem to be monsters with shards of ice towering high over the boat you are in. While you can glimpse this landscape from the shore, you really need to be in it to know it.

Boat tours are possible from May to October as the ice has broken up and floats around the lagoon. For other months, you will be greeted by the complete icy jigsaw puzzle with shards reconnecting or showing their cracks. The ice floats, and it goes everywhere, including the black-sand beach. Walking across this sand, it will be easy to see why it is nicknamed Diamond Beach with so many shards sparkling and appearing different from every angle. Visiting Glacier Lagoon is a full day that is almost exclusively in a national park, so while the road is bumpy, it is a stunning journey back to Vik.

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano rumbles beneath your feet, and you can feel the power here as the ground shakes below. The volcano last erupted, famously, in 2010, creating ash clouds that canceled a month of European flights. Today you can appreciate its beauty, the volcano in view as you bump off the trail to visit Gigjokull. Glaciers are found here, shimmering blue and white in a manner distinct to Iceland. There is a canyon hidden from tour group itineraries, where volcanic rock is shrouded in moss, and a walking trail leads to a small waterfall.

You need a four-wheel drive for where you are going today, especially in the afternoon as you splash across rivers, descend jagged cliff faces, rumble over mountain foothills and otherwise explore the nature that the volcano created. It will be all about the journey, and while it can be very bumpy, and at times even uncomfortable, you will be experiencing a very iconic Icelandic experience. Stop wherever you like to take photos and to explore on foot before the road gradually returns to asphalt and you head towards Reykjavik. Back in the capital city, there will be time to recover, rest your legs, and try one of the city’s fine-dining restaurants.

Today you will stop, relax, and gaze up at the snowy mountain. It is time to unwind, and after yesterday’s off-road adventure, today will be spent in a spa. This being Iceland, it will not be your usual spa. A short drive onto the Reykjanes peninsula will bring you to vast lava fields created over many eruptions. A lagoon stretches out as you head into the spa, and you will have a private room for the day to look out on the striking juxtaposition of volcano and ice. Two one-hour spa treatments are included and can be arranged on the day after you have seen the menu and considered your mood. You can also freely explore as wooden walkways head out onto the lagoon, and the distant sight of exploding geysers and mud pools is yours to take in.

A final treat is yours before you go with a helicopter ride over and onto the geothermals. By climbing higher, you can look down into the craters as moss-covered lava fields stretch out and onwards, punctuated by the colors of basalt mountains. Mist and geysers take on a new perspective from your new vantage point, and craters are painted all manner of surreal colors with blues and greens and yellows twisting into each other. This is the landscape that creates Iceland’s renewable power, and you can really sense its strength when viewing it all from above.

Touch down at Hengill geothermal area, a place inaccessible without a helicopter. Unlike some of Iceland’s other sites, there are no safety ropes or boardwalks here. You will find yourself deep in nature as hot springs boil away, mud pots steam and bubble, sheep graze on the moss and circles of colors abound that only volcanoes can create.

You will return to Reykjavik on the helicopter and have time to freshen up at the hotel before transferring to the international airport. Seven days in Iceland will have gone by in a flash, and what an adventure it has been.