Iceland - Itinerary Help with Teens/Tweens
 

We will be in Iceland next August. We arrive from DC early Saturday morning and depart on Wednesday afternoon. We are staying in Reykjavik the entire time as we prefer not to move hotels and we are using hotel points for 2 rooms at the Radisson Blu Saga. We will rent a car.

Kids (boys) will be 11, 12, 15. We are not museum people, and prefer active adventure activities and seeing things at our own pace. We try to avoid group sightseeing tours.

We will likely spend Saturday in Reykjavik as I anticipate we will be very tired from overnight flight and don't want to plan anything too ambitious. This gives us Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday full days. From reading guidebook and looking around online, we definitely will want to experience Golden Circle for sightseeing. Activities that look appealing are river rafting or riverjet, dog sledding or snowmobiling on glacier, horse riding. I am also intrigued by going into the volcano at Prihnvkagigur (insidethevolcano.com), but can't decide if it is a lot of effort for something not that spectacular. Any insights would be appreciated. We plan to do these activities as day trips, since we will be sleeping in Reykjavik each night. If anyone has any experience with any of these activities, I would love to hear about it, including best places to do them (such as the horse riding). Also, if you have rafted, is it freezing cold?

We are in the very early stages of planning, so I am open to any and all suggestions. If there are any unique activities I may have overlooked, please let me know. Fodors forums have really helped us with many trips in the past!

Hi!

First thing let me say congratulations..you and your family will love Iceland, and I hope the weather is good.

As for the activities you have mentioned, I recommend the river rafting and the snowmobiling the most - I went river rafting in the north and it was great, you wear a drysuit over your normal clothes so you are protected from the cold and the wet.

You only have three full days so the Golden Circle, RIver rafting..you only have 1 day. The volcano trip looks great but I haven´t done it myself so can´t comment. The days are still quite long in early August, so maybe consider doing the Golden Circle on your way to or back from Snowmobiling? Langjökull glacier is a little further north from Geysir and Gullfoss.

Maybe check out Landmannalaugar? An amazing geothermal area not far from Reykjavik. You could drive yourself in a 4WD, or meet the tour company in the nearby town of Selfoss (or go from Reykjavik - but if you have a hire car anyway..)

http://www.landmannalaugartours.com/...-selfoss/c1rl9

I wouldn´t bother with the Blue Lagoon...overpriced and overrated..espcially as you are on a tight schedule. Go to one of the many local swimming pools instead.

I check this forum fairly often so feel free to ask more questions!

We have a 3 day stop-over in Iceland next May, we plan to drive to Vik straight from the airport, visit Jokusarlon/Glacier Lagoon and Skaftafell, then head back to Reykjavik the afternoon of Day 2. Day 3 we do the Golden Circle and fly out early morning of Day 4. This will mean changing hotels twice but that's the only way we'll be able to fit in Glacier Lagoon. I too wouldn't spend time at the Blue Lagoon, there are many other pools which are said to be just as nice but cost a fraction of the price!