Picking and choosing the tours to put your time and money towards while traveling to another country is a tricky thing. It is a science, with formulas to weigh the pros and against the cons, to anticipate whether it will be worth the price or whether it is easy to do solo, and whether being smashed into a bus with a thousand eager tourists is really the way you want to spend an afternoon.
I actually found the choice surprisingly difficult; after booking my flight to Iceland — my first abroad trip solo — I was presented with several different options for excursions outside of the city of Reykjavik, all for an extra cost and all incredibly enticing in their own right. Oo la la, Iceland, you sexy little minx. But which to choose?
Welp, I’m not going to tell you that, on my very first go around in planning a solo trip, I was highly masterful in selecting all the right excursions. I was actually atrocious. I did a terrible job. I picked something that was incredibly easy to do on my own, and would have been much faster driving myself in the car that I had already rented and paid for. I certainly could have avoided the 90 minutes of the five hours of daylight wasted perusing a gift shop as I waited for the bus to leave for the next site, knowing there was no way in hell I was going to spend a dime on an over-priced, touristy gift.
The Golden Circle Tour, operated by Reykjavik Excursions, a company based out of Reykjavik offering a variety of excursions across the entire country, was good for what it was. Someone who is uncomfortable driving themselves or is more interested in Icelandic history than anything would enjoy this tour. My two cents are just coming from the perspective of a solo traveler who prefers to do things at my own pace and doesn’t like to waste a moment of a limited time, and would have a hard time recommending it to someone in my situation.
Here is a little bit more about my experience with this excursion, what I liked, and what I didn’t, to give you some perspective of your own if you are thinking about booking Reykjavik Excursions’ most popular day trip.
Tour Day
I rolled over in my hostel bed and blinked as the light beams of the early morning streamed through the windows (lmao just kidding. It was eight o’clock and pitch black outside, and remained pitch black for hours after that. Winter in Iceland, am I right?). A sweet Irish girl I met in the hostel and I had to get up early and meet a small bus outside of the hostel a little after 8, where we were promptly taken to the Reykjavik Excursions headquarters and transferred to a large coach bus. There were about a dozen all lined up with signs in the windows indicating which tour each one was accommodating and the language in which the tour guide would be communicating. I climbed aboard, sat down, and prepared myself as rain started to wash over the parking lot.
Our bus was waiting on a party of six, who all wanted to be together, to somehow get their shit together and consolidate onto one bus. It took about 30 minutes of just sitting in the parking lot while the remaining buses sped away, happily off on their excursions, before we finally got on the road. It was well past 9 o’clock at this point, and I sat biting my nails and fuming over the fact that I would already be at my first Golden Circle destination by now had I just taken my teeny rental Kia Picanto.
Our first stop was Friðheimar, a family-owned farm in Reykholt where they grow lots and lots of tomatoes and have a little mini restaurant offering Bloody Mary’s and tomato soup as a chance to sample their delicious product. We all packed like sardines in to one of the greenhouses as a woman who worked there stood at the front and spoke to us a bit about the farm: the growing process, the history of the Friðheimar, and how they import bumble bees from Holland to pollinate their flowers (but only female bumble bees, because apparently the males are lazy little bastards).
Despite hating tomatoes and still harboring incredibly traumatic childhood memories involving being forced to eat ketchup with my lunch in preschool, I decided WHAT THE HELL and I ordered a cup of soup. AND SWEET JESUS was it tasty.
We decided to meet at 10:15 to continue along the tour, so I slurped down my tomato soup and went to pee and took some pictures and arrived back at the bus at 10:13 to literally 50 impatient faces judging me silently as I blundered awkwardly down the aisle to my seat. So apparently timeliness is only of utmost importance sometimes.
Next we arrived at Geysir, a geyser that is barely active anymore, but which happens to be right next to Strokkur, which IS, erupting staggeringly every 5-10 minutes. By now it was very clear what kind of day it was going to be, and it was a day without sun or light but with plenty of gray tones and frigid winds and icy cold precipitation. It was very cool to see the geyser go off, almost surreal, but unfortunately photos of the event do not do it justice on this particular doom and gloom winter day.
Once we were satisfied with our geothermal geyser experience and/or were starting to freeze to death, we had 90 minutes to go into the tourist center and eat lunch at the cafeteria there, then shop in the gift shop. I HATE shopping and was full from the soup that I had eaten 30 seconds ago, so I just got a coffee and sat with an American actor and Scottish sailor and chatted for a while before making my way unhurriedly to the restroom, taking an overly long time looking at myself in the mirror, and staring longingly at the warm wool mittens on display that were $60 and not in my price range.
Next up: Gullfoss! One of Iceland’s most famous waterfalls, probably owing to the fact that it is on one of Iceland’s most famous tourist attractions. The rain was really fuxking coming down in droves at this point, and the mist of the waterfall was viciously cold, but hellooo, I am in Iceland standing beside a massive and seemingly unreal Icelandic waterfall, so who am I to complain? Thank the lord for those waterproof pants I bought right before the trip because they saved my life; there was water inside my bra when I went into the bathroom which means it somehow soaked through my coat and my two layers underneath to get there. Note to self: when the forecast says rain and you’re going to be visiting a massive waterfall, maybe wear a raincoat? Just a thought??
Our final stop and maybe my favorite was Thingvellir National Park, a World Heritage Site where the North American and European tectonic plates collide, allowing you to walk right in between the two continents. I cannot even imagine what it would be like in the daylight with the sun flooding over the land. We had just enough time to walk to the top of the walking path, which I know practically was okay, as my fingers were close to dropping dead and I was so wet I could barely move and the sun was almost completely set, but impractically made me pouty because this is the type of place you could spend hours exploring. Hours!
The most important lesson I learned from this experience is that Iceland weather is unpredictable and can leave you with some pretty shit days.
Don’t let the weather, which is out of your control, deter you from your plans.
Suck it up and venture onwards anyway. I had mostly awful weather my entire stay in Iceland. But even in the misery, it was worth seeing this beautiful country.
Organization
I really hate being a bitch and ragging on organizations that have accomplished more than I probably ever will, so it is with heavy heart and great hesitation that I say I was not entirely impressed with the organization of this trip.
I had high hopes, as the van picked us up right at the hostel right on time, but was a little bummed when, although I had brought my voucher printed out to prove my purchase, I had to get off the bus, go inside, wait in line, and have them print a separate ticket in order to be allowed back on the bus (and then I was separated from my new Irish friend, as her bus had filled up). The beautiful red-headed man behind the counter who handed me my ticket helped me to deal with the inconvenience a little bit better, but not completely.
Despite the long wait in the parking lot in the beginning, which was a fluke, I was looking forward to a well-timed tour, but I do feel like there was way too much time at certain places and not enough time at others (ahem, Thingvellir, ahem). The time distribution was a bit off. Trying to get me to buy pricey trinkets at every stop was also not my favorite use of daylight, but I do realize that it is their job to allow for souvenir foraging, and that lots of people did take advantage of that time to shop. So really just a matter of preference.
Most people were dropped off at their hotels directly from the coach, but because I was at a smaller hostel about a mile from the heart of downtown, I was taken back to Reykjavik Excursions and they had someone bring me back from there. They were very accommodating and made sure I didn’t have to wait too long, which I appreciated.
Tour Guide & Historical Content
Tour guides and learning about the history of other countries is actually my one main motivation to ever do tours, ever (except, of course, when you are literally prohibited from seeing something without a tour, and then fine, I will oblige). This perk was far and away my favorite part of this tour, like most others. The tour guide was kind, knowledgable, and seemed to enjoy her job.
One of the most interesting tidbits our guide shared was a story about an Icelandic congressman who crashed his car on the side of the road along the Golden Circle and, beyond expectation, survived. He believed that he owed his life to the Huldufólk, the hidden elf-like people that live in the rocks. Though it sounds far-fetched, over half of the population of Iceland believe that these Huldufólk actually exist, and that they are so powerful that they are able to disrupt road construction in order to keep their lands safe. Eventually, the rock of the Huldufólk that saved the congressman was going to be demolished for more construction, but the congressman decided to repay his saviors by bringing the rock to the Western Fjords, where it remains intact and still houses its little hidden family. Are you kidding me? That is honestly fascinating. I pulled out my phone and typed that story into my Notes app because I found it just that fascinating.
Overall Experience
So now that I’ve spent 3000 words complaining like a bitch, I can wrap it all up for you simply. Overall, I would probably only recommend this tour to certain kinds of travelers: families, those who cannot or are not willing to drive, and travelers that have a lengthy stay in Iceland and can afford a few longer and more leisurely stops and can return to a place if they want more time. Personally I was like a child in a candy store in Iceland and was running around in awe of everything, trying to see as much as I could possibly in a short time, definitely not choosing to spend my time perusing gift shops that pedal solely to tourists.
I had also already rented a car, which just sat lonely and unused in the hostel parking lot for an entire day (an entire day that was already paid for), so that seemed like a waste of resources as well. The tour was $80, which would have easily covered the gas needed for the trip and more (drive time is only about 3 hours and 230 kilometers total). I think that more just comes down to my bad planning rather than anything this tour could have done differently.
However, I loved learning about some of the history of Iceland, how their government and economy works, and how they utilize their natural environment to farm year round. These are things I may not have known otherwise, at least not first-hand from a local.
The bottom line: if you’re planning on going to Iceland, seeing as much as you can, and are renting a car (which is basically a necessity in this gorg country), I would say save the $80, map out this route, and enjoy the famous Golden Circle on your own terms.
Then, if you ask a guy at the bar to explain rock people to you, you can have the very best of both worlds.
