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Iceland

Reykjavik

South Iceland

Basecamp for the wild

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About Reykjavik

Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital and barely a city at all-a low, colourful huddle of houses under an enormous sky.

A concrete church towers over streets of corrugated-iron homes painted in defiant brights, and the air carries a faint hint of sea and sulphur. Really it's a basecamp: the Golden Circle, the Blue Lagoon and a landscape of volcanoes and waterfalls all start just beyond the ring road.

Icelanders are dryly funny and outdoorsy by necessity, and in summer the sun never quite sets.

Eat lamb soup and a notorious hot dog, then soak in a geothermal pool with the locals.

Get to Reykjavik

Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.

Day trips from Reykjavik

  • Half day

    Þingvellir

    ~45 min car

    A rift valley where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart in visible cliffs and fissures — and where the world's oldest parliament met from the year 930. Snorkel the glass-clear Silfra crack between continents.

  • Half day

    Blue Lagoon

    ~50 min carbus

    The milky-blue geothermal lagoon in a black lava field: silica mud, a swim-up bar, and steam rising in any weather. Touristy and expensive — and still worth one soak. Book ahead.

  • Day trip

    Geysir & Gullfoss

    ~1.5 h car

    The Golden Circle's double act: Strokkur erupting a 20-metre column of water every few minutes beside the original Geysir, and ten minutes on, the two-tier cascade of Gullfoss thundering into its canyon.

  • Day trip

    Seljalandsfoss & Skógafoss

    ~1 h 45 min car

    The south coast's twin waterfalls: one you can walk behind into a glowing cave of spray, the other a 60-metre curtain with a staircase beside it for the view down the coast.

  • Day trip

    Snæfellsnes & Kirkjufell

    ~2 h car

    A peninsula nicknamed 'Iceland in miniature': lava fields, golden and black beaches, the glacier-capped volcano from Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Kirkjufell — the country's most photographed mountain.

  • Long day

    Reynisfjara

    ~2.5 h car

    The black-sand beach by Vík: hexagonal basalt columns stacked like a giant's organ, sea stacks said to be trolls caught by the sunrise — and sneaker waves you keep a healthy distance from.

About Iceland

Mossy canyons and no trees

Glaciers, lava fields and hot pools in every village. One ring road around the edge, dark winters and the aurora above them.

Explore IcelandRegions, highlights and when to go