The Golden Circle, explained

I guided this loop for six seasons, out of BSÍ and the Höfðatorg bus stops, and I still drive it more weeks than not. The question I got asked most on the coach was never about geology. It was some version of: did I need to book this at all? Here is the honest answer.

It is a route, not a place

There is no gate marked Golden Circle, no ticket office, no boundary on a map. The name covers a driving loop east of Reykjavík that strings together three sights of completely different kinds: a rift valley, a geothermal field and a waterfall. Drive to those three and back with no detours and you cover about 230 km; add Kerið and the Route 35 leg south past Selfoss and it is nearer 300. Route 1 out of the city, 36 to Þingvellir, 365 and 37 across to Laugarvatn and Geysir, then 35 up to Gullfoss and back down. All paved.

Þingvellir, where the ground is coming apart

Þingvellir sits about 45 km northeast of Reykjavík, roughly an hour by road, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart a few centimetres a year. Almannagjá is the largest fissure, and you walk down it on a boardwalk; the Öxará river drops into the same canyon at Öxarárfoss. The Alþingi met on this ground from 930 until its last session here in 1798. National park since 1930, UNESCO World Heritage since 2004. Forty-five minutes covers the canyon and the view over Þingvallavatn, Iceland’s largest natural lake. It does not also cover Silfra.

Geysir, and the one that actually goes off

Haukadalur is the geothermal field 61 km on. The Great Geysir gave the world the word geyser and has been mostly dormant for decades. The one that performs is Strokkur, 50 m to the south: every 6 to 10 minutes, usually 15 to 20 metres, occasionally higher. It was blocked around 1900 and has erupted regularly since locals cleared its conduit in 1963. Stand upwind of it. The café, shop and toilets are across the road, which is why most tours park here for an hour or more and call part of it lunch.

Gullfoss, in two drops

Ten minutes further and the Hvítá, fed by a glacier, falls 11 metres, turns, falls another 21, and disappears into a crevice 32 metres deep. Average flow is 141 cubic metres a second in summer and 80 in winter, and you feel the difference in the spray. Sigríður Tómasdóttir, daughter of one of the owners, is credited with stopping a hydroelectric scheme here in the early twentieth century; it has been a permanent conservation site since 1979. The upper car park by the café is the flat one. The lower path to the water is stairs, and in February it is stairs with ice on them.

All of it is free, so what is a tour for?

None of those three charges admission. Driving yourself, you pay a per-car parking fee at Þingvellir, valid all day across P1, P2 and P5; another at Geysir through the Parka app; and a small per-person entry fee at Kerið, which is private land. That is the entire entry cost of the Golden Circle, set out at is the Golden Circle free. So a tour is not selling you access. It sells the driving, 230 to 300 km of it in whatever weather turns up; the timing, which is the only reason an afternoon departure exists; the commentary, meaning someone who can explain a rift valley while you stand in one; and the add-ons that need a booking anyway, a lagoon slot or an hour on a glacier.

Coach, minibus or your own car

The cheapest tours use full-size coaches working to fixed photo-stop timings. The guides on them are usually excellent, but a full coach takes ten minutes to empty and ten to reload, and you will be behind two other coaches at the Strokkur railing. A bus capped at 19 loads faster, and the guide has room for an unscheduled stop at a farm for ice cream or horses, which is the thing reviewers remember months later: small-group tours. A rental car beats both if there are three or four of you, it is summer, and nobody minds driving. It stops beating them in winter, when the daylight is short and Route 35 can be ice — the sums are at tour vs self-drive.

Timing the day

The coach wave reaches Þingvellir mid-morning and Geysir around midday. To get in front of it, leave Reykjavík between 07:00 and 08:00; to get behind it, go after 19:00 in summer. Most day tours depart 08:00 to 10:00 or 12:00 to 14:00, and the afternoon ones exist precisely because the first group is heading home as you arrive — more at what time to leave. One note nobody puts in a brochure: coaches have no toilet. There are toilets at the Þingvellir visitor centre, the Geysir Centre, the Gullfoss café, the Kerið kiosk and the Hveragerði stop, and they do run out of paper. Carry tissues.

When I would skip it

If this is your first week in Iceland, do not. Three kinds of ground in one day, an hour from the capital, on paved road, has no real equivalent here. If you have driven it before, or you have ten days, a car and the south coast in front of you, spend the day elsewhere and let the loop wait. The longer argument is at is the Golden Circle worth it, and the cold-season version at the loop in winter. Otherwise: pick a rung, book it while it cancels free, and dress as though it will rain, because at some point in the day it will.

Ready to book?

If you only want the safe choice, the full-day coach with Kerið is the one most people take — check dates below, or read my review of it and what each price rung buys first.

Frequently asked questions