You can drive to the edge of an Icelandic glacier on your own and walk to its snout for the price of parking. What you cannot do safely is step onto it without a guide. So the real choice is how you reach the guide: on a coach from Reykjavík, or in your own car to the meeting point. This guide weighs the two, and says when Iceland glacier guided tours are the better buy and when your own wheels are.
Nothing stops you physically, and that is the problem. The ice is crevassed, and the national park measures the deepest crevasses at over 30 metres. Many are hidden under snow until late summer. Meltwater carves moulins, shafts that can reach the bed of the glacier.
A guide reads that surface every day and carries the rope, the axe and the knowledge of where the ice changed last week. The park’s own advice is the short answer below, and every tour we list includes the guide and the gear.
On its page for the glacier above Skaftafell, the park tells visitors to use appropriate safety gear and to go with a guide who has experience with glacier walks. The operators it contracts must use guides with recognised glacier training, and the park sets rules for how many guests each guide may take.
That is advice, not a fence. It is also the whole reason the tours exist.
More than people expect. At Skaftafell, the S1 trail is a 4.1 km loop to the snout of Skaftafellsjökull, easy, one to one and a half hours. The S2 loop to Svartifoss is 5.8 km, about two hours. At the lagoon, trail B1 climbs to a viewpoint in fifteen minutes and B2 walks the black beach in forty.
All of that costs only the regional fee, 1,110 ISK for a car. You will see the ice, the crevasses at the snout and the icebergs. You will not stand on the glacier. Our things to do near the glaciers page lists every trail.
Three, and the table sets them side by side. The figures are per person.
| Way in | Fare | Your driving | Tour length | Flexibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coach day from Reykjavík | $194 to $197 | None | About twelve hours, three of them hiking | Fixed stops and times |
| Drive to Sólheimajökull | $121 | About two hours each way | 4 hours from the car park | Your own start and stops |
| Drive to a Skaftafell base | $96 to $256 | 4.5 to 5 hours from Reykjavík | 3 to 7.5 hours from the base | Your own start and stops |
A tour length is not time on the ice. The clock includes the fitting and the approach, and on the shortest hikes that can be half of it. One traveller on a three-hour hike counted an hour to the base of the ice and an hour back.
The South Coast hiking day collects you from a Reykjavík bus stop in a minibus of 18 at most. It stops at Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss, fits you with crampons at Sólheimajökull for a guided hike, and returns by Reynisfjara. It costs $197 and runs about twelve hours.
What you gain is zero driving and three famous stops on the way. What you give up is control: the coach keeps its timetable, and every stop has a time on it. If one waterfall is the reason you came, you get the same time there as everybody else.
You book a hike that starts at the glacier, drive there, park and check in. At Sólheimajökull, the four-hour hike from the car park costs $121 and caps the group at twelve. At Skaftafell the choice is wider, from the airfield hike at $96 to the long climbing days. Every meeting point is on the glacier tours map.
What you pay on top is the parking. At Skaftafell and the lagoon that is the park’s regional fee. At Sólheimajökull, one traveller found a parking fee at the meeting point that the booking had never mentioned; budget for it. Boot rental is extra on most Tröll hikes at 1,750 ISK a pair.
The gear, first. On the ice you need crampons, and most tours add a harness, a helmet and an ice axe. Several operators make ankle-support boots mandatory and rent them at the base, and Arctic Adventures’ crampons fit EU 35 to 50 only. None of that is sold for a walk on your own.
Then the approach. The Arctic Adventures and Local Guide hikes carry you from the base to the foot of the ice in a 4x4, over tracks a hire car cannot use. And finally a guide who knows where the ice changed this week, which is the one thing no map can give you. On the longer days that means moulins and crevasse fields you would never reach from a car park trail.
For one person, the coach day and a self-drive hike cost about the same once you add the car. For two or more, driving wins: the hike fare is per person, but the car hire, the fuel and the parking are shared. The coach is the better buy for a solo traveller without a licence or a car.
The self-drive sums also buy you the rest of the day. After a morning hike you still have the afternoon for the coast stops at your own pace, or for the lagoon if you are in the south-east. Our prices guide works through budgets for two.
This is where the listings mislead without meaning to. A tour length is door to door. One traveller on the four-hour hike from the car park noted that the time includes the setup and the walk to the glacier, and suggested a longer tour for more ice.
The coach day is clearer than most: its listing gives about three hours of hiking on Sólheimajökull. The shortest Vatnajökull hikes give you less, and the five-hour Explorer and the seven-and-a-half-hour climbing day give you far more.
It can be. The park says the Route 1 areas stay accessible in winter, weather and road conditions permitting, and advises crampons and winter tyres. One traveller drove from Reykjavík to Sólheimajökull in October through record snowfall and still made the meeting time; another reminds you the Skaftafell bases are four to five hours from Reykjavík.
If you have never driven on snow and ice, the coach removes the risk you cannot control. Check road conditions each morning, and keep a spare day. The month-by-month weather shows how much rain and wind each month brings.
Take the coach if you have no car or no licence, if you are travelling alone, if you are only in Reykjavík for a few days, or if winter roads worry you. It also suits a first trip, when three famous stops in one day are worth the fixed timetable.
Drive if you are two or more, if you are doing the ring road anyway, or if you want Vatnajökull. The hikes there do not include a transfer from Reykjavík, so a car is the only way to reach them for a morning start. Drive, too, if you want to choose your hike by length rather than take the one the coach includes.
Twelve hours from a Reykjavík bus stop in a minibus of 18 at most, with a guided hike on the ice between two waterfalls and a black beach; from age 8.
From $197 per person
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Four hours from the glacier car park with a certified guide and crampons, helmet, harness and ice axe, twelve at most; from age 8.
From $121 per person
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Three hours from the operator's base in Öræfi with a certified guide, a helmet, a harness and an ice axe, and coffee and chocolates when you come off the ice.
From $112 per person
Check AvailabilityNext: See how the three glaciers compare in which glacier fits your trip, or plan a ring-road day in the one-day itinerary. Every fare sits side by side on Iceland Glacier Tours.