Hello,
my wife and I are flying to Iceland this June, renting a 4x4 and exploring the Ring Road. So that’s the rough idea and I guess the more typical plan.
But I wonder if anyone has been to Iceland before and has some suggestions and ideas about what to do or visit there.
Always curious about other people’ experiences 
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Let me just ping @Icelander here.
I’ve been in 2011 . we were too early in the year and just drove the ring road. At the time we didn’t book any accommodation ahead of time. lots of waterfalls and we didn’t have the right hiking shoes
My mum goes to Iceland…
(Sorry…)
Went in the early noughties and went on an ice climbing trek on one of the glaciers which was cool.
Ironically, I do not have a lot of suggestions for visiting Iceland. I like my part of Reykjavìk, but actively avoid visiting the countryside. It’s pretty, but I’m not a hiker or outdoorsy type in any way, plus, the rest of the world also has reasons to visit, while being a lot cheaper.
Allegedly, car rental rates are surprisingly reasonable this month, half of what they were last year. I don’t know if 4WD vehicles went down in price as much. Hotel rooms tend toward Mayfair prices, even, or perhaps, especially in little rural towns. It’s generally cheaper to fly to a European city for a weekend trip than it is to go out of the city while staying in Iceland, unless you own a summer house somewhere.
Austur-Indìafjelagið is one of the three best Indian restaurants in Europe, good enough for Indian billionaires to plan European vacations with a view to eating there, and for Hollywood people who got to know it while filming to occasionally fly in for a meal. Granted, I am not an unbiased source here, as my grandparents took me there for the first time within a month of the opening over three decades ago, and now I am technically their lawyer.
I have no suggestions for good restaurants outside Reykjavík. There are some, but my strong preference for the Westside of Reykjavík means I just don’t know them. There was a decent Ethiopian place near my father’s summer house at Flúðir, but that was ten years ago, odds are it’s no longer there. Average restaurant lasts about three years, so for every one which lasts over three decades, a lot fold quickly.
Blue Lagoon is expensive, but more authentic than all the artificial lagoons, warm baths and spas which are all the rage now. Those are more like expensive themed swimming pools. Good if you want that, but not actually the same thing as natural baths.
Icelandic swimming pools are cheaper and an actual part of Icelandic culture. I like to pick one with saunas, but not every good swimming pool has one, and the saunas, for all that they are nice, are a foreign import. Hot tubs are where strangers will discuss current events, like Facebook where everyone is half-naked, but the discourse is slightly more elevated. A bonus element is that the ministers and CEOs from the headlines generally turn up in the hot tubs as well, so it’s harder for people to believe in lizard people and conspiracies behind everything.
I don’t know what kind of experiences you are after, but if you ask targeted questions, maybe I’ll randomly know it. I can also find out. As disinterested as I am in travelling outside Reykjavík, my father is an investor in a hotel and various hospitality businesses, and I know some people in the field of automobiles and guided tours.
It is pretty cool, though when I did it, I broke a foot crossing an icy river and had to walk back to civilization. Well, I had a guy supporting me and a hiking boot around the foot which kept it mostly together, or I’d probably not have made it. Maybe that would have been cooler. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I’d be unlikely to get a better excuse for a free helicopter ride.
Thanks to you for all the information!
Good restaurants in Reykjavik is a good start for sure. We really like Indian food, so that’s a great idea!
We are 3-4 nights in Reykjavik. We like museums (especially history) and nature. I never been whale watching, maybe that’s something to do there.
We like swimming, so all the pools look great to us. My wife doesn’t like the sauna, so just pools. Do I understand it correctly that all these pools are naturally hot water tubs?
Outside of Reykjavik on the Ring Road we would love to see as much of the different landscapes Iceland has to offer. We like going for walks and hikes but my wife hates climbing hills. So nothing too strenuous. I haven’t done much research into this, focused more on Reykjavik itself for the moment.
The f-roads are almost all closed, some could be open, which are the “easiest” ones without river crossings. Good anyways, I am not really interested in crossing a river.
Booked the flight, the car and the hotels in Reykjavik. Everything else is in the air. Do we book spontaneously every night when we are on the road or do we book maybe 2-3 places to work our schedule around? No idea yet.
Well, the water is heated geothermally, but the pools, as opposed to the Blue Lagoon and a few other natural baths, don’t have water full of actual minerals, like what wells up from hot springs. Just clean water with a bit of chlorine.
Þjóðminjasafnið, or the National Museum of Iceland, has some pretty good artefacts, but not the space to show more than a fraction at a time. Sometimes they have a great exhibition, other times, there is not a lot of cool stuff on display.
Icelandic Phallological Museum is interesting and odd.
Very interesting. Is there a natural bath located near the Ring Road?
I heard of the Phallus museum, not sure what to think of it. Very unique for sure though! Do you know the Perlan - Wonders of Iceland Museum?
Perlan is a pretty striking building and I’ve seen some art shows there, but don’t know what they are showing now.
I’m not sure whether there is a way to set this webpage to English, but it has a map which should be pretty clear, of natural hot springs all around Iceland.
Thanks! Firefox has a translate function which works well enough.
I am also interested in looking at (and maybe buying) authentic Icelandic wool products. I heard the Icelandic Handknitting Association is the place to go for that.
That sounds right, though I actually haven’t ever bought a hand-knitted garment. All I’ve owned were knit by my grandmothers, one or two by my mother.
Well I don’t have an Icelandic grandmother to knit my clothes, so I have to look for alternatives 
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