Having booked this previously in 2021 but due to covid had to be rescheduled. We rebooked for Feb half term 2022.
We based ourselves near Laugarvatn in the golden circle so that we could drive to the places we wanted to visit, having been before, we decided to find a budget friendly chalet in the hope to see the northern lights and to see some new places. We were travelling as a family but also with my nephew who hadn’t been.
We rented an AirBNB with a hottub, and a car from Budget (pickup was right in the airport).
Here’s our itinerary
Drive from the airport to our chalet
Secret lagoon
Geysir
GulFoss
The Perlan, Reykjavik
Black sands beach (Reynisfjara, vik)
Selkalandsfoss waterfall
Fontana Spa
Lava caves (Raufarholshellir)
Drive home!
Secret lagoon https://secretlagoon.is/
THe secret lagoon was tucked quite away, it was relatively inexpensive, it is in the most part a lake, with stones on the bottom, surrounded by geothermal hot water bubbling around.
Although it was fairly authentic, our children got bored quite quickly and we only stayed about 45 minutes or so. It was quite hot.
Gysir
Gysir is a great place to go visit Strokker erupts every 10-15 minutes, and there’s lots of other activity. crampons are recommended in Feb as the snow melts and turns to ice!
GulFoss
Gulfoss is a giant waterfall, on this trip the wind picked up which made it difficult to see, but its a huge expanse of falling water, so pretty amazing.
Ice caves and northern lights planetarium show at the Perlan, Reykjavik
Reynisfjara Black sands beach. vik
Black sands beach was used on the set of Game of Thrones, and is on the national geographic’s list of top 10 non tropical beaches. It has an amazing contrast with geometric volcanic rock columns which you can explore.
Selkalandsfoss Waterfall
Fontana Spa, Laugarvatn https://www.fontana.is/en
Fontana was geothermal, but had smaller pools of different temperature, it also had a lake which you could wade into which was cold! They have a sauna and two or three steam rooms. They have a shallow pool (suitable for smaller kids), a deeper cooler pool, and two geothermal pools. There was plenty of variety for the children, and they could play in the shallow water, move to the deeper pool.
We went near the end of the day, and stayed for almost 2 hours.
Lava Caves https://thelavatunnel.is/
Þingvellir National Park
On this occasion we didn’t see the northern lights, but none the less we had a great time and saw new things. We mostly ate at home, we ate out about 2-3 times and the food was great.
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