At 10:45 a.m. it was still dark. My college roommate Lauren and I sat in a rented Dacia Duster in a gas station lot in Hella, drinking coffee from a thermos and watching a pale blue line slowly grow over the snowfields to the east. “Is that sunrise?” she asked. It was. It would also be sunset in about four and a half hours.
We drove Iceland’s south coast in mid-December with studded tires, a thermos and very low expectations. Friends back home thought we were crazy to go when the days are shortest. The weather can close roads without warning, the wind can rip a car door off its hinges, and you will spend a lot of time driving in the dark. All true. It was also, without exaggeration, one of the most beautiful weeks of my life.
So, was it worth it? Here is the honest version: what winter on the Ring Road gave us, what it took, and how we would do it again.
In this story9 sections
Living on four hours of daylight
In late December, the sun in southern Iceland rises around 11:15 a.m. and sets around 3:30 p.m. The good news is that the light never gets high in the sky, so those few hours are one long, golden sunrise slipping straight into sunset. Every photo looks like it was taken at the magic hour, because it was.
The trick is planning your days around the light rather than the clock. We drove the long stretches in darkness, in the morning and late afternoon, and saved the waterfalls, beaches and walks for the bright middle of the day. That meant early nights, long breakfasts and a lot of evening hot tubs. Nobody complained.
Our five days, east and back
We based ourselves in two places, Hella and the area around Vík, then pushed east to the glacier lagoon. Moving every night in winter is exhausting, and staying put let us adapt when the weather turned.
Itinerary
Our south coast loop
- 5 days
- 14 places
- $675 on the ground
Day 1
Reykjavík to Seljalandsfoss
- Hveragerði
- Seljalandsfoss
- Gljúfrabúi
Picked up the car at Keflavík, drove two hours east in the dark and reached the falls just as the light came up.
Day 2
Skógafoss and the black beaches
- Skógafoss
- Dyrhólaey
- Reynisfjara
Climbed the stairs beside Skógafoss, then watched the waves at Reynisfjara from a very safe distance.
Day 3
Vík to the glacier lagoon
- Fjaðrárgljúfur
- Skaftafell
- Jökulsárlón
The longest drive, about 120 miles each way from Vík. Icebergs in pink light were the highlight of the trip.
Day 4
Ice cave and Diamond Beach
- Vatnajökull ice cave
- Diamond Beach
A guided super-jeep tour into a blue ice cave, then ice chunks glittering on black sand.
Day 5
Back west to Reykjavík
- Vík
- Selfoss
- Reykjavík
A long drive back with a soak at a geothermal pool before dropping the car.
Estimated on-the-ground cost$675
Waterfalls in winter clothes
Seljalandsfoss is the waterfall you can walk behind in summer. In winter the path behind it is usually closed or sheet ice, so we admired it from the front, where the spray had frozen onto every blade of grass into glittering, crunchy armor. Walk five minutes north and you find Gljúfrabúi, a smaller fall hidden in a narrow canyon. We waded in on the stepping stones and got soaked. Bring a dry pair of socks.
Skógafoss, about 20 miles further east, is a broad curtain of water roughly 200 feet (60 m) tall. In the low winter sun, it threw a full rainbow across the river. The metal staircase to the top, about 500 steps, was icy but manageable with the microspikes we had packed, and from the top you can see the river winding toward the sea.
Black sand and a healthy fear of the sea
Reynisfjara, the black sand beach just west of Vík, is famous for its basalt columns and the sea stacks offshore. It is also genuinely dangerous. The so-called sneaker waves surge far up the beach without warning, and people have been swept away and killed here. There is a warning light system at the entrance now; pay attention to it, and keep a long way back from the waterline, even when the sea looks calm. Never turn your back on the ocean.
We watched from near the cave, cold hands wrapped around cameras, as one wave rushed in maybe 50 feet farther than the others. A couple near the water ran, laughing. It wasn’t funny.
The light never got high, so every photo looks like the magic hour. In December, it simply is.
Maya Collins
Ice: the lagoon, the beach and the cave
The drive from Vík to Jökulsárlón is long, about 120 miles each way, past moss-covered lava fields, the canyon of Fjaðrárgljúfur and the glaciers spilling down from Vatnajökull. In winter it eats most of your daylight, so we stayed nearby and made it a two-day stretch.
The glacier lagoon itself stopped us cold. Icebergs calved from Breiðamerkurjökull drift slowly toward the sea, blue and white and streaked with ash, and seals pop up between them. Across the road, Diamond Beach is where the smaller chunks wash up on black sand and glitter like, well, diamonds.
The ice caves were our big splurge. Natural ice caves form inside the glacier and are only safe to visit roughly November to March, and only with a certified guide. We paid about $220 each for a three-hour tour that included a super-jeep ride, helmets and crampons. Standing inside a cave of electric-blue ice was worth every penny, and it is something summer travelers simply can’t do.
Driving the Ring Road in winter
Route 1 along the south coast is paved and plowed, and in decent weather it is an easy drive. The risk is the weather, which changes fast. We checked three sites every single morning: umferdin.is for road conditions and closures, vedur.is for the forecast and wind warnings, and safetravel.is for alerts. One afternoon a storm closed the road east of Vík, and we simply stayed put and played cards. That flexibility is the whole game.
Our mistake
On day one we parked facing into the wind and flung a door open at a viewpoint. The gust caught it and nearly bent it backward. Rental companies don’t cover wind damage to doors under standard insurance. Park nose into the wind, and open doors with two hands.
A 4×4 isn’t legally required on Route 1, but in winter I wouldn’t rent anything else. Ours cost about $95 a day with studded tires, plus extra gravel and ash insurance. Gas stations are spread out, and many unattended pumps need a chip-and-PIN card, so set up a PIN on your credit card before you leave home or buy prepaid fuel cards at the station shop.
What we packed for a December road trip
Layers beat bulk, and everything waterproof earned its place.
0 of 17 packed— ready to go!
Northern lights, and the nights we didn’t see them
Long nights should mean aurora, and we checked the forecast obsessively. Clouds won on three nights out of five. On the fourth, near Vík, the sky cleared around 10 p.m. and a faint green arc grew into ribbons that pulsed and folded overhead for nearly an hour. It was colder than anything I have stood outside in, around 20 °F (−7 °C) with wind, and I didn’t feel a thing.
Was it worth it?
Yes, with a caveat. Winter on the south coast rewards travelers who are flexible, patient with weather and comfortable driving in the dark. If you need a rigid schedule, come in summer. If you can trade a checklist for a thermos and a little uncertainty, you get soft gold light all day, empty viewpoints, ice caves and maybe the aurora.
- Getting there: Icelandair and other airlines fly nonstop to Keflavík from cities including New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Denver and Seattle, often overnight in about five to seven hours.
- Entry: Iceland is in the Schengen Area, so US citizens can visit visa-free for up to 90 days.
- Money: Cards are accepted almost everywhere, even for public restrooms. We never needed Icelandic krónur in cash.
- Costs: Iceland is expensive. Simple guesthouse rooms cost us around $150 to $200 a night in winter, and a soup lunch about $20.
On the last morning we pulled over in the dark near Selfoss, poured the final cup from the thermos and waited for that blue line on the horizon one more time. It came, slowly, the way everything does in an Icelandic winter. We will be back for more of it.