Iceland 3: Landmannalaugar

Top Tips

- Landmannalauger is a unique drive away from Reykjavik in southern Iceland. 

- To reach the tourist region of Langmannalaugar will require a 4WD vehicle. This hotel just near the north entrance of F208 highland road will rent you a 4WD for the day, so you don't have to bank for this car for the rest of your journey.

- Bring a packed lunch for your day trip to Landmannalaugar.

Landmannalaugar - It's like the land before time

Monday, September 2

Today highlighted some beauties and some regrets. I am so glad that I decided to go out of our way for this day trip to Landmannalaugar. This reserve has a unique landscape of lava fields, lakes and mountains. My main regret is the weather – I know, can’t really do anything about that. I am still glad we drove the distance despite the prohibitive rain and cold, I just would have loved to do so much more in this region – every hiking trail looked enticing and riveting, the landscape also was at its best when glistening in the short sunny periods between the showers of rain.

 

Sheep grazing in Landmannalaugar

My second regret is our 4WD. We rented a 4WD for the whole week, specifically to make it to Landmannalaugar. You need a 4WD on the highland F-roads for a few reasons as I found online: 1) They are unimproved roads subject to inclement weather conditions that can change in a second – you may drive into the park in pristine weather, but you could be leaving in wet or icy conditions. 2) Most rental agencies have contracts that state you will be liable for any damages done on highland F-roads because these roads are only suited to high 4WD capable vehicles – so on the chance that something bad does happen, that’ll be out of your pocket. It’s not easy to pretend you weren’t there when your car breaks down or is swept away in a river (which apparently happens more often than you’d think). Cheap Jeep specifies in its contract that the car I rented is covered for use on the F-roads. 3) You will be crossing at least 1 river to reach the hot springs hut, and any river crossing will require 4WD. 4) Now this I haven’t tested, but anecdotally the F-roads can be patrolled by agents specifically looking for un-qualified cars to report to the rental companies that you are there against your contract.

All of these reasons are valid reasons to ensure you rent a 4WD for this drive. But, as covered previously, fuel in Iceland is twice as expensive as Canada – currently sitting at $2.55/L – making a 4WD gas-guzzler an expensive option for a drive around the whole island. Car hire is also more expensive, with our “Cheap Jeep” rental of what must be a 20 y/o 4WD costing as much as a 4WD rental in Switzerland for the same amount of time.

 

The F208 driving South into Landmannalaugar

My tip for this daytrip: On the F26 we did pass this hotel that rents out 4WD vehicles before reaching the highland roads. If I’d known this was here, I’d have rented a regular car for MUCH cheaper from Reykjavik, and rented a 4WD from this place for the day we needed it. This would have saved us so much money, especially when we didn’t need the 4WD for most of the places we visited, but we had planned such a continuous itinerary.

We drove the route taking the 32 to the 26 East, then followed the F208 south to Landmannalaugar. This is allegedly the least complicated 4WD route. There is one river crossing (involving 2 segments) just before you enter the Landmannalaugar camping site. Our very old Suzuki Grand Vitara was able to navigate this river without a hitch, on a rainy day no less. There was a Skoda Yeti and a Ford Escape that made it across too – probably the smallest vehicles that we saw attempt this crossing. Several people parked beyond the river and took the pedestrian bridges to enter the campsite (about 2-300m extra walking).

Important to note is there is practically no food available at this site, or for hours in any direction. There was a café truck offering hot coffee/chocolate, some candy and heatable snacks for campers, and basic sandwiches. These were the well priced for Iceland – charging merely $1.80 for a Mars Bar, or $8 for a sandwich. My suggestion is to bring a picnic. We were unable to do any hikes because despite waiting an hour to see if weather would improve, it just got worse and worse – starting with drizzle mixed with melting snow, followed by downpour and progressing to sharp hail. Even Canadian Mike thought it was freezing.

 

On the way out of Grimsborgir, driving to the F208 we passed this marked point of interest. Interesting!

We did walk past the hot springs, which honestly looked pretty murky and uninviting from what I saw (though it had been raining so this could have muddied up the waters a bit, in its defense). We had already decided from the weather and facilities alone that we wouldn’t be changing into swimmers in order to bathe. There was a bathroom and change area available – the toilets were amazingly clean for such an isolated campsite, but there was no towel to dry my hands so they turned to ice after washing them.

Luckily, we did catch a few glimpses of sun on the drive into the park, which highlighted the beauty of this natural wonder. We saw a small sample of the multicolored mountains that I had travelled all this way for, but I suspect there is much more to the landscape than what we were able to see from the road.

 

The multicoloured mountains of Landmannalaugar

We drove a short way down the F225 – which seems to cross a few rivers – before turning back to return home via the F208. The first river we crossed on the F225 was very shallow and easy to cross, but I had read online that this is the most technical of the 3 routes into the park, we knew there would be several river crossings ahead, and turning back later could have been an issue for the amount of gas left in the tank. After our close-call risky drive at the Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah, we decided to allow common sense to prevail and return on a road we knew the car could manage. If we had one of the heavily souped up 4WD trucks other tourists had acquired, then we would have continued down this road to return for sure, just to see something different.

In retrospect, since we had rented the 4WD for our whole trip (and not just for the day), I would have preferred to arrive at Landmannalaugar from the F208 north route, and exited the park on the F208 south route towards our next hotel. I think the difference in landscape for this portion of the drive was something we missed out on, the next hotel we stayed at was my favourite hotel of the trip and I'd have preferred 2 nights there.

The stunning contrast where two rivers join at the north part of F208

We filled up with gas at a station on the 35, about 5km north of the 36. Every fuel station we visited had machines that accepted VISA and could function in English, so we didn’t need to go in to pay. To get a receipt, you have to re-enter your credit card after the transaction, and the machine recognises the card and prints a receipt. We had heard about fuel vouchers that should be purchased for cases of urgency when the station was closed, and the internet had me concerned that the fuel pumps wouldn't accept foreign credit cards. For the Australian VISA card and the Canadian AMEX card this was definitely not an issue. More so, when I asked at a station about purchasing a fuel card, they had no idea what I was talking about.

On the way out of Grimsborgir, driving to the F208 we passed this marked point of interest.

The Keiro volcano crater lake is also on the 35, about 4km north of the 36 intersection. Entry costs US$3 per person. It was pouring down and no one was keen to venture out the car one more time.

We returned to the Hotel Grimsborgir for the night.

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