The Bus
Of course part of the fun is to be living in our old timer bus, transformed from an old public transportation bus into a comfortable group accommodation.

You’ll sleep in a comfortable bed, either a bunk-bed or a single bed. Your bed has its own little light, curtain and space underneath for your belongings.

Upstairs you’ll also find the lounge with a view, while downstairs is the living area, with kitchen and dining area. Both areas have what we call in Dutch ‘ARKO’ (Alle Ramen Kunnen Open’) and a heating system for the colder nights.

Downstairs we have a big lounge / dining area with heater, where you can start your day with a cup of coffee or end your day after trying to beat us playing board games (good luck). 

The Campsites
We’ll park the bus at beautiful campsites along the way. We will use the sanitary facilities such as shower and toilet from the campsites. We do have a compost toilet with us for emergencies like excitement pees. 

• 11 nights accommodation in the bus (southern route)
• 2 hosts (also drivers, cooks, mechanics)
• Transportation during the trip
• Entrance to all sites
• Campsites with extraordinary views
• Roadtrippin along Iceland’s amazing roads and remote scenery
• Visit to both the southern highlights but also the less touristy areas such as the East of Iceland.

FOOD & DRINKS

• Almost all your meals (11x breakfast, 11x (packed) lunch, 10x dinner)
• All your coffee, tea, water & lemonade.
• Snacks

ACTIVITIES

• Visit to the impressive nature reserve Thorsmork (inland)
• Exhilarating 4×4 bus ride to Thorsmork
• Beautiful 2-day Fimmvörðuháls hike from Thorsmork to Skogafoss
• Sleep in mountain hut between two glaciers.
• Guided e-mountainbike ride around the undiscovered east
• Check out the puffins!** 
• Hike around the volcanic-area at Geldingadalir*
• Visit Skogafoss waterfall
• Visit Vik and Black basalt Beach
• Visit to Fjaorárgljúfur canyon
• Visit Skaftafell and the biggest glacier of Europe!
• Visit the one-of-a-kind basalt waterfall Svartifoss
• Visit the beautiful ‘Diamond Beach‘ and Glacier lagoon ‘Jokulsarlon‘
• Beautiful 2,5-hr hike around extraordinary green Mulaglfjufur canyon
• Undiscovered, secret, stunning 4-5 hour hike
• Entrance to Viking village at the beautiful Stoksness peninsula

*At the moment of writing there’s a volcano about to erupt. If it does, this might affect the roads around Geldingadalir. If we cannot reach the site, we will do an alternative activitiy. 

**Since birds tend to fly, we cannot 100% guarantee you we’ll see the puffins. However, at the time of our visit, they should usually be there in big numbers. 

• Drinks other than the above mentioned (drinks can be bought on the bus)
• Transportation to pick-up & from drop-off location
• Towel
• Travel Insurance

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Glacier hike (3hr) at Skaftafell (€100)
• Horse ride 1.20hr (€125)

GET TO / FROM REYKJAVIK

Since Iceland is an island, it’s easiest to fly there. However you can also take the ferry.

Flight
There are many flights taking off and arriving in Reykjavik airport daily. This is definitely the fastest way to travel.

Both Iceland Air, Transavia and Play have direct flights from Amsterdam to Reykjavik. Also there are good connections from Brussels, Dusseldorf and the US.

We like these websites when searching for the best flight:  Google Flights or  Skyscanner.

Ferry
Do you have the time and are you in for an adventure? Then there’s the option to take the ferry! It leaves from Hirtshals (Denmark) and will take you to Iceland in three days. You can even get off at the Faroe Islands! 

The ferry goes once a week and leaves Hirtshals every Tuesday and Reykjavik every Thursday.

For more information on their schedule and bookings, check out their website.

TRAVEL TO or FROM EGILSSTADIR

Hitchhiking.
Do you have time and are you in for some adventure?? Then this is a great (and cheap) option! And the good thing is, Iceland has only one main road going all around the Iceland, which makes it a fairly easy country to hitchhike in. Hé, you could even make it into a hitchhiking competition with your fellow travelers!

 

Flights.
This is your fastest and second cheapest option (flights from €80).  
There are two to three flights a day between Reykjavik and Egilsstadir. They’re all operated by IcelandAir. Find more info & tickets, please check out  their website. 

Bus. 
There’s a busroute that connects Reykjavik in the west to Egilsstadir in the east. You’ll have to make a change-over in Akureyri and spend the night there, but there are plenty of nice hostels, cottages, campsites and hotels here. The bus route is absolutely stunning, so this won’t be a waste of your time! 

Bus nr 57 goes from Mjódd Reykjavík bus stop to Akureyri, that trip takes about 6 1/2 hours. It leaves Reykjavik at 9 A.M. and arrives in Akureyri well before dinner time, at 15.29. 

Bus nr 56 goes from Akureyri to Egilsstaðir, that trip takes about 3 1/5 hours. It leaves at 8 A.M. and gets you to Egilsstadir at 11.22.  

This is the timetable for bus nr 57.

This is our current timetable for bus nr 56 It changes during summer and usually there is a trip every weekday. Please make sure to double check once you get closer to your trip. 

In Egilsstadir there’s a lovely hostel that often hosts live music in summer time. They have both a restaurant and a kitchen and a lovely bar. It’s called Tehusid.

4×4 to Thorsmork & Fimmvörduháls hike to mountainhut (5-6 hr)

We’ll wake up early to head off to the 4×4 off road bus that will take us all the way to Thorsmork, which is situated inland. The lush green mountains, beautiful rivers, and stunning gorges we’ll see there are a treat to the eyes and make this one of our favorite places in Iceland. The ride itself is an adventure in itself – click here to get an idea! 

We’ll take our lunch & food, since we’ll leave from here to head out on our first proper hike. We’ll pack our bags with food, water & a sleeping bag (that we provide) and make our way to the beautiful Fimmvorouhal’s mountain hut (+/- 5-6hr hike | 12km | 800m elevation).

The route starts off in Thorsmork, a very green and mountaineous area that’s like nothing we’d ever seen. Green mountains in a landscape full of black sand and rivers flowing through. Further on it passes between two beautiful glaciers; Myrdalsjökull and Eyjafjallajökull, which you might have heard of since the second has erupted in 2010, causing a lot of flights to get canceled for 6 days. We’ll be walking through the volcanic ashes that came down that year. 

Just behind the path that takes us by these two glaciers, we’ll find a path sideways that will take us to our sleeping place for tonight; the beautifully situated ‘Fimmvorouhal’s mountain hut. Here we’ll spend the night, with nothing but the mountains & hopefully a clear sky with tons of stars around us. We’ll share the hut and sleeping area with other hikers.

Hike to Skodafoss Waterfall & Vik
Today we wake up in the middle of the mountains in our mountain hut. After breakfast, we’ll continue our hike to Skógafoss. The last part we’ll be treated with 25 waterfalls tumbling down into the grand master; Skógafoss! Of course, we´ll take our time to see this waterfall from up close, before we´re headed to Vik.

For those who still have the energy after dinner, we can walk to the black beach on a small evening stroll.

Vik basalt beach, lava fields & Fjadrargljufur canyon

We go for a 3-hour hike in the morning to the black Basalt beaches of Vik. The beach is famous for its beauty which we totally understand; the dramatic cliffs, interesting rock formation and pitch black beach make it something you won’t find anywhere else. The way the water splashes down on the black sand – we could watch it for hours. 

To avoid the crowds, we will hike here over the top of the cliffs. This will give us a beautiful view over the surroundings; the black beaches, the town Vik and the impressive Reynisdrangar rock formations. We’ll go down towards the black basalt beach on the other side of the cliff to see if from up close. This has also been a filming location for Game of Thrones. 

We’ll continue our way to the lava fields and the the Fjadrargljufur canyon. After a stop and taking our time to look around, we’ll continue our way to the campsite, where we’ll set up camp, cook and hopefully spend the night around the fire!

Skaftafell – explore the glacier & Svartifoss.

We drive 70km and arrive in Skaftafell . There’s more than enough to here! We’ll set up camp and explore. Right next to our campsite is a big glacier – the Skaftafellsjokull glacier. It’s possible to do a glacier hike on top of it (optional) or you can join us on a beautiful hike to a look-out point where we’ll look out over the glacier. Another option is a shorter hike which takes you to the tongue of the glacier, from where you can see the glacier from up close and watch the ice break loose and flood away. 

Also, we’ll find the beautiful Svartifoss just an hour away from our campsite. This waterfall is like no other in Iceland with its basalt rock formations all around.  

We will sleep at the campsite here tonight. Allowing us all the time we want to explore the mountains, waterfalls and glacier around. 

Canyon hike, Jokulsarlon & Diamond Beach

Today we slowly get out of the main tourist zone. Where most tours turn around at Jokulsarlon & DIamond Beach, we continue further east.

We start the day with a hike we fell in love with. It’s a 2-3 hour hike through a bright green canyon, mixed with water tumbling down from two big waterfalls. It feels like we’re walking around elves-country (which we kind-off do by the way, since the Icelanders believe elves still live here). 

After the hike, we hop back on the bus and continue our way to the very special and impressive Jokulsarlon lagoon. The water comes from the Breidamerkurjökull, a tongue of Europe’s largest ice cap Vatnajökull, that covers an extensive part of Iceland. 

The ice that breaks off the glacier, drifts off to the sea. Some of these ice bergs come back ashore on the black sand beach around the corner. The shiny ice looks like diamonds on the black sand, thus the name ‘Diamond Beach‘ – our next stop on route. 

We drive to Stoksness, where we’ll sleep on a beautiful camping spot, surrounded by mountains. 

Stoksness

Stoksness is an area surrounded by mountains, one of them being the Vestrahorn, arguably one of the most beautiful mountains of Iceland. With 450m altitued the steep cliffs and gravel slopes rise up from the lagoon. Since we´ll sleep here, at night and early morning we´ll have the whole place to ourselves and some other campers here. There is a nice, cosy cafe where you can get the best coffee and cakes around. 

Undiscovered beautiful hike (4-5 hr)

We entered the less touristy zone. We don’t get why everyone turns around at Diamond Beach, as this area is just as impressive! To give you a good idea of Iceland, also those areas that are less visited, we will take you all the way to the east, ending our trip in Egilsstadir.

So today we move further east again, having our first stop at a beautiful, undiscovered area. We will do a hike, that has been recommended to us by the locals. She made us promise not to mention the name & GPS, so we won’t. You’ll just have to trust us this will be a very beautiful, quiet hike. It takes 4-5 hours. 

We’ll get back on the bus, treat ourselves to some hot chocolate to warm back up and drive further on the scenic route towards fishing village Djúpivogur. A lovely little town where life is all about fishing.

Tonight we go out for dinner (at your own costs) to also experience some more Icelandic culture.

Let’s go fishing! 

We were planning to join the fishermen in Djúpivogur. However, due to recent developments and Patagonia’s moving documentary about this type of salmon fishing, we have decided to take this activity out of our itinerary. However, we will make sure to come with a fitting alternative asap. We will keep you posted!

Watch Patagonia’s documentary here.

Horseback riding (optional activity)

We will head to Breidalsvik, where we’ll have the unique chance to experience the world-famous trot of the Icelandic horses (optional activity). Icelandic horses are world-famous for it, which makes it a more comfortable horse to ride compared to non-Icelandic horses. Usefull, for people like us who always get a sore butt when riding too long! 

The route will take you through the beautiful Lambay valley, at a horse stable that’s very small-scaled and family-owned.

Amázing landscapes, E-mountainbike tour & puffins

Today will be quite spectaculair.

We’ll first be picked up in Egilsstadir and taken to one of the most spectaculair places in Iceland – if you ask us. The route is absolutely amazing and jaw-dropping. It’s all the way up in the north, 70km north from Egilsstadir. The ride there is one hour of pure pleasure, where we’ll zigzag over a mountain on the hairpin bends and enter a valley with the sea smiling at us at the end of it. 

Though our bus is strong, these mountains are stronger. So we’ll be picked up with another bus, since we absolutely didn’t want to skip this part. In Bakkagerdi Árni will be waiting for us with his e-mountain bikes. He’s got a route set out for us that will take us through the amazing area around. We’ll see remarkable views of the Víknaslóðir Wilderness, Borgarfjörður eystri, mountains, valleys, sea and little (and big!) waterfalls.

We’ll end the trip at the puffins – where we’ll have time to enjoy these lovely little birds from nearby.*

*Please note; since birds tend to fly, we cannot 100% guarantee you we’ll see the puffins. However, at the time of our visit, they should usually be there in large numbers. 

Back home

We’ll have an easy morning. At breakfast, we can go over all the things we’ve done together on this trip one more time, before taking you to the drop-off location in Egilsstadir (11.00 AM). 

From here you can either continue your way around Iceland or head back to Reykjavik. For the second option, please find our tips & tricks on how to get back under ‘How to get to & from Egilsstadir’ under the ‘Practical Information’ part of this page.

It’s also possible to join us for two trips, and join us on the way back over the northern-route. 

Please note: we highly recommend you don’t book any flights home within 4 hours after our estimated arrival time, just in case we have any delays on the way. We are traveling in an old-timer bus after all – delays can be part of the adventure.