Iceland's Ring Road in a week: the self-drive loop
Route 1 — the Ring Road — circles Iceland for roughly 1,300km, linking the south coast's waterfalls, the east fjords, the geothermal north and the drive back through Akureyri to Reykjavík. Doing the full loop in a week is tight but genuinely doable in summer, when near-24-hour daylight means you're never racing the sunset. It is a much harder ask in winter, when daylight can shrink to four or five hours and sections of the road close after storms — if you're travelling between November and March, a south coast loop out of Reykjavík is the safer, saner version of this trip.
Which direction to drive
Most self-drivers go clockwise: Reykjavík to the south coast first, then east along the fjords, north to Mývatn, and back through Akureyri. It front-loads the most famous stops (Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, the glacier lagoon at Jökulsárlón) while you're fresh, and leaves the quieter, wilder east fjords for the middle of the trip when the novelty of stopping every ten minutes has worn off a little.
| Day | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reykjavík | Land at Keflavík, collect the hire car, explore the city, early night |
| 2 | Golden Circle → Vík | Þingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss, then south to Vík for the night |
| 3 | South coast | Reynisfjara black sand beach, then east to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon |
| 4 | East fjords | Höfn to Egilsstaðir, winding fjord roads, small fishing villages |
| 5 | Lake Mývatn | Goðafoss waterfall en route, then the Mývatn geothermal area (Námafjall, Hverir) |
| 6 | Akureyri & Húsavík | North Iceland's capital, whale watching from Húsavík in the afternoon |
| 7 | Back to Reykjavík | Long drive west (Snæfellsnes as a detour if time allows), return the car, depart |
The driving, realistically
1,300km over a week sounds modest until you factor in the stops — and the stops are the entire point of this trip. Expect three to five hours of actual driving on the longer days, with fuel, food and photo stops adding up fast. Route 1 is sealed and well maintained almost everywhere, but it narrows to single-lane bridges in places and single-lane tunnels in the east fjords, so keep a steady pace rather than pushing to make up time. Fuel stations thin out east of Höfn and north of Egilsstaðir — top up whenever you're under half a tank, not when the light comes on.
What to book ahead
- Hire car or campervan — the single biggest bottleneck. Summer stock (July–August) sells out months in advance, and prices climb fast the closer you get to departure.
- Accommodation outside Reykjavík — small towns like Vík and Höfn have limited beds; book these nights early even if your Reykjavík plans stay flexible.
- Jökulsárlón boat or ice cave tours — the amphibian boat trips on the lagoon and any glacier ice cave excursions run limited daily capacity.
- Whale watching in Húsavík — Iceland's whale-watching capital, and tours fill up on clear-weather days.
- Blue Lagoon or Sky Lagoon — both require a timed entry slot booked in advance, not a walk-up ticket.
Leave slack in the middle
The temptation with a week-long loop is to fill every day, but Iceland punishes rigid schedules — weather changes plans more often here than almost anywhere else in Europe. Build one loose half-day into the east fjords or Mývatn leg so a closed road, a fog-bound viewpoint or a whale tour that gets postponed doesn't cascade through the rest of the week.