Volcanic coastlines, glacier lagoons & the Ring Road at the edge of the Arctic
Iceland is the outlier of this entire guide. Barely 390,000 people share an island the size of Portugal, and the emptiness shows: black sand deserts, glacier tongues creeping down from ice caps, geothermal fields hissing steam, and waterfalls that never seem to run out. Route 1, the Ring Road, ties the whole country together in a single 1,332 km loop, but the real appeal is everything that pulls you off it: fjords, lava fields, and a coastline that changes character every hour of driving.
None of it is cheap, and none of it is entirely predictable. Iceland is consistently the most expensive country in this guide, wild camping has been off the table since a 2015 law change, and the weather can rewrite a day's plan with a few hours' notice. What you get in return is a country with roughly 170 designated campsites, a growing EV charging network along the Ring Road, and landscapes that genuinely justify the extra planning.
Iceland rewards patience and a full tank: here's where to point your van.
Iceland's most visited loop, and an easy day trip from Reykjavik: Þingvellir, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates pull apart and where Iceland's parliament first met in 930; the geysers of the Geysir field, including the reliably erupting Strokkur; and Gullfoss, a two tiered waterfall thundering into its canyon.
The most concentrated scenery in the country: Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall you can walk behind; Skógafoss, thundering off the old sea cliff; and the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, with its basalt columns and the Reynisdrangar sea stacks offshore. Give this stretch more time than the map suggests.
Icebergs calved from the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier drift silently across a lagoon, then wash up as ice chunks on the black sand of Diamond Beach just across the road. It sits roughly halfway around the Ring Road and is worth the long drive on its own.
A remote peninsula most visitors skip entirely, which is exactly the appeal. Steep fjord walls, the thundering Dynjandi waterfall, and the seabird cliffs at Látrabjarg make it feel like a different, quieter Iceland. Roads are slower and services sparser, so plan accordingly.
Often called Iceland in miniature for packing glaciers, lava fields, fishing villages, and dramatic coastline into a single peninsula close enough to Reykjavik for a long weekend. The Snæfellsjökull glacier volcano and the mountain Kirkjufell are the headline sights.
Pseudo craters, lava fields, bubbling mud pools, and the Mývatn Nature Baths as a quieter, cheaper alternative to the Blue Lagoon. Akureyri, the unofficial capital of the north, makes a comfortable base, with the thundering Dettifoss and Goðafoss waterfalls both within easy reach.
Iceland is straightforward to drive, but the rules, the weather, and the budget all need real planning.
A 2015 reform to Iceland's nature conservation law made it illegal to camp with a motorhome, campervan, or trailer outside an organized campsite, except with the explicit permission of the landowner. The change followed years of damage to fragile vegetation and farmland from vehicles parking wherever they liked. Small tents pitched on foot away from vehicles have slightly more leeway, but campervans do not.
With roughly 170 campsites spread across the country, most of them along or near the Ring Road, finding somewhere legal to stop is rarely difficult in summer. Facilities range from a simple field with a toilet block to full service sites with showers, laundry, and a kitchen.
Any road beginning with the letter F leads into Iceland's interior highlands: gravel, unmaintained, and often crossing rivers with no bridge. Routes like the Kjölur, the Sprengisandur, and the Fjallabak route to Landmannalaugar open up a landscape few visitors ever see. By law they require a genuine 4x4, and driving one in a standard rental car voids your insurance entirely.
Several F-roads include glacial river fords that can rise quickly after rain or a warm day of snowmelt, and rental insurance never covers river crossing damage. The roads are inspected and opened by hand once the snow clears, typically from mid-June to early July, and they close again as autumn weather arrives, usually by September or October. There is no fixed calendar date, so always check current status.
Wind, more often than snow, is the reason a Ring Road section closes to campervans and other high sided vehicles. Storms can shut roads with only a few hours' warning, even in summer, and a forecast that looks fine in Reykjavik can be entirely different a couple of hours' drive away.
Iceland's EV charging network has grown quickly along the Ring Road, led by ON (Orka náttúrunnar), which operates the largest number of charging points in the country, including DC fast chargers in most towns along Route 1. Coverage is genuinely good between Reykjavik, the South Coast, and as far as Akureyri and Egilsstaðir, and thins out noticeably in the East Fjords, the interior, and especially the Westfjords.
Iceland's moss covered lava fields look tough but grow at a glacial pace, sometimes taking centuries to recover from a single set of tyre tracks. Driving off marked roads and tracks, whether onto moss, sand, or open terrain, is illegal everywhere in the country, and fines for it are substantial.
In June and July, the sun barely sets, and you can genuinely drive, hike, or sightsee at any hour. By December and January, daylight shrinks to only a few hours around midday, and the Ring Road itself can feel like an entirely different route. Most first time visitors come in summer for exactly this reason.
One route stays close to Reykjavik, the other takes on the whole island.
The most accessible introduction to Iceland, and the right choice for a first visit or a shorter trip.
The complete loop around Route 1: every region, a real sense of the country's scale, and time to actually stop.
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Continue your journey
Iceland is an island with no road link to the mainland, so there's no direct drive onward. Here's where to go next on your Nordic trip.
