Iceland Highlands Itinerary: 5 Days

Daylight today (3 August 2026), Landmannalaugar: 17 h 49 m of daylight, sunrise 04:28, sunset 22:17. That is how many hours each day below actually has.

1. Day 1Reykjavík to Landmannalaugar

   Out on Route 1, then road 26 up the Þjórsá valley, then F208 south into Fjallabak. It is about 180 km and three and a half to four hours, and the last hour of it is the part that matters: gravel, washboard, and a couple of shallow fords on the northern approach. Take the northern F208 from road 26. The southern approach and F210 have unbridged crossings that are genuinely Land Cruiser territory.

   Fill the tank at Hella or Hvolsvöllur. There is no fuel in the interior — none, not at Landmannalaugar, not at Hveravellir — and the next pump after you turn off road 26 is the one you came from. Our fuel price index has what a tank costs and where the stations actually are.

   Landmannalaugar: Good to go · 180 km · ~3.5–4 h from Reykjavík

   Sleep: Landmannalaugar hut or campsite

2. Day 2Landmannalaugar on foot

   No driving today, which is the point of basing here. Brennisteinsalda and the Laugahraun lava field are a half-day loop from the hut; Bláhnjúkur adds a steep hour for the view over the whole rhyolite basin. The Laugavegur trail starts here and runs roughly 55 km south to Þórsmörk, normally over four days with hut nights — if that is your trip, this is where it begins rather than a day you fit in.

   The bathing stream beside the campsite is the reason the place is called “the people’s pools”. It is warm where the hot and cold streams meet and cold two metres away, so wade until it is right.

   A walking day — we publish no road verdict for it. What matters is whether you can still drive out tomorrow: the live F-road table above is the answer.

   Sleep: Landmannalaugar

3. Day 3North to Kjölur and Kerlingarfjöll

   Back out on F208 to road 26, then across to F35 — the Kjölur route, the gentlest of the three highland crossings and the one most mid-size 4WDs handle without drama. Hveravellir sits at the halfway point with steaming ground and a hot pool; Kerlingarfjöll is the detour worth making, an orange geothermal massif up F347.

   F35 is graded gravel with no major fords, which is why it opens earliest and closes latest. It is still an F-road: 4WD is required by law, and driving it in a 2WD voids your rental insurance completely.

   F35 and F347 are not corridor-scoped in our route data, so we publish no single verdict for this leg — their live open or closed status is in the table above, straight from Vegagerðin.

   Sleep: Kerlingarfjöll or Hveravellir

4. Day 4Down to Gullfoss and the Golden Circle

   F35 spits you out at Gullfoss, which after three days of gravel feels like arriving in a city. Do the Golden Circle backwards from there — Gullfoss, Geysir, Þingvellir — and you will be driving against the tour-bus flow all day.

   This is the first fully paved day of the trip, and the verdict below is scoped to that loop alone. If you want the comparison with the other classic day out, we have Golden Circle vs South Coast.

   Golden Circle: Good to go · 250 km · 3–4 h round trip

   Sleep: Hvolsvöllur, to set up day 5

5. Day 5Þórsmörk, and the ford that decides it

   Þórsmörk sits between three glaciers and is reached on F249 — a road with a reputation, because it ends at the Krossá, an unbridged glacial river that changes depth through the day and swallows rental 4x4s every summer. Most rental agreements exclude water damage outright, so this is one crossing where the honest answer is often “take the highland bus”.

   If you do drive it, go in the morning when meltwater is lowest, and never enter a ford without watching another vehicle cross first. Read river crossings in Iceland before you commit — it is the difference between a fun day and a five-figure bill.

   F249 is not corridor-scoped in our route data, so we publish no verdict for this leg. Its live status is in the table above — and even an open F249 says nothing about the Krossá depth on the hour you arrive.

   Sleep: Back to Reykjavík, or Hvolsvöllur again

Each driving day's verdict is live and scoped to that route only, verified 3 August, 17:07 Iceland time. Source: Vegagerðin (road.is). Distances and drive times are Vegagerðin figures, rounded. Daylight is computed from the standard sunrise equations for Landmannalaugar. Days without a scoped corridor say so rather than showing a status we do not hold.