Why We Wouldn’t Visit Reykjavik Again in Iceland

When deciding to visit Iceland, it was the amazing waterfalls, the glaciers, the icebergs on the lakes, and other amazing natural phenomena that made us want to visit, not visiting Reykjavik.

We had heard Reykjavik is a nice city, and often people visit there, and a few surrounding spots. But we don’t think it is true Iceland! When we visited Reykjavik we felt like we’d seen everything we wanted to see in only a few hours and couldn’t have spend a few days here.

With so much else to see, read below the reasons why we wouldn’t go to Reykjavik again if (and when!) we travelled to Iceland.

There’s So Much to See in Little Time

We drove 1700 miles around Iceland, or thereabouts, and still couldn't see absolutely everything! With so many waterfalls, glaciers, craters, and amazing sites to see. There is always more

Even driving up some of the F-roads to the top of the mountain took a few hours. To be able to walk on a glacier and drive some scary, but amazing roads, where you had 2 metres wide roads to drive your car otherwise there was a humongous drop was an interesting experience, to say the least, but incredible.

Obviously driving on scary roads were great in hindsight, but I had my eyes closed the entire time! (Ed was driving). But what I'm saying is, I feel if you have limited time in Iceland, it would be better to try and experience as much as possible.

Better to experience the real Iceland away from the capital, than spend days around the capital walking around the city. It isn't very big and personally, I wasn't impressed with it in comparison to the rest of the country. Disappointed really I suppose because the rest of Iceland was so incredible

Not Much to Do

How people visit Iceland and spent their time visiting Reykjavik for 4 days beats me. We spent an afternoon in Reykjavik and ran out of things to do.

They have the main street where they have some quaint shops and a lot of tourist shops. They have quite a few restaurants around and bakeries. In one bakery, I got a caramel and vanilla swirl and I demolished it and it tasted amazing. But we only found a handful of things to do.

Obviously, there is the architecture of the church which you can go inside and look around. There’s the sun voyager statue, and some museums but when travelling around the rest of the country, we found it hard to fit everything in because there were so many amazing things to do.

So when we visited Reykjavik, we felt quite disappointed and didn’t end up staying too long.

Very Expensive

If you’ve read any of our other Iceland posts, before travelling to Iceland, we got so annoyed with everyone saying how ‘Iceland is so expensive’. Even those who had never travelled there

Even those who had been, I believe this is because most people have only been to the capital. If you’ve only been to London in the UK you could say the UK is expensive but it isn’t (majority of the time in comparison)

Outside of the capital, we didn’t find food expensive at all. Fuel may have been slightly more (can’t currently remember off the top of my head but wasn’t too much different from what we were used too!).

If you go have a read of our post on buying food in Iceland, you’ll see how it isn’t expensive. But if you want to spend the entire time in the capital, going out for meals and drinks etc, it can be expensive. As it would be in pretty much any other capital of the world, or even being at home.

You’ve Spent a lot to Get There

We pride ourselves of being able to find cheap deals and being able to do trips on a budget. Our Iceland flights cost £450 each and we didn’t think this was too bad

Although we consider that as a good deal, I personally don’t want to spend a lot of money on flights to travel somewhere and see the smallest part of the country.

There is so much to see and do in Iceland, and even if you are just travelling to the capital for a few days, there are so many ways to travel to the south of Iceland and see numerous waterfalls, glaciers, and lakes or travel to the golden circle and see geysers, hot springs and more! So why spend all of that money to see a tiny proportion missing out of the amazing things.

We would suggest you rent a car between the rest of the people in your party (to split the cost) and drive to see other aspects of Iceland. You can pay £100 upwards per person for a trip, whereas if you split a car hire, it can be £20 each to drive to wherever you like

Everything in Reykjavik Costs Money, Outside the Capital Things Can Be Free!

Visiting Reykjavik means you will visit museums, other attractions and more than likely, buy lots of stuff! An experience we believe you can get in any country

Although many main attractions such as waterfalls and parts of the national park are charging for parking these days, due to such an increase in tourism over the recent years – a 20% increase every year! And the maintenance of the site. But even so, up to £5 for parking isn’t much at all and most of the time there were old tickets on the floor which could easily pick up and use yourself.

However we see paying for parking as aiding the preservation of these amazing sites. With tourism increasing all the time, human erosion is the biggest threat (apart from climate change) to these natural phenomena. And by paying for parking, you’re showing your respect to the preservation of the landscape

When we visited it was only in the south that we found this. Majority of tourist attractions around the country did not charge and the majority of our expenditure of our trip was due to buying food and petrol, and the things we experienced for free were amazing and the majority.

Outside the capital is free parking, numerous amazing waterfalls, the ability to see Puffins up close, small Icelandic towns and so much more, all for free!

There Is More to Iceland Than Just the Northern Lights

Visiting Reykjavik often means a trip to see the Northern lights. They are a once in a lifetime thing to witness. But I don’t think it’s the only excuse to visit Iceland. Because there are numerous of once in a lifetime experiences there

Northern lights can be seen nearer the north pole when it's very dark. There are multiple trips to go and visit the northern lights, but you can easily do this yourself by looking at the northern lights forecast online and driving to a remote spot, which in Iceland, isn’t so hard to achieve!

We can’t explain how amazing Iceland was, but visiting Reykjavik wasn't apart of that. Driving around the whole of Iceland and trying to see as much as possible of the natural phenomena was a once in a lifetime trip. There are many waterfalls, glaciers, geysers, lava fields, iceberg lakes, puffins, whale watching, all things you can do and experience in Iceland but away from the capital.

If you wish to visit Reykjavik, then that is completely your choice! I can understand why people visit there and its often the first stop in their trip!

But my point of writing this is that there are much better things to do and see in Iceland! So if you have limited time, choose it wisely to see as many incredible things as possible!