About Sigrún Ólafsdóttir
I guided Golden Circle coach and minibus departures out of Reykjavík for six seasons, from the BSÍ terminal and the Höfðatorg bus stops. I live in Selfoss now, twenty minutes from Kerið crater, and I still drive the loop more weeks than not. This site is where I write down what I used to say into a microphone.
Why I built this
Six seasons of standing at the front of a bus taught me which questions people actually ask, and they are rarely the ones the brochures answer. How long am I really going to be out. Is there a toilet at that one. Can I wear jeans. Am I being sold something I could have had for free. That last one deserves a straight answer, so here it is: every headline sight on the loop is free. Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss charge nothing to walk into. You pay a per-car parking fee at the first two and a small per-person entry fee at Kerið, because the crater is private land, and that is the entire gate bill for the day.
So a tour is not selling you access. It is selling the driving, which is 230 to 300 km depending on the detours and can be genuinely unpleasant in February. It is selling the timing, because a departure that beats or dodges the coach wave is worth more than most people realise. It is selling commentary, which is the difference between a big crack in the ground and a plate boundary. And it is selling the add-ons that need a booking anyway — a lagoon, an hour on Langjökull. I compare the eight tours that leave Reykjavík on exactly those four things.
How I work
I read the operator’s own itinerary against the road I know, then read the traveller reviews looking for the same complaint twice. Where a tour publishes stop times I quote them to the minute, because 20 minutes at Gullfoss and 45 minutes at Gullfoss are different days. Where it does not, I say so rather than guess. I do not name the operating companies, because the same company can run a good season and a bad one and you are booking a product, not a logo. I am willing to tell you to rent a car instead, and for four adults travelling together I often do.
Every price on this site is the operator’s live price on GetYourGuide in US dollars, and every fact about the loop comes from the parks, the operators or my own kilometres. If something here is wrong, I would rather hear it from you than leave it up — tell me and I will fix it.
What this site is not
It is not a tour operator. I do not own a bus, I cannot change your booking and I have no connection to Þingvellir National Park, the Blue Lagoon or GetYourGuide beyond being an affiliate of the last one. When you are ready to book, the widgets send you to GetYourGuide to pay, and I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The details are on the affiliate disclosure page, and it is the same commission on all eight tours, which is the only structural guarantee I can offer that the recommendations are honest.
If you want the loop explained properly before you choose anything — the geology, the parliament, why Strokkur goes and Geysir does not — start with the guide. If you already know what you want, the reviews are one tour at a time.