Is the Golden Circle free?

Þingvellir charges a parking fee for a car of five seats or fewer, more for six to nine, less for a motorcycle. One ticket covers all three car parks for the day: P1 at the Hakið visitor centre, P2 by Öxarárfoss, P5 by the church and Silfra. Pay at the machines or online at checkit.is. Geysir is another per-car fee through the Parka app; the café, shop and toilets across the road belong to the Geysir Centre. Gullfoss costs nothing to enter and nothing to park.

Kerið is the exception, and it is not a national site. The crater is privately owned and the owners charge a per-adult entry fee at the kiosk, open in daylight hours. It is the one fee on the loop that people grumble about, and for ten to fifteen minutes on the rim of a 6,500-year-old crater I think it is fair.

So a car with two adults pays parking twice and two entry fees on the whole loop before fuel. Coaches pay their own bus tariff at the parks, which means tour guests pay nothing at any stop; every tour on this site that visits Kerið includes the entrance fee. That is the real answer to the question people are asking: a tour is not buying you entry, because entry is free. It is buying the driving, the timing and the guide. That argument, with numbers, is on the tour prices page and in tour versus self-drive.

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