Is the Golden Circle worth it? An honest answer

My answer: yes on a first trip to Iceland, though not for the reason most people assume. Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss are free to walk into, so a tour is not selling you access; it is selling the driving, a departure time that dodges the worst of the coach traffic, and a guide who can explain a rift valley before the boardwalk runs out. Skip it only if you have already seen it, or if you have ten days in Iceland and would rather give one of them to somewhere further from the city.

Loop length230–300 km

Day length6–8 hrs

Entry feesNone at the big three

ParkingFee per car

Kerið rimEntry fee per adult

Best forFirst-time visitors

What the day actually contains

Three stops carry the loop, and I have watched them land on several thousand people from the front seat of a coach. Þingvellir is a rift valley on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart a few centimetres a year. You walk down Almannagjá, the largest fissure, on a boardwalk, past the ground where the Alþingi met from 930 until its last session on the site in 1798. National park since 1930, UNESCO World Heritage since 2004. If a guide gets only three sentences in before people wander off, those are the three.

Haukadalur is the geothermal field everyone calls Geysir. The Great Geysir itself is mostly dormant and has been for most of a century. The one that performs is Strokkur, 50 metres south, which goes off every 6 to 10 minutes at 15 to 20 metres and now and then a good deal higher. Locals cleared its conduit in 1963 and it has behaved since. What nobody warns you about is the standing: forty people in a ring with their phones up, waiting for a thing that arrives when it arrives.

Gullfoss surprises people who thought they had seen enough waterfalls. The glacial Hvítá drops in two stages, 11 metres and then 21, into a crevice 32 metres deep, and carries an average 141 cubic metres a second in summer against 80 in winter. Sigríður Tómasdóttir, daughter of one of the owners, is credited with stopping a hydroelectric scheme there in the early twentieth century, and the falls have been a protected site since 1979. Most tours add Kerið as a fourth stop: a 6,500-year-old crater on Route 35, red scoria walls, an opaque aquamarine lake about 55 metres down, ten to fifteen minutes to walk the rim. The full list, including the ones that only some tours make, is on the stops page.

Should I skip it?

This is the question I get asked most, usually by someone who has read that the loop is crowded. It is crowded. Between 10:00 and 14:00 in July the car park at Geysir is a car park in the way an airport is an airport. That still does not make skipping it the right call on a first visit, because the loop packs the three things people came to Iceland to look at into a distance you can cover between breakfast and dinner.

Skip it if you have been before. Skip it if you have ten days or more and a rental car, in which case the south coast or the highland tracks will give you more of what you presumably came for. And treat it as a different question from the Ring Road, which is a week of driving rather than a day — I set the two side by side on Golden Circle or Ring Road.

So what does the money buy?

Not the sights. Þingvellir charges a parking fee for a car and nothing to walk in; Geysir is the same; Gullfoss parking is free; Kerið charges a small fee a head because the crater is private land. Tour guests pay none of it. What you are buying is 230 to 300 km of driving depending on the detours, someone else’s decision about when to leave, and the commentary. The full-day coach is the cheapest of the eight. The six-hour afternoon departure costs a little more and gets you there after the morning wave has moved on. The private jeep is priced for the vehicle, which for three people is not the extravagance it looks like. Every rung is broken down on the tour prices page.

The honest counter-argument is a rental car with four people in it. The fixed costs of that day are the parking at two stops and the entry fee a head at Kerið; split the fuel four ways on top and each person is well under the price of one coach seat, with the rental the only figure that can change the answer. You also get to stand at Gullfoss at eight in the evening with nobody else there, which no tour sells. That case, and the winter caveats that go with it, is argued out on tour versus self-drive.

What works

Three sights people actually came for, inside one day from the city
No entrance fee anywhere on the loop — the tour price is transport and guiding
Runs year-round; free cancellation up to 24 hours before on all eight tours
Works for anyone who does not want to drive Route 36 in the dark

Worth knowing

Crowded between roughly 10:00 and 14:00 in summer — you will queue at Strokkur
Stops are timed. On the afternoon tour that means 25 minutes at Þingvellir
Lunch is at your own cost on every tour here, and Geysir prices know it
Kerið is dropped from the flagship itinerary on departures at 12:00 or later

Who I point where

First trip, watching the budget: the full-day coach. It has more reviews than the other seven put together, which tells you how many people it has moved without incident. Diane from the US summed it up in one line — “great tour with the right amount of time at stops”. Landed this morning and jet-lagged: the afternoon departure. Three or more of you, or someone in the group who needs short walks: the private vehicle, where Ariane wrote about “easy access to sites with short walks”.

Most bookedKerið crater visit

Check dates on the loop

Summer departures fill a week or two ahead. In January you can usually book the night before, and cancel free up to 24 hours out if the forecast turns.

Check dates on the full-day Golden Circle tour

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure on most tours — book now, decide later.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Golden Circle worth it for one day?

Yes, on a first visit. Three free headline sights, 230 to 300 km of driving and six to eight hours is a fair trade for one day of an Iceland trip. The detail on how the hours break down is on how long the Golden Circle takes.

Is the Golden Circle overrated?

It is busy rather than overrated. The complaint I hear is about the crowd at Strokkur between 10:00 and 14:00, not about the places themselves. Leaving Reykjavík at 07:00 or taking an afternoon departure moves you off the peak entirely.

Can I see the Golden Circle without paying for a tour?

Yes. Every headline sight is free; you pay to park at Þingvellir, the same at Geysir, and a small fee a head at Kerið. The breakdown is on is the Golden Circle free.

Should I do the Golden Circle or the south coast?

The Golden Circle first, if you have never been. It is the shorter day and it covers the rift valley, the geysers and Gullfoss in one loop. Once that is done, longer drives make more sense.