So you want to drive the ring road in Iceland. You could choose to rent a small car or get a spot on a bus and stay in all the nice hotels and cabins as you tour around, but if you’re on a budget like we were, that’s just not going to work. You’ll have to rent something that you can sleep in, but what’s best? And what should you expect at each campground?
Transportation
For the first leg of our trip (about six days), we rented a small camper van. For the second leg (five days), we rented a 4x4 with a rooftop tent so that we could venture onto some terrain that the van couldn’t handle. Overall, both options worked just fine, but I’ll share some pros and cons of each below.
Camping Van: We rented a small van that could sleep two people. It included a bench that folded down into a bed (picture a piece of plywood with the futon mattress), a small fridge, heater, stove, kitchen supplies, and water jug.
Pros:
Easy to set up at night and very little to pack up in the morning.
It was pretty comfortable to sleep in.
Very nice to have a fridge and water jug - made cooking much easier.
Comfortable in all weather.
Cons:
Temperature regulation - you couldn’t just pop a window open in the middle of the night so it could get pretty stuffy by morning. You had to open one of the doors to get air circulating.
Rooftop Tent: This was a small Dacia Duster with a hardshell tent on top. We rented kitchen supplies, a small stove, sleeping bags, and pillows to go with it.
Pros:
Far enough above the ground to keep warm and easy to regulate the temperature by zipping open a tent window.
Pretty comfortable to sleep in.
Cons:
Took some extra time to pack up in the mornings and set up at night compared to the van.
Couldn’t actually go places we thought we would be able to - it just didn’t have very much power to it.
Final tips for booking your transportation:
Rent your vehicles far in advance - stock can disappear quickly.
Having a rooftop tent or a van is superior to a regular tent - easier to pack up and you don’t have to worry about drying off the fly when it inevitably rains.
Learn how to drive a stick shift - both of us can drive a stick, which gave us far more options at different price points to rent a vehicle. If you need an automatic, your options may be limited and will likely be more expensive.
Camping
Every blog you read about camping in Iceland will tell you the same thing: it’s super easy. I’m not going to tell you much different.
There are an abundance of campgrounds all around the ring road. It’s easy to snag a spot in campgrounds that are in less busy areas, but campgrounds near tourist-heavy destinations may fill up if you show up late. We never bothered to book ahead, but we also weren’t there during the busy season.
The campgrounds that we stayed at ranged in their amenities. In general, you’ll always find toilets and most will have showers and a kitchen area. The closer you are to Reykjavik, the more likely you are to have access to free hot water for showering. The further you are, the more likely it is you’ll have to pay if you want hot water. A few campgrounds had laundry facilities, but these were few and far in between.
Overall, the campgrounds were all pretty quiet at night. It seemed like everyone was doing the same thing we were - grabbing a site in the evening, cooking dinner, going to bed, then waking up early and continuing on their travels. It probably helped that the campgrounds were not like what we expect for camping in Alberta. Campgrounds in Iceland are essentially big fields. There are no fire pits, etc., so late-night socializing with your neighbours was minimal.
The cost of camping ranged from about $15CAD to $30CAD per person per night, and we could pay everywhere with a credit card. About half the places we stayed had an onsite attendant.
You are allowed to camp in areas other than designated campgrounds under certain conditions. Please review the laws about random camping in Iceland before doing this.
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