The two big day trips
These are the two standard day trips out of Reykjavík and almost every visitor with three days ends up choosing between them. They are genuinely different: the Golden Circle is a compact loop of geology — a rift, a geyser, a waterfall — while the south coast is a long straight run east past waterfalls to a black beach. If you only have one day, this page says which.
Quick answer
The short answer. Do the Golden Circle first. It is shorter, more varied, cheaper, and the three sites are unlike anything most people have seen. The south coast is the better day if you have already done the loop, or if waterfalls and black sand are specifically what you came for. With three days, do both — and the $868 tour does exactly that.
What each one actually is
Golden Circle: three ideas in one loop. South coast: one idea, done at enormous scale.
The Golden Circle is three completely different things within ninety minutes of each other. A rift valley where two continental plates are separating, and where a parliament met in the open air from 930. A field of boiling ground with a geyser firing every six to ten minutes. And a river dropping thirty-two metres into a hidden canyon. It is a loop, so no ground is repeated, and it takes six to eight hours.
The south coast is a single road running east, and it is about scale rather than variety. Seljalandsfoss, which you walk behind. Skógafoss, sixty metres of it, loud enough that you feel it. Reynisfjara: black volcanic sand, hexagonal basalt columns and sea stacks standing offshore. Often a glacier tongue at Sólheimajökull. It is out and back on the same road, about three hundred and eighty kilometres, and ten to twelve hours.
Both are excellent. They are not competing on the same axis.
Choosing
Based on what people wish they had done differently.
Shorter, cheaper, more varied, and every one of the three sites is something most visitors have no equivalent for at home. It is the standard first day for a reason.
If Yellowstone or Rotorua is already in your memory, the Geysir field will feel familiar. Reynisfjara will not.
The loop is the gentler day and it sets up the geology for everything else. Then the coast, which is the longer one, on day two.
Ten to twelve hours of south-coast driving does not fit into four hours of December daylight. The compact loop does.
Three days that do the loop, then the south coast, then Jökulsárlón, with accommodation and a guide. It removes the choice entirely and adds the glacier lagoon, which no day trip reaches comfortably.
If you pick the loop, here is every tour on it, ranked.
Which Golden Circle tour is best→Book direct
The classic loop, and the two tours that do the coast as well.
★ 4.8 · 27200 reviews
★ 4.9 · 173 reviews
★ 4.7 · 95 reviews
Common questions
The Golden Circle first, if you can only do one. It is shorter at six to eight hours against ten to twelve, cheaper, and it packs three completely different sites into one loop. The south coast is the better second day.
Neither, and they are not really comparable. The Golden Circle is variety in a compact loop; the south coast is scale on a long straight road. Most people who do both say the coast is the more dramatic and the loop is the more interesting.
No, not sensibly. They are in different directions and together they are more than six hundred kilometres. The three-day tour at $868 is the version that covers both properly, with Jökulsárlón as well.
About 380 kilometres out and back from Reykjavík, and ten to twelve hours. Roughly six of those hours are in the vehicle, against three and a half on the Golden Circle.
The Golden Circle, clearly. Four to six hours of December daylight will not accommodate a ten-to-twelve-hour south coast day, but it fits the compact loop with a guided tour.
Standard south coast day tours usually stop at Reynisfjara or Sólheimajökull and turn back. Jökulsárlón is another 190 kilometres further east and really needs an overnight, which is what the three-day tours are for.
Go deeper
The three headline sites and the six worth adding, with what each one costs.
GullfossTwo drops, 32 metres, 141 cubic metres a second, and the woman who saved it.
Kerið270 metres across, 55 deep, and the only stop on the route with a gate fee.
The other twoA rift between two continents, and the geyser that is asleep next to the one that is not.
Route230 km, which roads, which direction, and every car park with its fee.
ItineraryHour by hour from Reykjavík and back, in the order that misses the coaches.
3-Day Golden Circle & South Coast
★ 4.9 · 646 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h