Iceland with kids: the Ring Road, waterfalls & glaciers
Nine days driving most of the way around Iceland in late May — waterfalls you can walk behind, black-sand beaches, a lagoon full of icebergs, and a sun that barely set. Here are the notes we'd hand a friend before they went.
This is the practical companion to our Iceland photo diary. If you're planning your own loop, here's everything in plain terms.
The short version
Iceland is one of the easiest big adventures you can have with kids: short drives between huge sights, no jet-lag-inducing time zones from the US East Coast, tap water that's the best you'll ever drink, and a culture that takes children everywhere. We flew into Keflavík, picked up a rental car, and drove the Ring Road (Route 1) clockwise with a few nights in each region. If you take one thing from this page: rent a car, go in the long-daylight shoulder season, and don't over-schedule — the weather will rearrange your plans for you.
When to go & the midnight sun
We went in late May, and it was the sweet spot: roads all open, prices below the July peak, lupines starting to bloom, and nearly twenty-four hours of daylight. The flip side of the midnight sun is that little kids won't believe it's bedtime — bring an eye mask for everyone and blackout-curtain whatever room you're in. Late May and early June also mean changeable weather; we had sun, sideways rain, and snow flurries on a mountain pass, sometimes in the same afternoon.
Reykjavík & the Blue Lagoon
Ease in with a day in Reykjavík — the colorful houses, the rocket-ship church of Hallgrímskirkja, the Sun Voyager sculpture on the waterfront, and an excellent hot chocolate on the rainbow-painted Skólavörðustígur street. Many people do the Blue Lagoon straight off the plane, since it's near the airport; it's touristy and pricey but genuinely lovely, and kids are welcome in the warm milky-blue water. Book a timed entry in advance — you can't just walk up.
The Golden Circle
The classic day loop from Reykjavík, and a great first taste: the continental rift and old parliament site at Þingvellir, the geyser at Geysir that erupts every few minutes (a guaranteed kid-pleaser), and the thundering two-tier Gullfoss. We added the Kerið crater — a short walk around a volcanic caldera filled with impossibly blue water — and met our first Icelandic horses, which are friendly, photogenic, and exactly pony-sized for small admirers.
The south coast
This was our kids' favorite stretch. Seljalandsfoss is the waterfall you can walk behind (you will get wet — bring rain layers). Skógafoss is a sixty-metre wall of water with a staircase to the top. At Reynisfjara, the black-sand beach near Vík, the basalt columns look like a giant's staircase — but the surf here is deadly, with sneaker waves that have killed visitors, so we kept the kids well back from the water and never turned our backs to the sea. The sea arch at Dyrhólaey and the puffins on its cliffs are worth the short detour.
Glaciers, canyons & the ice lagoon
Further east the landscape turns to glaciers. The canyon at Fjaðrárgljúfur is an easy clifftop walk with enormous payoff. At Skaftafell you can hike to a glacier tongue. But the showstopper is Jökulsárlón, a lagoon where icebergs calve off the glacier and drift slowly out to sea, with seals bobbing between them; across the road, Diamond Beach catches those bergs on black sand where they glitter like cut glass. We could have spent a whole day just here.
The Eastfjords, Mývatn & the north
The drive through the Eastfjords is quiet, winding, and beautiful — reindeer country, with the black pyramid of Vestrahorn at Stokksnes as the highlight (it's on private land with a small fee). Up north, the Mývatn area is a geothermal wonderland: steaming, sulphur-yellow earth at Hverir, lava formations, and the calmer, cheaper Mývatn Nature Baths as an alternative to the Blue Lagoon. Don't miss Goðafoss, the "waterfall of the gods," right off Route 1, and give yourself an afternoon in Akureyri, the cheerful northern capital with the famous red hearts in its traffic lights.
Snæfellsnes — Iceland in miniature
If you can't do the whole Ring Road, the Snæfellsnes peninsula west of Reykjavík packs glaciers, lava fields, fishing villages, and sea cliffs into a single day or two. The cone of Kirkjufell — the most photographed mountain in the country — sits beside a tidy little waterfall, and the cliffs and stone arches at Arnarstapi are a lovely leg-stretch. It's a fitting finale.
Driving & safety
The Ring Road is paved and easy, but conditions change fast. Check road.is for closures and vedur.is for weather and wind — wind is the real hazard here, strong enough to tear a car door off its hinges, so hold doors tightly and never drive onto an F-road (mountain track) without a 4x4 and experience. Gas stations can be far apart; fill up when you can, and have a card with a PIN. We never needed to, but it's worth knowing the emergency number is 112.
Food, water & saving money
Iceland is expensive, full stop. We kept costs sane by booking guesthouses and apartments with kitchens, shopping at Bónus and Krónan supermarkets, and packing lunches for the road. Tap water is pure glacial water — never buy bottled. The hot-dog stands (pylsur) are a cheap, beloved local meal, and a gas-station hot dog and an ice cream kept morale high more than once. Splurge on one nice meal of lamb or fresh fish and cook the rest.
What we'd do differently
We'd build in more slack. Iceland tempts you to chase one more sight, but the magic was in the unplanned stops — a field of horses, a roadside waterfall with no name, a beach all to ourselves. We'd also pack warmer than felt reasonable for "summer," and bring proper waterproofs for everyone, not just jackets.
Planning your own loop and want specifics we didn't include — where exactly we stayed, which guesthouses worked with kids, how we split the driving days? Send us a note and we'll share what we can. And if you just want the pictures, the full trip lives in our Iceland photo diary.