Hotels in Reykjavik City Centre

Q: Questions

**Is downtown Reykjavik walkable to the main sights?** Laugavegur, the harbour and Austurvollur are all within walking distance of each other, and most of the properties compared above sit inside that same small area. **Does a downtown hotel include parking?** Most do not offer free parking, and downtown Reykjavik runs metered street parking, so a rental car adds a daily cost worth budgeting for separately. **Is Laugavegur noisy at night?** It carries bars and late kitchens along most of its length, and weekend nights are louder than weekday ones, which matters more for a room on the street side of a building. **Which downtown hotel has the most reviews?** Center Hotels Plaza has the largest review count on this page, 5,268, though not the highest rating.

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Compare 458 places to stay in Reykjavik

Every property in the Reykjavik catalogue, in one place.

FiltersCity centre

Where in the city?

City centre458 Hlidar81 Laugardalur16 Vesturbaer14 Fossvogur23 Kopavogur28 Outer suburbs24

Where in the city?

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Hotel49 Apartment195 Guesthouse16 Hostel4

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9+ Exceptional79 8–9 Very good123 7–8 Good42

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264places · from $408

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Every place to stay in the Reykjavik catalogue

458 places · from $408

Apartments in Reykjavik

319 places · from $408

Where to stay in downtown Reykjavik

266 places · from $408

Family rooms and apartments

215 places · from $408

Luxury hotels in Reykjavik

51 places · from $2,632

Cheap places to stay

48 places

Guesthouses and B&Bs

37 places

Hotels for the northern lights

31 places

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27 places · from $1,400

Boutique hotels

21 places

Hostels in Reykjavik

11 places

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Places to stay

A room on Laugavegur sounds like the obvious choice until the first Friday night, when the street noise runs past midnight and a light sleeper regrets not checking which side of the building faces the road. Downtown Reykjavik, postcode 101, covers Laugavegur, the harbour and the streets around Austurvollur, and the properties inside it differ more in what kind of downtown they put a guest next to than in distance from the centre. This page compares hotels in Reykjavik city centre on rating and review count, and says where parking and weekend noise change the pick.

Our pick

Hotel Local 101

Rating of 9.00/10 from 3,235 reviews

Highest-rated pick in the area on review score

Check availability

Eric the Red Guesthouse

Rating of 8.90/10 from 3,037 reviews

Strong rating with a guesthouse-sized review count

Check availability

Reykjavik Residence Apartment Hotel

Rating of 9.20/10 from 2,873 reviews

Highest rating on the page, fewer reviews than the top two

Check availability

Choosing a street, not just a postcode

A downtown address does not mean a quiet one. Laugavegur runs bars and late kitchens on both sides for most of its length, and a room above street level on a weekend can mean noise well past midnight regardless of how the listing describes the location. The harbour side sits apart from that strip and keeps a different pace after dark, closer to the working docks than to the bar crowd. Austurvollur, the square by the cathedral and parliament, is central and mostly residential-feeling by comparison, though it still sits inside easy walking reach of Laugavegur.

Parking is the other thing a reader coming from outside a city centre tends to assume is included and finds is not. Downtown Reykjavik runs metered street parking, and few of the hotels in the area have their own free parking to offer, so a rental car adds a daily cost that a suburban stay would not.

Guests choosing between kvosin downtown hotel Reykjavik and a property nearer Laugavegur are really choosing between two different kinds of downtown quiet, the harbour and Austurvollur side against the bar street, and the rating comparisons below reflect properties across both sides rather than one location.

Property	Rating	Reviews
Hotel Local 101	9.00/10	3,235
Reykjavik Residence Apartment Hotel	9.20/10	2,873
Eric the Red Guesthouse	8.90/10	3,037
Reykjavik Marina, Berjaya Iceland Hotels	8.60/10	2,977
The Swan House by Heimaleiga	8.40/10	3,206
Center Hotels Plaza	8.30/10	5,268

Hotel Local 101

Rating: 9.00/10
Reviews: 3,235

Reykjavik Residence Apartment Hotel

Rating: 9.20/10
Reviews: 2,873

Eric the Red Guesthouse

Rating: 8.90/10
Reviews: 3,037

Reykjavik Marina, Berjaya Iceland Hotels

Rating: 8.60/10
Reviews: 2,977

The Swan House by Heimaleiga

Rating: 8.40/10
Reviews: 3,206

Center Hotels Plaza

Rating: 8.30/10
Reviews: 5,268

Weighing review count against rating

A reader comparing Reykjavik hotels downtown by star rating alone can miss that a small guesthouse and a large hotel are not really being measured the same way once review counts diverge this much. Center Hotels Plaza carries 5,268 reviews at 8.30/10, the largest sample on this page by a wide margin, which makes its score harder to move with a handful of unusual stays either way. A property with a few hundred fewer reviews and a higher headline rating, such as Hotel Local 101 at 9.00/10 from 3,235 reviews, is still a meaningful comparison, but the gap in sample size is worth noting before treating the two scores as directly equal.

The practical answer to which is the best hotel downtown Reykjavik depends on what a stay needs most, a large property with more room types and a long review history, or a smaller one with a tighter, higher-scoring guest base. Neither answer is wrong, and the ratings above are the same ones a reader would use to weigh either case.

★★★★★

GetYourGuide

Reykjavik Marina, Berjaya Iceland Hotels

★ 8.6/10 · 2,977 reviews

Rating of 8.60/10 from 2,977 reviews, harbour-side location

Check availabilityBreakfast available

What separates the top of the list

Ranking best hotels in downtown Reykjavik by a single number hides that the top scores here belong to smaller properties, not the largest ones. Reykjavik Residence Apartment Hotel leads on rating at 9.20/10, but its review count, 2,873, sits at the lower end of this comparison, while Center Hotels Plaza has the most reviews of any property on the page without matching that top rating. A traveller weighing an apartment-style stay against a full-service hotel is choosing a different kind of downtown experience as much as a different score.

Any hotel in Reykjavik city centre still puts a guest inside walking distance of Laugavegur, the harbour and Austurvollur, so the choice between the properties above comes down to noise tolerance, parking needs and whether an apartment layout or a hotel front desk matters more for the length of the stay.

Area covered: Laugavegur, the harbour, Austurvollur, postcode 101
Highest rating on this page: Reykjavik Residence Apartment Hotel, 9.20/10
Most reviews on this page: Center Hotels Plaza, 5,268
Parking: metered street parking downtown, few hotels offer their own free parking

Weekday against weekend

A weekday booking and a weekend booking are not quite the same stay in this part of the city. Weekend nights bring more foot traffic and bar noise to Laugavegur specifically, and a reader who only checks a Reykjavik downtown hotel's distance from attractions can still end up above a busy corner on a Saturday. Requesting a room away from the street side, where the property allows it, is the more reliable fix than choosing by neighbourhood alone.

Properties such as the Oddsson downtown hotel Reykjavik area covers sit within the same 101 postcode and carry the same trade-off between being close to the action and being close to the noise that comes with it. None of the ratings compared on this page account for room position within a building, only for the guest experience as a whole, so a specific request at booking still matters.

★★★★★

GetYourGuide

Center Hotels Plaza

★ 8.3/10 · 5,268 reviews

Rating of 8.30/10 from 5,268 reviews, the largest review count on this page

Check availabilityBreakfast available

Reading the review counts

A city center hotel Reykjavik reviews search would turn up all six properties compared above, but the counts behind those scores range from under 3,000 to more than 5,000, and that range is worth reading before trusting a single decimal point of difference between two ratings. The Swan House by Heimaleiga sits at 8.40/10 from 3,206 reviews, close in both rating and sample size to Eric the Red Guesthouse at 8.90/10 from 3,037, which makes the two a fairer direct comparison than either is to Center Hotels Plaza's much larger sample.

Travel advice for Iceland is unrelated to hotel choice but worth checking before booking any stay: the US Department of State country information for Iceland and the UK FCDO travel advice for Iceland cover entry rules that apply regardless of which downtown property is booked.

Common questions

Questions

Is downtown Reykjavik walkable to the main sights? Laugavegur, the harbour and Austurvollur are all within walking distance of each other, and most of the properties compared above sit inside that same small area. Does a downtown hotel include parking? Most do not offer free parking, and downtown Reykjavik runs metered street parking, so a rental car adds a daily cost worth budgeting for separately. Is Laugavegur noisy at night? It carries bars and late kitchens along most of its length, and weekend nights are louder than weekday ones, which matters more for a room on the street side of a building. Which downtown hotel has the most reviews? Center Hotels Plaza has the largest review count on this page, 5,268, though not the highest rating.