Reykjavík: South Coast Wonders & Northern Lights Tour

GYG

Reykjavík: South Coast Wonders & Northern Lights Tour

★ 4.3(5 reviews)

• Guide works in English
• Duration per the operator: 16 hours

from $212

See dates, price and what is included at the operator

Sixteen hours from Reykjavik to the South Coast and back

This is a full-day tour that leaves Reykjavik and heads east along the South Coast, reaching Vík í Mýrdal before turning back. The whole run takes 16 hours, which makes it one of the longer day trips you can take from the capital. The daylight hours are spent on the coastal sights, and the return leg in the darker months is when the tour looks for the northern lights. It is a long day, and it is built for travellers who want to see the South Coast's main stops without arranging their own car and who are willing to trade a late night for the chance to catch the aurora on the way home. The tour runs in English with a local guide. At 212 USD it sits at the higher end of what northern lights tours from Reykjavik cost, but you are paying for the daylight sightseeing as much as for the evening sky.

Photographs from the operator Arctic Adventures. They show the listing, not your day.

What the 212 USD covers and what it does not

The listed price of 212 USD is the entry point for the tour. Food is not part of that amount, so you should plan to carry your own snacks or buy something at the stops along the way. The operator does not include meals in the price, and no meal is sold as an add-on through the listing. The guiding is included: a local guide accompanies the tour and speaks English throughout. Free cancellation is offered, though the operator does not give a deadline for it. The tour is not wheelchair accessible, so if that is a requirement for you, this is not the right option. No admission or parking fees apply at any of the places on the itinerary, so the price you see is the price you pay apart from what you choose to eat.

A score based on five reviews

The tour holds a rating of 4.3 out of 5. That sounds solid, but the number behind it is small: only five reviews have been counted. With that few votes, the score tells you very little about how consistent the experience is. One or two disappointed travellers would move the average noticeably. In the northern lights category, which contains 68 tours, this one ranks 46th by the number of reviews it has collected. That places it in the lower half of the group for evidence, not for quality. By price it ranks 48th of 68, meaning it is among the more expensive quarter of tours in its category, where prices range from 32 to 1,995 USD. You are paying for the length of the day and the combination of daylight sights and night sky, not for a track record that hundreds of travellers have confirmed.

When the long day makes sense

Reykjavik's temperatures stay mild all year, with average highs between 3 degrees in January and 15 degrees in July. The cold is never extreme, but the light is what matters for this tour. In the summer months, from June through August, the sun barely sets, and the northern lights are effectively invisible against the bright sky. The tour runs all year, but the aurora part of the evening only works when the nights are dark enough, which means the autumn and winter months from September through March are when the lights have a real chance of appearing. The trade-off is daylight: in December and January the sun is up for only a few hours, so the daylight sightseeing portion of the 16 hours is compressed. The shoulder months of September and October offer a better balance, with enough darkness for the lights and enough daylight to see the coast properly. The tour is long no matter when you take it, so dress for the coldest hours of the day, which will be the evening return.

What the day looks like on the road

The tour begins in Reykjavik and heads east, with the coastal stops spread across the daylight hours. The itinerary reaches Vík í Mýrdal, the southernmost village on the mainland, and the return journey is where the guide watches for aurora activity. The stops themselves are open-air sights along the coast, and the weather in southern Iceland changes quickly. Rain and wind are common, and the paths around the coastal sites stay wet through the year and can freeze in winter. A guide who decides to cut a stop short or change the order because of conditions is making a call about safety, not skipping the itinerary. The 16-hour duration includes the driving time, which is substantial: the distance from Reykjavik to Vík and back covers a good portion of the southern coastline. The tour is not wheelchair accessible, so the stops require you to be steady on your feet.

Who should take this tour and who should not

This tour suits travellers who want to see the South Coast's main sights in one day without hiring a car, and who accept that the northern lights part of the evening is a bonus rather than a guarantee. It also suits those who prefer a longer day with more ground covered over a short, focused aurora hunt. If your only interest is the lights themselves, the shorter options make more sense. A four-hour Northern Lights Bus Tour with Hot Cocoa from Reykjavik costs from 83 USD and has a rating of 4.3 from nearly 15,000 reviews, giving you a much larger base of experience to judge by. A Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour runs four hours from 116 USD with a 4.4 rating from over 3,000 reviews. Those tours leave in the evening and get you back at a reasonable hour. This 16-hour tour is not for anyone with limited time in Iceland, young children, or limited mobility, since it is not wheelchair accessible and involves a very long day on the road.

GYG

Reykjavík: South Coast Wonders & Northern Lights Tour

Dates, remaining places and the current version of what is included are at the operator. This page reflects the state of the catalogue, not the state of this morning.

from $212

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