You can see a great deal of Vatnajökull without a tour: the glacier fronts, the lagoon and the black beach are all reached on marked trails from the car parks. What you should not do is walk onto the glacier alone, and you cannot enter an ice cave without a guide. This guide separates the two, and says when Vatnajokull guided tours are worth their fare.
Walk to the ice on your own; walk on it with a guide. The trails to the glacier front at Skaftafell and round the lagoon need no booking and no gear. Stepping onto the glacier needs crampons and someone who knows where the crevasses are this week.
The cost of doing it alone is the park’s regional fee for your car. The cost of the ice is a tour fare, from $104.
SafeTravel, the national safety site, says you should never go on a glacier without experience or the proper equipment, and that hiring a certified glacier guide with knowledge of the area is highly recommended. The park’s page for Falljökull, the glacier most Skaftafell hikes use, tells you to go with a guide who has experience with glacier walks.
The reasons are in the ice. The park measures the deepest crevasses at over 30 metres, and many are hidden under snow until late summer. Meltwater turns some into moulins that reach the glacier bed. Our glacier safety page covers the rest.
At Skaftafell, trail S1 to the glacier front and trail S2 to Svartifoss. At the lagoon, trail B1 to the viewpoint and trail B2 along the black beach. At Fjallsárlón, 10 km from the big lagoon, trail B4 to the shore, 1.5 km in about 45 minutes.
All of it costs the regional fee: 1,110 ISK for a car with five seats or fewer, valid until midnight, half price at the second fee area that day; the visitor guide explains how to pay. The full list of walks is on things to do.
To the front of Skaftafellsjökull. S1 is a 4.1 km loop of one to one and a half hours, easy, from the visitor centre. It passes glacier gardens and kettle holes, with numbered markers on the way, and ends at the ice. You need no crampons for it.
It is also the one place in Skaftafell where the park allows drones, at set hours. The trail S2 loop to Svartifoss is 5.8 km, about two hours, and pairs with it for a half day.
Trail B1 at Jökulsárlón climbs 1.2 km in about 15 minutes to a view of the lagoon and the glacier behind it. Across the road, B2 follows the Eystri-Fellsfjara shore, the black beach sold as Diamond Beach, for 1 km in about 40 minutes.
The lakes are young: the park dates the first of them to the 1930s, when the glaciers began to retreat. Rangers are on duty every day of the year on 842-4355.
Because the park contracts them. Cave and glacier-walk tours on Breiðamerkurjökull, on the outlets above Skaftafell and on Skeiðarárjökull run under contracts with the park, one year at a time from 1 October. Only contracted operators take visitors in.
In autumn 2024 the park barred cave entry until 30 October, then let caves reopen from 3 October at risk-assessed sites, as a trial with daily checks. The daily assessment is made by the operators and the Association of Icelandic Mountain Guides. None of that exists for a visitor on their own, and the park calls ice caves often small and narrow.
The coach day from Reykjavík is the car-free way to the lagoon. It leaves the BSÍ terminal, stops at Skógafoss and Freysnes, spends about 1 hour 35 minutes at the lagoon and the black beach, and calls at Seljalandsfoss on the way back. It costs $185 and takes 14.5 hours.
It never sets foot on the ice and includes no boat. One traveller was offered a boat ride as an add-on at the start of the day. Another called the bus the only way to reach some of these places without a car. A third called it a 14-hour day, which it is. Driving, you set the stops yourself; the road is on how to get to the bases.
| Option | What you pay | Time on the road | Time on the ice | What you see |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive and walk the trails | The parking fee | 4.5 to 5 hours each way from Reykjavík | None | Glacier fronts, lagoon, beach |
| Coach day from Reykjavík | $185 | Most of 14.5 hours | None | Lagoon and beach from the shore, waterfalls |
| Drive, then a guided hike | From $104 per person | 4.5 to 5 hours | About 1.5 to 4 hours | Crevasses, ridges, blue ice |
| Drive, then an ice cave | $157 to $169 | Further east again | About 1 hour on the lagoon cave tours | A cave, in the cold months |
For two people with a hire car, driving and walking the trails is by far the cheapest. Adding a hike doubles the ice fare, not the car. The tour prices guide costs a day for two.
When you want to stand on the glacier, and when you want a cave. Those are the two things the trails cannot give you. A tour supplies crampons, a harness, a helmet and a certified guide, and on several the ride from the base to the foot of the ice.
It is also worth it when the approach is the hard part. The Arctic Adventures hikes use a 4x4 bus to the ice, and the lagoon caves use trucks. Neither route is open to a hire car. Compare the hikes on the glacier hike tours page.
Skip it if you only want to see the ice: the trails do that. Skip it if you have a child under 8, since the lowest published age on the ice is 8. Skip it if you have no spare day for wind, because a cancelled tour on your only day leaves you with the trails anyway.
And skip the coach day if you have a car and a night to spare. You will see the same lagoon, at your own pace, for the parking fee.
The inside of the glacier’s surface. On the ice you walk between ridges and crevasses, past moulins, and up to walls of blue ice. The park explains the colour: ice absorbs the red and yellow of the light and reflects the blue, and the more air bubbles it holds, the whiter it looks.
The longer tours go further. One traveller on the Tröll five-hour hike went up to an ice wall the shorter groups never reached; another abseiled into a crevasse on the same tour. None of that is on a marked trail. The glacier hike tours set out how far each one goes.
Only in set places and hours. In Skaftafell the park allows recreational drones only in front of Skaftafellsjökull, at times of day that change with the season. At Jökulsárlón and Fellsfjara drones are banned from 15 April to 15 July to protect nesting birds.
Outside that window the lagoon has its own time limits. Check the park’s drone rules before you pack one; the national park page has the rest of its rules.
In spring, sometimes. The park notes that from April the snow melts, the paths are often muddy and fragile, and hiking routes can be closed to prevent damage. It also closes single trails for work: Austurbrekkur in Skaftafell is shut from 1 to 30 September 2026 for maintenance.
In winter the Route 1 areas stay open when the weather and roads allow. Check the calendar by activity for the month you travel.
Fourteen and a half hours from Reykjavík by coach to the iceberg lagoon, the black beach and two waterfalls. You see the ice from the shore; no walk on it.
From $185 per person
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Four hours from the Arctic Adventures hut by the visitor centre: a 4x4 bus to the ice, crampons, ice pick and harness, up to 15 people; from age 8.
From $104 per person
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Four hours from the lagoon car park: a jeep towards the ice, crampons, helmet, axe and harness, and about three hours of hiking and a blue ice cave.
From $158 per person
Check AvailabilityNext: Choose where to start in Skaftafell or the lagoon, or plan the drive in the two-day itinerary. Every fare sits side by side on Vatnajokull Tours.