After arriving in Iceland the day before, Sunday 30th April 2023 was thought to be the most intense travel day of our Icelandic Ring Road Trip. Quite a lot of driving and a couple of sights en route. I honestly did not even know how much of the places and sights we had on our list would finally work out. We had to skip some places, but the whole 400km trip from Hella to Hrafnavellir took us roughly 11:30 hrs, including several breaks. Enjoy the second episode of our trip report.
Starting the Day in Hella
The day started rather early with a really nice breakfast at the Hotel Stracta. However, with the sun rising at about 5:00 in the morning, it at least did not feel so early… And, hey, it has been a really nice sunny morning out there in Southern Iceland. After breakfast, the road sign already told us that there was quite a lot of traveling ahead of us: 600 km to Egilsstadir, which has been the final destination of our third day – and some 380km (excluding any detours) to Höfn, where our next overnight had been located.



Waterfalls and Eyja…
Waterfalls have been an essential part of the second day of our trip. After some 40 minutes drive, we turned into route 249 to visit Seljalandsfoss. The waterfall is especially known for that you you can even walk behind it. Unfortunately, I just did not get the right grip on a steep step down and thus did not dare to go on. Nonetheless, it was a great stop – especially as nearby Gljufrabui offers amazing views through a cave. After leaving this beautiful area, we also had a short view at Arjanurfoss, which is right next to route 249, a short loop in parallel to the ring road.







We just had to have a short stop of the Eyjafjallajökull Info Point. The building was closed, but there were some information signs and the view of the volcano, which sabotaged travel between Europe and North America for a few weeks in 2010. We just spent a few minutes there, but it was nice.




Skogar
Skogar is extremely touristic. However, we first went to Skogar Museum, which is really a great place and would deserve more visitors. I had only been aware of the very interesting open air museum beforehand. However, the technical museum which introduced you to the development of Icelandic communication, postal services, road mainteance and more, was absolutely great. In addition, there is a very interesting folk museum, which overall leads to a very reasonable price.







Even though we were aware of our tight schedule and were rather fast, the museum took us more than 90 minutes, so that there were several bus loads when we approached famous Skogarfoss. How will life be a few months later, when there are really a lot of tourists around?






Dyrholaey – Black Beaches and More
One of the key reasons to visit Dyrholeay, which is about 25 minutes East of Skogarfoss are the amazing views of the black beaches. However, the place is in general a great example for excellent touristic infrastructure. On top of that, you can have a look at a historic light hose – the views of the area are likely more interesting, though.






We had a short stop at nearby Vik in Myrdal. However, the large Icewear store was less interesting than the building promised – it is a typical tourist destination, where any new tour bus leaves quite a queue in front of the ladies room. Finally, we left quickly and headed on Eastbound according to our planning.


Lava…
East of Vik, many things are changing. First of all, you more and more run into the lava fields of places like Bolhraun or Eldraun. For kilometer after kilometer, the environment next to the road is more or less grey-greenish, representing their volcanic origin. Of course, in our case, there was also quite a bit of snow on top of some of the short lava piles. The road as such is also significantly less wide. If you come from Reykjavik (like we did), you will also recognize that after Vik, almost all bridges are Eindbreid brus, one-laned bridges, running on a frist come, first serve basis.
















Glaciers and leaving South Iceland
I just cannot deny that we were very exhausted. Some short hikes and a roughly 4:30 hours net driving time tired my wife and I. Nonetheless, there were some real hiighlights. Svinafellsjökull offered Sarah the opportunity to have a short hike right to the edge of a glacier (while I just had to have a short nap). Amazing scenery. However, having a look at the beautiful glacier lake of the Fjallsarlon Glacier Lake felt even more impressive. Unfortunately, it was already rather late and we unfortunately could not make it to one of their boat tours.







The outlet of the glacier lake of the Jokulsarlon Glacier is also called Diamond Beach. You easily spot the reason on the first pictures: pieces of ice are breaking from the glacier and sparkle beautifully in the sun. We spend some half an hour there and enjoyed the beautiful views of the glacier. The area is also officially separating South Iceland from East Iceland (or: Austurland, which is somehow the nicer name, ain’t it?) – just some 28 hours after we landed in Keflavik Airport (KEF) on Day 1 of our trip, we officially made it to the East of the country.




The last 100k
From the glacier, we more or less just headed on towards our overnight. Apart from a hot sandwich at a petrol station in Höfn, nothing too spectacular happened. We passed by free-living reindeer at one single point (the second time I saw these guys outside a zoo after a Svalbard trip many years ago…), but just did not find a spot to take some snaps. Ring Road is still well-paved in that area, but narrower. You also feel to have a harder task to find a bay for a photo stop. On top of that, public toilets are getting rare, especially if you are at the very end of April and are thus “out of season”.





Finally, we made it to Hrafnavillir Guest House, which consists of separate cabins and a reception and service building. Do you need more of you have a scenary like this one? Okay, a hot tub would be really nice 🙂 Good night, East Iceland!


Iceland’s Ring Road Trip Report – Daily Episodes
Here are the episodes planned for this trip report. The reprise posting is also holding a gallery of major size pictures of the whole trip:
There will be no Day 9 report, as this would only cover the flight back to Germany.
Iceland Top Pick! Postings
Here are all my postings related to Iceland leading to a Top Pick! rating:
I hate when I simply don't make it to fit in reviews in time. This review, for example, is based ...
The last geothermal spa my wife and I visited on our tour through Iceland in May 2023 was Krauma. Compared ...
Husavik - as you recently have learned, the small town in North Iceland is one of my most favorite spots ...
After I introduced you to the Boeing 757-200 Saga Premium Class, the premium product of Icelandair, in 2021, I felt ...
Akureyri in Northern Iceland is my favorite city of the island. Also as I expected to be there just the ...
Husavik is not only known due to the Fire Saga Eurovision movie on Netflix, but is more than that one of the ...
Minor and major volcanic eruptions happen regularly in Iceland. People pay a lot of money for helicopter trips or do ...
Puffins are one of my favorite animals. Thus, being able to say hello to them in wildlife conditions is always ...
During our 2023 Ring Road Trip through Iceland, we had a wide range of stays: from guesthouses to hotel chain ...
Our April and May 2023 trip along the Icelandic Ring Road had also been dedicated to visiting some of the ...
On the week at which I am publishing this review, many people are focusing on Liverpool. They look forward to ...
Even though all my visits to the area have been pre-Flyctory.com, Isafjordur and the West Fjords are belong my favorite ...
Since I ran into her song akureyri in my Songs of the Week feature as of 28th January 2022, I really loved to listen ...
Despite the country as such is rather small (measured by the number of people, not by area), Iceland has some ...
Flugsafn Islands - or the Icelandic Aviation Museum - has of course been a attraction I just could not miss while ...
The Vestmannaeyjar islands and especially Heimaey, the main island of the "West Men Islands", are a key tourist attraction of ...
There are a few Turf House Museums you can visit in Iceland. The UNESCO is even thinking about putting this ...
The F35 - or Kjölur Route is likely the most famous road trip in Iceland, apart from route 1, the Ring ...
Iceland is indeed a country, which is famous for its broad music culture. There are several Icelandic acts, which became ...
Icelandair gave me a very short-term cancellation for my flight to Vestmannaeyear, when I visited the island. However, I definitely ...
The unique architecture, the significant height of 75 meters and its location on top of the hill right in the ...
I so far did not have too many opportunities to cross the Polar Circle in my life. A few years ...
While nature lovers, highland road freaks and horse riders roll over Iceland in summer, the key attraction in fall and ...
Lava and volcanic eruptions are a regular part of life on Iceland. In 2010, for example, the Eyjafjallajökull slowed down ...
For my October 2021 trip to Iceland, I went for a car rental provider which I had used before for ...
What do Icelandic people do if there is a public toilet in the heart of their capital, which they don't ...
Having a swim in a (somehow) natural geothermal pool in Iceland feels to be the equivalent to the Blue Lagoon ...
Half of us got one - and most of them love it/him. The philosopher Nietzsche even defined a penis envy ...
In August 2021, I finally visited a place which has been hidden from me for so long. I had so ...
I would say that at the time of writing (August 2021), Sky Lagoon is something like the hottest product in ...
Sports Reviews
Here are all my Sports Reviews:
In February 2025, I somehow "completed" visitng the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise. After their PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh is some ...
Dubai is an entertainment city. It feels like you practically get anything in the city you like, as long as ...
On my last Pittsburgh Penguins tour in April 2024, I also visited the away match at the New York Rangers ...
After I featured the museum at KISS World in Las Vegas already, it is time to also take you to ...
Will he play or not? That was the key question of my trip to Kladno near Prague. The local ice ...
The Bergisel Ski Jumping Hill is definitely one of the most famous and iconic venues in winter sports. Having been ...
Even though the bets felt to be more than clear, this match-up felt too tempting. On 3rd December 2024, the ...
Myrtle Beach calls themselves being the capital of mini and adventure golf. At least if you look at the density ...
The Daytona International Speedway is definitely one of the most prestigious and traditional race tracks. Thus, when I had some ...
During the amazing UEFA Conference League campaign of KI Klaksvik in the 2023/24 season, I already introduced you to the ...
On the last weekend of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, I went back to France. However, I did not make ...
The last of three ice hockey matches with the Pittsburgh Penguins I saw in April 2024 was in Washington D.C ...
The last review of a venue experience I had during a weekend in Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games is ...
This week is dominated by reviews of experiences I had during my visit at the first weekend of the Paris ...
When we booked the tickets way before the Paris 2024 Olympics, this visit felt to become the highlight of the ...
The German Olympic Sports Confederation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund) hired a complete stadium for their events during the Paris 2024 Olympic ...
I had three matches with the Pittsburgh Penguins in April 2024. While the first match at Madison Square Garden was ...
I just cannot state that I am a huge baseball fan. As I watched a few matches of the New ...
During my trip to Myrtle Beach in October 2023, I just had to check out couple of mini golf and ...
The 2024 season of the Faroe Islands premier soccer league Betri Deildin is about to kick off this weekend. In ...
While the franchise has some roots back to the early 1970's, the Henderson Silver Knights became an AHL team with ...
During my trip to the Faroe Islands in December 2023, KI Klaksvik made me see my first match at the ...
Doing the December 2023 and January 2024 trip to the US West Coast with my wife and a very similar ...
In my Praise The Underdogs posting, I already introduced you to the amazing story of KI Klaksvik, who qualified as the first ...
Myrtle Beach in South Carolina names itself the Mini Golf Capital of the World - and, indeed, there are quite ...
Orlando is a place to hang, enjoy yourself - and spend quite some money. Thus, it is not too surprising ...
Since quite a few years, I try to see a few matches of the Pittsburgh Penguins per season. My March ...
Golf? In Germany, the sport is rather regarded to be elite entertainment, a free time activity for the rich. Our ...
A nice summer day in August 2023 and staying at a hotel nearby - visiting the EFL Championship match of ...
The Bergischer HC is a handball club in the German Bundesliga. Visiting one of their home matches requires a bit ...
Tennis is back on lawn these days - and this also means that professional tennis players and tennis fans are ...
There are so many mini golf, black light golf and adventure golf places in and around Orlando - you could ...
This mini golf review is somehow special: Island Cove Mini Golf (sometimes also Island Cove Adventure Golf) in the Southeast of ...
Even though American Football and ice hockey are the key sports in Music City: Nashville does love soccer. And Nashville ...
After I made you familiar with Swingers, the "Crazy Golf" provider in the heart of London recently, I just felt ...
As the season was practically over after I visited Boston in April 2022 as part of my Weird Al Yankovic ...
When did Finnish game designer Jaakko Iisalo and Roivo Entertainment have a first feeling that their Angry Birds will become ...
Visiting London in late November 2022, my wife and I were aiming to do some things outside the Christmas tourism ...
I personally love mini golf. For me, it is a great way to relax while trying to identify the right ...
After I did a review of Mini Golf at Walt Disney World in Orlando in late 2018, I received quite ...
CC Amfi is an ice hockey arena in Hamar, Innlandet, Norway. Sports fans know it as Hamar Olympic Amfitheatre. During ...
Going to Pittsburgh is always very special to me. Typically, this means that there is a home match of my ...
In mid May 2022, my wife and I went to Helsinki for the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships. The organizers ...
Apart from visiting Pittsburgh itself, seeing a match at the Bridgestone Arena was likely the highlight of my Pittsburgh Penguins ...
Already right on the very first day of my Pittsburgh Penguins trip in March 2022, I visited the new home ...
As I have been in Berlin but could not and did not really want to do a full coverage of ...
Even though it is a some 50 kilometer drive from Cologne to Gummersbach, the VfL Gummersbach is not only the ...
Apart from visiting a Toronto Maple Leafs match at Scotiabank Arena, my wife and I also headed to the Ontario ...
Even though their ranking the the NHL is not always reflecting it, the Toronto Maple Leafs are likely the biggest ...
Some 300 inhabitants, but more than 6,000 spectators (if Covid-committing) at an ice hockey home match - there is likely ...
One of the venues of the Floorball World Championships, which is going to happen during the week of publishing this ...
Apart from visiting the elite ice hockey league match of Fjölnir during my October 2021 trip to Iceland, I also ...
Relative to their population, Iceland is the sixth biggest ice hockey nation in the world. Out of 100,000 people, some ...
There is one guy which gave me the initial crush with Indian tennis - Leander Paes. But in fact the ...
The last match with the Pittsburgh Penguins on my 2020 trip along the West Coast was at the San Jose ...
The match between my Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings was the first one on my West Coast hockey ...
When I came back from my West Coast Tour with the Pittsburgh Penguins in early 2020, I hoped that the ...
Pittsburgh is my hockey home town - I try to see my Pittsburgh Penguins live at least a few times ...
Whenever you happened to watch Bobsleigh races in TV, did you also often think about how it is like to ...
The final ice hockey match on my February 2020 trip following the Pittsburgh Penguins to their West Coast matches was ...
You are free to mention the Colts (see my review of the Lucas Oil Stadium Tour), but finally, if you ...
Visiting Pittsburgh and especially my hockey team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, is always something very special to me. Even though Pittsburgh ...
Being a week in Abu Dhabi during late December 2019 and early 2020, I also urged my wife to visit ...
Halls of Fame are very popular in the United States. Finally, there are likely Halls of Fame for almost every ...
Spontaneously after I visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway & Museum, I went to Lucas Oil Stadium to do a stadium ...
I already visited a couple of stadium tours with Flyctory.com in the past. My home and heart soccer club, 1 ...
Before I visited Danielle Hope's amazing show at the Zedel near Piccadilly Circus, I decided to go for another Stadium ...
A couple of music and theater events made me travel to Glasgow a couple of times in the recent past ...
Visiting Orlando, I have to admit that I prefer Universal Studios parks in Florida much more to Disney ones. One ...
I have to give in: I am a Manchester United follower (fan would be too much) since the 1990s. In ...
The Swiss metropole Zurich is FIFA city. Even if you haven't ever seen them from inside, the headquarters of the ...
Many of you might watch the Tennis US Open at Flushing Meadows on TV. Some take-outs like interviews on the ...
If you are a puck-addict, Toronto is your Mecca - and the old-fashioned looking building at the crossing of First ...
You won't find Patricia Hanebeck in the ranking of the most successful German women soccer players if you you drill ...
There have been so many discussions about Rio 2016. Not just about whether the country itself is able to stand ...
It is always a matter of perspective: more than 100 events lead to medals at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic ...