The best things to do in Iceland, according to Travel Leisure

From hiking Iceland's newest volcano to soaking in a geothermal cave on the Ring Road, the essential Iceland experiences

Iceland’s reputation as one of the world’s most extraordinary travel destinations rests on a geological reality: the country sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where two tectonic plates pull apart at a measurable rate each year, producing volcanic eruptions, geothermal fields, glaciers, and lava formations that exist simultaneously within a landmass the size of Kentucky. The landscape that results from this activity is not static. Volcanoes erupt on timelines that geologists track but cannot predict precisely. Glaciers calve and retreat. The highland interior floods during snowmelt and is closed to vehicles for months. Iceland is a destination that changes, sometimes dramatically, from one visit to the next.

What remains consistent is the scale of the natural environment and the quality of access to it that Iceland’s infrastructure provides. The Ring Road that circles the island connects the major natural sites along a route that most visitors cover by rental car, giving travelers without specialist experience or physical conditioning access to landscapes that comparable destinations require serious expedition planning to reach. The Blue Lagoon sits 15 miles from the international airport. The glacier lagoon at Jökulsárlón is a day’s drive from Reykjavik. The highlands are accessible from the capital in a few hours when the summer roads open.

The recommendations below draw on three local experts consulted by Travel Leisure: Davíð Logi Gunnarsson, head guide of Nordic Luxury; Dofri Hermannsson, expert hiking guide and owner of Reykjavik Erupts; and Aggi Sverrisson, executive chef at The Retreat at Blue Lagoon’s Moss Restaurant. Their picks cover the full range of Iceland’s offer: volcanic hikes, geothermal bathing, fine dining, nightlife, and the natural landmarks that define the country’s identity for travelers who have never visited and those who return repeatedly.

1. Blue Lagoon provides the most accessible introduction to Iceland’s geothermal culture

The Blue Lagoon’s position less than 15 miles from Keflavik International Airport gives it a logistical convenience that its international reputation as a modern wonder of the world makes easy to underestimate as a reason to visit. The milky-blue water that fills the lagoon’s outdoor pools derives its color and its widely cited healing properties from silica and sulfur, minerals that the geothermal water carries from deep underground through the volcanic rock of the surrounding black lava field. The combination of the water’s visual character, the steam rising from the surface, and the stark black lava landscape that surrounds the facility produces an environment specific to this location on Earth.

The timing of a Blue Lagoon visit relative to a flight gives travelers two distinct options that serve different purposes. Arriving directly from the airport before checking into accommodation in Reykjavik offers an immediate, physically restorative introduction to Iceland, using the journey time productively rather than losing an afternoon to transit. Visiting on the departure day, after returning the rental car and before the flight, gives the visit a closing ritual quality and allows travelers to carry the relaxation of the thermal soak into the journey home. Either timing works logistically; which serves better depends on the traveler’s physical state at each end of the trip.

The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon, which sits directly on the lagoon and whose guests access it as an extension of their accommodation, gives visitors who prioritize this experience the most immersive version of what the Blue Lagoon offers. Gunnarsson’s description of Radagerdi, a restaurant on the western edge of Reykjavik in a nature reserve surrounded by the sea, where winter visitors might see the northern lights from their table, represents a different version of the geothermal and natural experience available throughout Iceland without the Blue Lagoon’s international profile.

2. Landmannalaugar rewards highland access with a landscape unlike anywhere else in Iceland

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Landmannalaugar, in the highlands of Iceland, is accessible only from mid-June to mid-September, when the summer roads open through the interior. Gunnarsson describes it as an otherworldly landscape that captivates even the most experienced hiker, and the specific combination it produces — colorful rhyolite mountains, natural hot springs, and steam vents distributed across a highland reserve — does not exist in this form anywhere else on Earth. The silence that Gunnarsson identifies as one of the reserve’s defining qualities reflects the distance from the Ring Road that accessing it requires: travelers who reach Landmannalaugar have made a deliberate journey into a part of Iceland that day-trippers from Reykjavik rarely attempt.

The colorful mountains that give Landmannalaugar its most immediately striking visual quality result from the rhyolite rock that the region’s volcanic activity has deposited across the highlands in shades of yellow, green, red, and pink. The colors shift with light conditions and moisture, giving........

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