Iceland's Golden Circle Tour---Breathtaking

Lake Þingvallavatn

The Golden Circle Tour in Iceland is one of the most popular tours on the island. The tour includes a visit to Þingvellir (where the Icelandic Parliament was established in 930), Gullfoss, and Geysir. Each of these sites are impressive and worthy of the "gold" status.

Þingvellir

Þingvellir National Park is amazing! It is actually the site of the rift valley marking the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge--where the North American and Eurasian plates are moving apart. Þingvallavatn, Iceland's largest natural lake also makes its home in the park. The views of the lake are truly like no other. My jaw definitely dropped when I saw the lake.

From Þingvellir, we made our way to Gullfoss. Gullfoss is a powerful waterfall in a river originating from a glacier. You can view the waterfall from above or take a short walk down the side. (When we arrived, our daughter was a bit cranky, so we were only able to take in views from above.) There is a nice visitor center at Gullfoss where we stopped for some lamb stew. They have a ton of souvenirs and food options.

After Gullfoss, we made our way to Geysir. Geysir is the first geyser described in printed sources and where other geysers get their name. Geysir still erupts, but does not regularly. A neighboring geyser, Strokkur, erupts about every 10-15 minutes. The rush from Strokkur is amazing and always causes the wow factor in onlookers. The area around Geysir and Strokkur is surrounded by smaller geysers and hot pools. The area is surreal and awe-inspiring.

The drive back through the countryside was gorgeous! The mountains, grazing horses, and sheep made for a scenic drive to Reykjavik.

The Golden Circle Tour is amazing and should not be missed! There are a couple of different versions. We took the shorter, 6-hour tour because our daughter was with us. There is a longer tour that had a couple of more stops. The only issue that we had with this tour is that we did not know the distance between stops beforehand. We definitely should have asked about this so that we would be able to better prepare our daughter before stops. (This may have prevented the meltdown at Gullfoss.) We used Grayline for the tour and would use it again!