Renting a Car in Iceland for Road Trip of a Lifetime!

Renting a Car in Iceland for Road Trip of a Lifetime!

Renting a car in Iceland was the single most important part of planning our unforgettable adventure. All of our friends who travelled the ring road camped their way around it, so a car for us was not only our means of transportation, but also our hotel. For a full guide on road tripping Iceland, see our post Ultimate Iceland Itinerary: 9 Day Road Trip.

Meanwhile, here is everything you need to know about renting a car in Iceland, including the mistakes we made and lessons we learned along the way.

Why Rent a Car

There’s really only 3 ways of getting around Iceland: guided tour (bus/minivan), hitchhiking (not recommended), or renting a car. While a guided tour might be attractive for a day trip to the Golden Circle or the Myvatn area, renting a car in Iceland gives you freedom and flexibility over your trip. Additionally, most attractions are outdoors and don’t require admissions tickets, so a guided tour is not gaining much in convenience there.

What Type of Car Should You Rent in Iceland

While the type of rental car you get is usually a personal preference, the type actually matters a lot in Iceland. A standard 2-wheel drive will get you all the way around the ring road during summer months and is sufficient for most tourists. However, you will not be allowed (and can get ticketed/fined) on the F-roads.

Lesson 1: In order to drive on F-roads, you need a 4×4 car. Also, book in advance! They sell out during peak travel season.

The Westfjords and Landmannalaugar National Park (our favorite destination in Iceland) are only accessible via F-roads. In a haste to book during peak season of July, I accidentally booked a 2-wheel campervan for our Iceland road trip. Only after I had booked did I start actually planning our road trip and realized we had to visit Lanmannalaugar. Fortunately, cancelling my car from Camper Rental Iceland was easy (my deposit was refunded). A month out from our trip, a lot of rental companies were sold out of 4x4s. Fortunately, Rent.is had 4×4 campers available and our experience with the company was 5 stars.

Car v. Camper

If you’re open to camping, we would argue getting a campervan or camper car is the best way to travel Iceland. The ring road is an easy way of travelling 360 degrees around the island and seeing everything it has to offer.

Camping in a foreign country sounds like a lot of work – where do you get the gear? Turns out, Iceland is prepared for you.

Lesson 2: Almost all camper rental companies supply camping gear as part of your rental: mattress, sleeping bag, pillows (not great ones), camping stove, and kitchen utensils. You can also add a WiFi card to your package.

Cars are more readily available and slightly lower in cost (cost really depends on time of year, popularity, and how far you book in advance). For housing, hotels, hostels, and AirBNBs are an option, but they are a bit pricey and need to be booked in advance.

Lesson 3: On our last night of 8 nights in Iceland, we were craving a hotel room, only to find they were a minimum of $300 around Reykjavík booked at the last minute.

For us, hotels weren’t a great option due to flexibility. On the other hand, the camp sites were always available to us whether we were ahead of or behind schedule, or checking in at 2 in the morning.

What Time of Year Can You Camp?

Any camper rental agency will tell you: anytime of year! Obviously, they want your business even during low season. Though it’s true, you can rent a camper with a heater and camp the ring road during the winter, it comes with it’s own risks. Firstly, the weather affects the roads. You’ll want to check Road.is for the latest. Additionally, not all cars are equipped for all road conditions, so you’ll probably want a 4-wheel for winter. Also, keep in mind winter days can get short – down to 4 hours of daylight (December to January). On the contrary, the northern lights are visible all of winter (September through mid April) and the landscape has it’s own icy beauty compared to summer months (it was used for Game of Thrones, after all).

For the least-risky camping experience, summer (April – October) is a safe bet.

To maximize daylight hours, the “midnight sun” is a unique experience. From May – August, the sun never truly sets. Some tourists take advantage of this by visiting all the popular sites at “night,” when no other tourists are around. At 10pm it looks like 6pm at night in Chicago! Bring an eye cover or blindfold for sleeping; it won’t get dark in your tent.

Type of Camper to Rent

The type of camper you rent really depends on number of travelers, 2-wheel v. 4-wheel, and your budget.

• 2-wheel campervan: most budget-friendly camping option (outside of a tent). Isolates you from the wind, but you can’t drive on F-roads.
• 4-wheel with pop-up tent: most budget-friendly 4-wheel option (outside of a tent). Also, a very cool experience – you get to sleep on top of a car! Full transparency, though, we had a few rough windy nights.

Lesson 4: With the height of the tent it was difficult to find spots to break the wind, or position the tent optimally against the wind (the direction kept changing). There were a few sleepless nights where we thought the tent was going to collapse on us (it never did) and a few mornings where we woke to “rain” in the tent (condensation falling on us from the wind). Given this, in retrospect we would’ve preferred a level up from a pop-up tent.

• 4-wheel with full camper: most expensive option (without going up to an RV), but can fit up to four people sleeping in a much more comfortable setup. Also includes a fridge.

Documents Needed to Rent a Car

It might depend on the rental agency and your nationality (we are American), but for the most part, you just need a driver’s license and a credit card.

What You Need to Know About Driving on the Roads in Iceland

Driving in Iceland along the ring road is pretty easy. Even in the peak month of July, there aren’t too many cars on the road to cause any sorts of traffic jams or nasty accidents. Here’s a few key things to know that may or may not be no-brainers:

• You drive on the right side of the road.
• You should obey the speed limit. Cameras are everywhere and will catch you.
• The speed limit is fixed at four different limits: 30 km/h (residential roads), 50 km/h (urban areas), 80 km/h (unpaved), or 90 km/h (paved, rural roads).
• Some F-roads will require you to cross rivers. No rental car insurance will cover damage to the chassis of a vehicle from water damage (not sure about credit cards, not bold enough to try). We managed to avoid crossing any rivers during our roadtrip. Landmannalaugar had 2 rivers to cross to get to the campsite but we opted to camp in the parking lot instead.
• You cannot and should not drive on an F-road (non-paved road) without a 4-wheel drive.
• There are some narrow dirt roads near waterfalls where you need to pull over to let other cars pass. Studlagil Canyon, as an example. PS: we saw 2-wheel drive cars make it there and back down the dirt/gravel road on this one.
• There is one optional segment of the ring road that requires a toll, VAÐLAHEIÐAR tunnel. The tunnel cuts the ring road down by 16 km. Hopefully your rental car company warns you about it. If not, you should pay within 24 hours of using it here.
• Depending on when you travel to Iceland, some roads can be closed due to weather. Road.is gives you real time updates on road conditions.
• Gas stations… let’s get to that in the next section.

Gas Stations in Iceland

We should warn you that gas in Iceland is not cheap (it was especially not cheap in July 2022). You can get 5-10% off certain gas stations via the Iceland Camping Card and through your rental car. You should also know that you can drive for hours without seeing a gas station, so be smart about filling up.

Lesson 5: Watch your tank level relative to your GPS and available gas stations. Otherwise, you could end up driving backwards an hour to the nearest gas station because you won’t make it to your next destination. Oops.

Lastly, 24-hour gas stations do exist around the ring road (with no attendant at night), however, most gas station credit card machines require a PIN.

Lesson 6: We would strongly advise you to bring a debit card or call your credit card company to create a PIN in advance of your trip.

When an attendant is available you can pay inside the store, but sometimes they sell you a gift card instead.

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