North Iceland & Snæfellsnes - November 2024

I made my third trip (and Sonia's second) to Iceland in November, the previous two being in March 2022 and January this year. I love Iceland, even during this trip, I was planning for my next (at least August 2026).

The attraction to me for Iceland is obviously the nature. Incredible landscapes, and - outside of the big tourist attractions, despite the massive popularity Iceland has these days - it still often feels quiet and remote, with a bit of adventure about it even around the ring road.

Being from the UK, Iceland is easily accessible by relatively cheap flights. So the calculation goes:

• Quick and easy to get to.
• Lots of amazing natural attractions that are mostly easily accessible
• Easy place to travel within, Icelanders speak immaculate english, paying for things is practically universally via card, and it has great infrastructure.

This is part of my problem, there are so many incredible places around the world - but despite Iceland's reputation for being very expensive - I do feel like for us in Europe, particularly north/western at least - it's hard to beat in terms of accessibility.

After missing the northern lights for my second visit, we had suggested we may come at the end of the year for another attempt, just for a long weekend. But, as you start pricing things up - and given the driving distances - the long weekend gradually crept up into another full week.

The plan

Having done many of the main south coast attractions twice (still more I'd like to see there, but mostly down towards the east), this time we thought we'd go towards the popular Snæfellsnes peninsular and up north to Akureyri.

Aware that visiting in late November would present daylight challenges (sunrise around 10:30 and sunset around 15:30) and that attractions were more spread out, we deliberately kept our plans flexible. Less trying hard to check a bunch of big attractions off the list, more just seeing how we go - I'm relaxed about missing things because I'm sure I'll be happy to revisit Iceland many more times in the future in various seasons.

Landing and first night in Reykjavik

We landed late and our only plan was just to stay the night in Reykjavik and then set off early for Snæfellsnes the next morning.

A couple of days before our arrival, another volcanic rift had opened up on the volcanically active Reykjanes Peninsula. On our last trip, we narrowly missed an eruption by just over a week, but the timing aligned for our November trip.

Whilst I'll admit I was and am excited by being able to see a volcanic eruption, I'm trying to be careful in using words like 'lucky' to describe the timing. The town of Grindavik has been largely evacuated and these eruptions have turned many people's lives upside down. The last thing they need to hear are idiot tourists jumping up and down in excitement at this.

The volcano was erupting in a location very near the airport, so you're able to see it from the plane and on the drive to Reykjavik. We had researched if there were any decent vantage points for us to stop off and take a look at, but there wasn't any that I thought would be appropriate.

The authorities told people not to stop along the main road or really anywhere around, so we didn't. There were, inevitably, some people doing that though. Given the nature of the eruption and lack of ability to view it in any way that is appreciably better than what we had already seen, we didn't make any plans around visiting the volcano. Though did briefly consider a helicopter tour...

It's the first time I've seen an eruption with my own eyes, and it was definitely cool, perhaps we should have done the helicopter tour, but I'm sure this won't be my only chance.

Day 1: Heading for Snæfellsnes

We had plans to set off earlier, but as will become a theme of this trip, we're not so good at getting out of bed early enough. Either way, before heading for our next accommodation - we had to stop at one of the Brauð & co. locations in Reykjavik to stock up on a few of their excellent cinnamon buns. A tip: whilst stuff like this is rarely as good as it is fresh, they still kept okay for the next morning if you want to stock up for your trip away from the capital. A very quick blast in the microwave to soften & warm them up, and they were still good.

We didn't have too many plans for this day other than to just get to our accommodation, again - as daylight hours were against us - we didn't really have a lot of time to make stops.

Our first stop off was marked as a geothermal hot spring area near the entry of the peninsular, but upon finding the location - it appeared to not be easily accessible on foot in the current conditions. So we didn't find or see any real evidence of the springs.

Next up, Bjarnarfoss. I typically love the look and experience of an icy, wintery waterfall - but for lower volume waterfalls - it doesn't quite work out in the same way. Bjarnarfoss is one of those stops that isn't particularly worth it in the winter, we stopped and had a good time looking at the surrounding areas and - as was quite typical for our trip - enjoying being the only people at an attraction.

I put the drone up for a while, but the winds were quite high so didn't play around with too many shots.

Finally, on to our accommodation. We managed to get one of two cabins sat at the foot of Kirkjufell - arguably Iceland's most photographed mountain, made even more famous as the 'arrowhead mountain' in Game of Thrones. I was quite surprised that we were able to nab this cabin for the couple of days we were in it for a reasonable price given the popularity of this location.

During our stay, we could see the carpark and photography spot (pictured above) from our cabin across the road.

As soon as I arrived, with the fading daylight - I took the opportunity to capture the area with the drone. The light was pretty low, but the DJI Mini 4 Pro did okay given the conditions.. still a bit grainy, but it's a small sensor..

Our cabin was one of the darker ones with the red roof on the right at the start of the video. You can see the car park for the photography spot that I mentioned above towards the end of the video.

After having dinner in an excellent local restaurant, we thought we'd give the hot tub a try. For all but the first night, we had prioritised getting accommodations with a hot tub for one main reason (beside the fact they're enjoyable, especially in cold, wintery conditions): it'd be a nice way to wait out for any potential northern lights appearances.

Before getting in the hot tub however, I tried out a lens I had bought for 'astrophotography' - a Samyang 12mm f2 for my Fuji XT5. Got some okay long exposures of the stars and as you can see, a faint glow was appearing through the sky.

However, this night, the forecast was stating there was very little chance of a real sighting - the sky was clear, but no significant auroral activity was predicted. So we got in the hot tub with no expectations other than to enjoy the hot tub and the cool surroundings.

But.. surprise! We first noticed a white streak appearing through the sky, then we pointed our phones up to it and it lit up in green and red. At this point, it was pretty white and wispy to the naked eye, but the movement and way it appeared was still very cool to experience.

After spending 30 more minutes photographing the aurora from the hot tub, we got out to get our proper cameras to try and get some better photos with a different view, over the water.

Before the storm died off, we got a massively strong showing - whereas much of the evening so far, the colours were closer to white than anything else to the naked eye - on the photo below - the whole sky lit up with a green hue visible to the eye. A very cool experience.

I had taken some timelapses but realised after the fact I should have taken a lot more photos and at faster intervals, but still turned out okay.

Third time lucky! As mentioned earlier, I've been to Iceland twice before and missed them due to very cloudy weather throughout each week. I had even missed them in the UK when they appeared earlier in 2024.

It was never the main attraction to me, but you've got to see them - especially when it really kicks off - those moments where the sky lit up with lots of movement and green glow visible to the naked eye were pretty special.

Day 2 - More Snæfellsnes

We started the day photographing Kirkjufell (the photo at the start of Day 1 above), a few annoying tourists deciding the barriers don't apply to them and they're entitled to step over and get their photos. It's annoying - with Iceland's tourism boom - and the fact the main attraction is the nature, obviously lots of people going to the same spots is going to impact the natural feeling.

But we don't need to make it worse by ignoring the signs, barriers and paths. I feel as if people interpret these signs as a way to keep people safe, so people are happy to ignore them and take the risk themselves. But that's not the only reason, in fact in many places, it's not a reason at all. Having thousands of tourists a day trample the ground around these attractions will ruin the feel and appearance of these sights.

If you're one of these people. Please stop. Your photo isn't anymore important than anyone else's and it's certainly not more important than the environment.

Either way, it's a cool area with the waterfall and mountain in the background.

We headed west and stopped at the viewpoint not far from Kirkufell, there was no one else around and I thought it'd be good opportunity for some drone shots. I hadn't had much practice with the drone yet, I bought it for this trip, and I was (and still am) self conscious about getting it out and annoying people with it.

As I mentioned above, we don't want to impact the natural attraction of Iceland too much. A drone buzzing above your head or getting in your photos would be irritating - so I only ever got the drone out when I was confident that I wouldn't impact other people (and it was allowed in the area) or wildlife, which was pretty often because we were usually the only people at the places we visited. I always check the drone maps and local regulations for wherever I'm flying.

There are more clips in the video at the top of this post from this area, I took a good 5 minutes of video here. A bus load of tourists a few minutes into my flight turned up but once the drone is above 20 metres or so, you can't really hear it - especially if it's a bit windy - so I don't believe I disturbed anyone, and people seemed mostly interested rather than annoyed when I was landing it.

Next stop was a few minutes drive down the road to Bugsfoss. Here, again, it was a relatively low-flow waterfall and it had frozen over. But the surrounding area was cool and got some nice drone shots of the lake and golf course.

Not shying away from Instagram traps, we headed towards Ingjaldscholskirkja, a red-roof church on a hill. On our way there, we turned down some small gravel side road and stopped to say a quick hello to some horses (the road was empty and I watched for any other cars joining the road, so I could get moving once they appeared).

But on to the main attraction.. at the perfect time for some nice, golden light.

It became apparent after a little while that this place was a popular spot, as, contrary to our experience so far on this trip - we saw at least 4-6 other groups of people! Hardly a crowd, but still notable.

I did get a chance to get the drone up before others arrived though.

With the light fading, we headed towards Lóndrangar to round out the day.

One of the best things about visiting Iceland at this time of the year is the really cool lighting conditions. The afterglow, sunsets and sunrises add much to an already amazing landscape.

We briefly stopped at Saxhóll Crater on the way, where there were a few people climbing to the top of it. We didn't stay long, because we were more interested in the lighthouse area at Lóndrangar.

We finished off the night's driving with one final stop at a viewpoint some very surreal lighting conditions.

Day 3: Heading north to Akureyri

From our accommodation at Kirkjufell to Akureyri, there was a nearly 5 hour drive. So we set off early-ish and didn't have many plans for stops along the way other than a stop at Hvitserkur - which turned out to be a bit of bumpy detour.

Unfortunately, whilst the drive there was cool, the way down to the beach wasn't accessible due to the ice and it was very windy. We may have been able to struggle our way down, but thought getting back up would have been potentially dangerous.

A bit of a long detour for something we didn't ultimately get to experience much of, but the drives are always enjoyable regardless.

For the rest of the day, we continued the drive up to our cabin near Akureyri, went shopping and relaxed for the evening.

Day 4: Lake Mývatn, Goðafoss and some drama

I'm usually pretty well researched before trips, but one thing we did miss for this trip was the fact Dettifoss is only accessible via a road that doesn't have any winter service - so depending on conditions, you're likely not going to be able to get to it during winter months.

This was part of our plan initially until we looked at the traffic conditions map and saw the road up to it marked as 'impassable'. A shame, because Dettifoss does look immense.

A quick stop to watch the sunrise at Ljósavatn was a nice surprise. Though it was a bit of a risk driving down to the viewpoint - as it was very icy with some rather deep snow!

We arrived at Lake Mývatn visitor centre and suspected that the wind may be a bit of a problem. That, plus the deep snow around the paths did limit the value of visiting here. It's hard to ever be truly disappointed in most natural scenery in Iceland, and I wasn't in this case either - but there probably would have been better places to spend our limited daylight hours at in these conditions in this area of the country.

We decided to move on and attempt to visit Grjótagjá, a lava cave with a geothermal hot spring inside.

The drive towards it was great - further around Mývatn with some more interesting, diverse volcanic landscapes. The road leading towards Grjótagjá seemed like it had been freshly cleared, just a smooth compacted layer of snow to drive on.

Then we turned the corner and drove up a slight incline.. down the other side and into considerably deeper, uncleared snow. As I came down the incline into this deeper section it became obvious it wasn't worth trying to carry on forwards as whilst I was making progress, the car was sliding and struggling a lot.

I stopped and started to turn around. My mistake here was not fully appreciating where the road ended, I had just about managed to turn it around within the limits of the road, I was facing the right direction. But as the car was moving around a lot on the deep snow, it moved just enough to slide the righthand side of the car off the road.

Stuck.

Unfortunately we didn't think to record much of the ordeal - all I have is this brief video I took as I got out of the car to assess the initial situation.

I just couldn't get any traction in this position and the wheels just kept digging deeper into the ground as I tried.

A few things I tried to no avail:

• Diff lock on, varying levels of power
• Traction control off, varying levels of power
• Slight back and forth manoeuvres, trying to find a small contact patch for the tyres to grip up.
• Physically pushing and jiggling the car whilst giving it some power

Nothing worked. The clutch was starting to smell quite a bit - so I gave it a rest and decided I needed help.

Up this small side gravel road I was on, I remember passing a row of small (presumably) houses. I walked down hoping that there was someone around that could maybe help pull us out or help in some other way, but most of them seemed empty, and just one car parked outside that probably wouldn't have been able to reach me anyway.

Luckily, I noticed some movement in one of the houses and knocked on - I asked if I could borrow their snow shovel that was placed outside of their front door. They thankfully allowed me to and I ran back down the road and got to work.

It required me to move quite a lot of snow from around all the wheels, but we got free without any other outside assistance which I'm very happy about. I didn't want to be another idiot tourist having to be rescued because they drove somewhere they shouldn't.

In part because I don't think I did too much wrong in this situation, the incline from the cleared road obscured the fact that we would immediately end up in deep snow as we reached the peak of it and I turned around as soon as I could and didn't try and push through it.

Anyway, it didn't really get much more exciting than that. We turned around, tail between our legs, back towards Goðafoss.

Goðafoss is one of the bigger attractions in the north, it was definitely the busiest natural attraction we visited through the trip.

The surrounding area isn't as interesting as some of the other major waterfalls around Iceland, but it's definitely worth a visit.

We drove back after this, found a restaurant in Akureyri and then set off for Forest Lagoon. As mentioned in my post for the January 2024 trip, I have been to:

• Secret Lagoon
• Sky Lagoon
• Blue Lagoon
• Sundhöll public baths a few times (Reykjavík)

Of the three, Sky Lagoon, Blue Lagoon and Forest Lagoon aim to offer similar experiences. An entirely manmade spa-like experience, and they're cool. To update my ranking now:

1. Secret Lagoon
2. Sky Lagoon
3. Forest Lagoon
4. Sundhöll public baths
5. Blue Lagoon

Forest Lagoon was very close to Sky Lagoon, I thought about putting them equal - but I think the Sky Lagoon's inclusion of the "7 step ritual" edges the Forest Lagoon. But I will say I think I preferred the views from the Forest Lagoon of Akureyri and the bay.

If you enjoy this type of thing, Forest Lagoon is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Day 5: Tröllaskagi peninsula

Our plan for today was to drive around the Tröllaskagi peninsula, but we had a more relaxing morning and set off late - so we didn't expect to see much. Before setting off, I had a wander around the farm our cabin was on.

Our cabin was one of two (the other was empty) on a real working farm, of which the host was really nice and gave us free rein to walk around the farm and explore. We hadn't yet tried the hot tub + cold plunge, but that was on the plan for tonight..

For our trip out today, we decided on Grafarkirkja. There's varying information out there about this church. Some say it's the oldest church in Iceland, some say it's the oldest turf church in Iceland, and others say it's the oldest wooden church in Iceland.

Either way, it's relatively old for a church in Iceland. But its the unique (for us foreigners at least) construction in a nice landscape that is the draw.

It was -12c, -16c with wind chill here - so I was a bit nervous about putting the drone up (against manufacturer stated limits) - but it handled it well. I wasn't planning on flying for long, so reduced battery life wasn't an issue.

The church itself is pretty cool, we had it to ourselves - so could have a look around. You can't go inside, it's locked - but that's probably for the best.

The town of Hofsós was our next destination, with the aim to get a good view of the basalt columns. These ended up being my favourite drone shots of the whole trip.

The columns are right below a public swimming pool and in the middle of the town. You can see the pool facility towards the top of the frame in this video. I do kinda wish I had taken more time to frame this out in at least one shot, but as usual - I'm always a bit self conscious about the drone. I want to get the shots and put it away before I annoy anyone.

Again, in my rush - I only got a portrait version of the below video of the shoreline, which is a shame - because I liked this shot. Looked good for the 'gram though.

As for the town itself, there wasn't much open that I could see other than the local supermarket and petrol station. But it's nice to visit these little towns either way.

Finally, we went home - spent the night in the cabin, making the most out of the hot tub and cold plunge 👌. Sadly too dark for any reasonable photos or videos though.

Day 6: Heading back down south

As we begin to wrap up our trip, we start heading back down south so that we're closer to the airport for our final day. As we were checking out, we got a visit from the host and her dogs of the amazing Airbnb we stayed at.

I had a final walk around the farm, it's definitely somewhere I'd consider coming back to in the summer, it's a great location and cabin - apparently there's a trail leading up the mountain with a guestbook to sign at the top.

We had a quick walk around Akureyri after checking out, the city has a cool vibe, definitely way more to see and do than we did. As we had a long day of driving, we didn't spend too much time other than buying some Icelandic jumpers. I italicise because they're not the proper authentic stuff, they're mass manufactured but with real Icelandic wool.

They're nice, definitely very warm, but the real handmade stuff is a bit too expensive for something I personally probably wouldn't get a huge amount of use out of..

Our final destination before returning home was a cabin in Borgarnes, again chosen for being remote (away from light pollution) and a hot tub. Unfortunately the hot tub had a bunch of unidentified debris in it, so we chose not to use it.

Before settling in for the night, we had dinner at Bara Borganes - which we'd absolutely recommend. We had a chat with the owner and his daughter, who informed us that we were there on the Icelandic election night. They shared their stories of visiting the UK (London and Manchester). I'd definitely stop in again if were in the area.

Back in the cabin, we got a small glimpse of the northern lights, but they were pretty weak to the naked eye and mostly obscured by clouds.

Day 7: Final day

Our last day was left relatively open, we planned some short stops along the way - and a little more exploration around the nearby town of Borganes. I had a look around the surroundings of our cabin, as we arrived in darkness - so the morning was my first experience of it in daylight.

I did put the drone up, but the wind was very strong and for the first time - the gimbal struggled to remain straight. Additionally, there was a point where the drone was struggling to come back to me due to the force of the wind. I didn't keep it up for too long due to the fear of it being blown away into the nearby river!

After checking out, we had a quick walk around Borganes and then went on the scenic route back to Reykjavik.

We stopped briefly in a few places, but the wind was intense - so didn't see much other than what we could from the car. Which is rarely a terrible situation, because Iceland is a great place to drive around anyway.

Our final stop for the trip was the Perlan museum in Reykjavik, we couldn't stay here long - so I'd like to explore more in the future, but what I saw was pretty cool.

Thoughts on the trip

North Iceland at the end of November is tricky. Low daylight hours are a bigger issue than the south due to things being a bit more spread out, you're doing a lot more driving to get between the attractions. As I said, I don't particularly mind that - I enjoy driving in Iceland a lot.

It was a lot colder this time (down to -18c, -20 with the windchill), however the road conditions were generally much better than when we came in January '24. There weren't really any situations where I felt unsafe.

There are still loads more to see in the north, but that’s for another time. My next trip to Iceland will be in the summer. I'm planning on being there for the eclipse in August 2026 and making a bit more of a trip out of it, probably going into the highlands for the first time.

I'm sure I'll always want to go back to Iceland for one reason or another, once I've got the August '26 trip done, I suspect I may go for shorter more focused trips whenever I return. Long weekends focused around around a small area.

Not only is Iceland a great natural attraction, but as an outsider, there's lots I like about Icelandic society and the people. I can't say I haven't had thoughts about living there. I did spend a bit of time researching the remote worker visa...

Anyway... not happening 👋