A guide to driving Iceland’s Ring Road

April to October is easily the best time to consider a full Ring Road tour of Iceland. This is because the spring/summer season offers many more practical advantages for road-trippers. Not only do the longer daylight hours allow for greater exploration each day, but the weather conditions are far less likely to disrupt your progress.

Traveling in summer is also a wonderful sensory experience. The waterfalls roar with the full force of spring meltwater and the landscape is teeming with vibrant new life, from the country’s wildflowers across the landscape of rolling hills to nesting birds in the coastal cliffs.

Although Iceland’s colder months can be magical, driving Iceland’s entire Ring Road in winter is generally not recommended. Sections of the road can be closed due to weather conditions, and certain activities and attractions are off-limits. If you do wish to drive the entire Ring Road in winter, be mindful that the journey will take longer, and you’ll need to be flexible with your itinerary – and, most importantly, you should be experienced and comfortable with driving in winter conditions. The limited number of daylight hours should also factor into your winter planning.

Counter-clockwise is the most popular direction in which to drive Iceland’s Ring Road. This is because the big-ticket destinations, like the well-known waterfalls, black beaches, and glaciers, naturally draw visitors arriving into Reykjavík towards the south of the island first.

However, if you head north in the other direction, you might just free yourself from the initial flow of tourist traffic.

Travel the Ring Road clockwise: If you’re picking up your rental car at Keflavík airport, drive north to Reykjavík to join the Ring Road there.

Travel the Ring Road counter-clockwise: From Keflavík airport, travel along the scenic south coast of the Reykjanes peninsula to join Highway 1 at the towns of Hveragerði or Selfoss.

Popular stopover towns and villages while driving around the country include Vik, Höfn, Egilsstaðir, Mývatn, Akureyri, and Borgarnes. These areas offer a range of hotels, guesthouses, and camping grounds, serving as key access points to many of Iceland’s sights.

Remember that summer is a busy period for visitors, so any hotel or guesthouse accommodation should be booked well in advance. Also, certain regions of Iceland – such as the southeast, where the landscape is dominated by glaciers – have few towns for visitors to stop in, and so accommodation in these areas is often in high demand.

In terms of where to stay when driving the Ring Road in Iceland, it’s hard to beat camping or a campervan when it comes to flexibility, availability (since you don’t need to book camping spots in advance), and access to the full experience of Iceland’s scenery. There are camping spots and campervan parks throughout Iceland, with popular pitches neighboring waterfalls and in the shadow of rugged mountains.

The Ring Road passes through all regions of Iceland except for the remote Westfjords in the northwest, and the central Highlands area.

Other gaps include the Reykjanes pensinsula in the southwest of the country, Snæfellsnes peninsula in West Iceland, some of the scenic northern peninsulas, and the northeast corner of the country.

If these areas sound appealing, you can check out some of the alternative road trips that lie off the Ring Road in our guide to the best Icelandic road trips, where we tackle great driving routes in each region.

Regardless of when you visit Iceland, it’s vital to check the road conditions of both the Ring Road and any detours to each destination, as well as the weather forecast, which could impact your driving ability or overall enjoyment of the journey. You can also check safe driving advice and rules for the Icelandic landscape and climate year-round.

As well as being mindful of the weather, there are a few other quirks to the roads and some driving rules that tourists wouldn’t necessarily be aware of. We summarize these in our guide to driving in Iceland, so it’s definitely worth checking them out before your trip.