The Golden Circle is a fairly popular day trip route from Reykjavik, so the trick to enjoying the route is to stay ahead of the crowds and the tour buses. If you’re visiting Iceland during one of the endless daylight months (e.g. May, June, July or August), try getting to the first stop a few hours before the first tour buses are scheduled to get there (generally around 10am at Þingvellir National Park).
That said, the Golden Circle wasn’t the highlight of my visit to Iceland, though I did enjoy walking to Bruarfoss waterfall and seeing the geysers.
For general tips on renting a car in Iceland to drive the Golden Circle and other budget tips check out the below post.
Sites to see on the way
If you choose Þingvellir National Park as your first stop, get there by 6am or 7am. Not only will you save yourself 750 ISK by getting there before the 9:00-20:00 parking fee time, but you’ll also have the park to yourself.
Þingvellir National Park is significant for its history as the site of Iceland’s first parliament. It has a few sites of natural beauty (and also of Game of Thrones film locations), but if you don’t care much for Icelandic cultural history, you can pass this park and head to the next stop. If you do choose to spend time here, budget 1 to 2 hours to see the site of the parliament, the church, Öxarárfoss waterfall, and various fissures.
From here it’s a 45-minute drive to Bruarfoss Waterfall. Google will send you somewhere different for parking. The actual parking is near the river. From there you walk 7km there-and-back along the river and three waterfalls. It’s a very beautiful, easy walk, though quite muddy. It’s unlikely you’ll see many others here. The trail is well-signaged, but you can follow the trail using the Maps.me app. Parking is free, but there are no restrooms.
Geysir and Strokkur (the geysirs) are 15 minutes down the road. Plan to spend about an hour here, tops, to see Strokkur erupt a few times and to check out the other bubbling pools of geothermal activity. Parking is free and there are free restrooms available.
Another 10 minutes drive up the road and you are now at your furthest point on the Golden Circle route – Gullfoss Falls. On your drive up, keep an eye out for the Langjökull glacier in the distance. By the time you get to the falls, there’ll likely be many people around. But that’s okay – this isn’t one of the sites where having less people can make a massive difference in your photo or experience quality. You’ll only need about 30 minutes here to walk down to the falls. Wear rain gear to avoid getting soaked by the spray.
From Gullfoss Falls, most people wrap up their Golden Circle tour with a stop at Kerid Crater. We skipped that and head to Hrunalaug Hot Spring instead. This is a thermal pool warmed by water passing over hot rocks. It has a little hut you can get changed in out of the wind. The pool is a very short walk from the parking lot, so it can get crowded easily, so plan to go outside of peak times. Either early in the morning before 9:30am or after 8pm is best. We got there around 2:30pm, and were lucky only 4 others were there. There are three small pools of water, so it can get crowded fast, as we found out when a large family rocked up at around 3:30pm. The farmer who owns the pools is sitting in the SUV in the parking lot and can let you know how full it is – otherwise just ask to take a look before you pay to enter the pools. The cost is 1000 ISK per person (cash only) and the owner requests that you limit your visit to 1.5 hours. There are no public restrooms available.
Onwards
If you have more than a day in Iceland, I would highly recommend you spend another 2 to 3 days to explore the Southern coast of Iceland up to Höfn.
