By fall 2022 we were finally crawling out of the COVID years and wanted to do something that felt like a real trip again. Play Airlines had just started flying out of Stewart — our regional airport, twenty minutes from the house — which made Iceland suddenly stupid-easy to get to. Henry was 10, Elias was 8, both old enough to handle long days, glacier hikes, and dramatic weather without melting down. Jennifer didn’t have it in her to plan another elaborate itinerary, and I’m not at her level when it comes to trip planning, so we found Hey Iceland — an outfit that builds your whole route based on what you want to see and how much time you’ve got. They book the rooms, hand you a rental car and a tablet pre-loaded with navigation and activity notes, and turn you loose. It’s a tour without the tour guide.
We landed at Keflavik at 4 AM, which sounded great until we discovered that absolutely everything at the airport was closed. The car rental desks didn’t open until 6. The Hey Iceland booth, in fact, didn’t open until later than that, because the attendant was running late and nobody had thought to mention this might happen. A small convenience shop eventually opened, but we missed the morning pastries by about twenty minutes — they “wouldn’t be ready until after 6.” Two hours in an empty fluorescent airport with two jet-lagged kids is its own kind of punishment.
The car, when we finally got it, became the running gag of the trip. A small manual-transmission SUV with hand-crank windows, no backup camera, and tires that were a little balder than felt comfortable. The boys immediately decided Jennifer had picked the cheapest option on the lot (she hadn’t — this was apparently what most tourists were driving) and christened it Mom’s Bargain Mobile. After Jen got the tablet figured out and I reacquainted myself with a clutch, we pulled out of the lot around 6:30. Sunrise wasn’t until 8.
First stop was the Bridge Between Continents, which is a literal footbridge across the gap between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. We arrived in full darkness. Tried to nap in the parking lot. That worked about as well as you’d expect. We took the opportunity to brush our teeth in the lot, which we somehow hadn’t managed to do during the two hours at the airport — jet lag delirium, presumably — and then walked the bridge in the dark, looking at all the padlocks people leave on the cables.
From there to Brimketill, a small ocean pool carved into the lava shore west of Grindavík, and then on to a thermal area and the fresh lava field from a volcano (Kistufell, I think) that had erupted a few months earlier and may still be erupting now. Walking on lava that had been molten in living memory was the first moment Iceland really registered. The hike up was long and uphill and the kids were running on no sleep, but they didn’t complain — they were too busy being amazed. We made it to Vatnsholt Farm Hotel about ten minutes outside Selfoss that afternoon, ate burgers at a little shack in town, hit the bakery, and slept like the dead.
The next day was the Golden Circle. Thingvellir National Park first — the rift valley where the early Icelandic parliament met, with a wooden walkway down between the plates and a snack shop at the entrance. Then Haukadalur and Geysir, which the kids loved precisely because they kept getting startled by the eruptions. The geyser’s intensity changes — we’d nearly walked away when it finally went, and the surprise scream from Elias made the whole thing. Then Gullfoss, the big two-tier waterfall that’s basically Iceland’s Niagara. Walk down to the lower viewpoint, it’s worth it. Back to Vatnsholt for the night.
Day three took us east along the south coast. Seljalandsfoss is the famous walk-behind waterfall, and yes, you can walk behind it — the path is muddy, the mist soaks you, and the kids thought it was the best thing they’d ever done. Pack waterproof everything. The Skógar outdoor museum was next, a collection of grass-roofed traditional homes, one of which had an electrical panel I found weirdly fascinating. From there to Skógafoss, the 60-meter waterfall with a hundred-step staircase up to the top viewpoint. Worth every step.
We hit the Secret Lagoon on the way through — a geothermal pool where the water gets hotter the closer you get to the source. There were floating particles in the water that I noticed only after I’d dunked my head, which I’d rather not think about. The bigger issue was the communal shower setup: you’re supposed to shower naked before getting in, and our kids absolutely were not doing that, so they showered in their bathing suits, got out in their bathing suits, and spent the whole experience traumatized. I think we’d have liked the Blue Lagoon better just for the water color — the iconic blue is half the appeal — but we booked too late and it was full. The boys breathed a small sigh of relief.
The south coast drive itself was the unexpected highlight. It’s like Kauai, but starker and more dramatic, and even on no sleep we kept pulling over to look at things. Dyrhólaey was windy in the way Iceland is windy, with safety barriers that suggest the country takes a fairly Darwinian view of tourists’ decision-making. Elias — the less-attentive one of our two — got a little too close to the cliff edge and was nearly blown off by a gust. After that we held onto him. Reynisfjara, just down the road near Vik, had the basalt-column formations and the black sand and the lava caves and the huge stone sea stacks. The kids loved climbing the columns. Watch the sneaker waves — people die on this beach every year. There are two parking areas; check both, and go at low tide if you can. We stayed at Sólheimahjáleiga Guesthouse for the night.
The next morning we did the Katla Ice Cave tour out of Vik, which gets you out to the glacier in those incredible super-jeeps with self-inflating tires that can handle both pavement and off-road glacial moraine. The vehicles alone were worth doing. The cave itself is another story: climate change has eroded it down to almost nothing, and you’re inside it for about a minute. A friend’s sister had warned us about this in a blog post we found too late — she’d called it misleading marketing, and she was right. If we did Iceland again, we’d skip Katla and try one of the bigger cave tours further east.
Back in Vik we had soup in bread bowls and then went to the Lava Show, which I had assumed would be a tourist trap and which actually flattened me. They melt real lava and pour it out in front of you, and the radiant heat from a few feet away is staggering. Highly recommend. Highly recommend the soup, too.
From Vik we drove on toward our next stop, stopping for gas and another waterfall at Kirkjubaejarklaustur. There was a booking mix-up at Hótel Skaftafell — they initially had us at a different property — but they found us a room, and that turned out to be the luckiest thing that happened on the trip. At 9 that night the front desk called: the northern lights were out. We bundled up and stepped outside and watched them for an hour. They don’t move the way they do in time-lapse footage — it’s a slow fade, not a dance — and the colors aren’t as saturated as the photos suggest. But standing in a parking lot in Iceland with both kids, looking up at green and purple sweeping across the sky, was one of the best things I’ve ever experienced. The other detail worth knowing about Skaftafell: there’s a gas station restaurant called Freysnes directly across the road that serves genuinely good food at reasonable prices. We ate there twice.
Day five was Diamond Beach, which our friend’s sister had specifically told us not to miss, and which became the highlight of the trip. Chunks of glacial ice scatter across black sand and catch the light like diamonds. It’s the kind of thing photos can’t do justice to — the scale, the variation in the ice, the way the surf moves the smaller pieces around. We did a short hike afterward to Magnusarfoss, a waterfall in the same area, and either as part of that hike or near it we ended up on a small mountain with a glacier view I’m still thinking about. The geography around that whole region runs together in my memory. We stayed at Hotel Laekur that night.
The last full day was Reykjavik. We checked into Hotel Cabin and I’ll save you the suspense: do not stay at Hotel Cabin. The room was big, but the place was rundown, smelled musty and a little smoky, sat right at street level so the traffic noise never stopped, and the furniture was visibly deteriorating. We were leaving early the next morning, so we figured we could grit it out.
The day in the city was good. We walked the old town, saw the presidential house, walked the harbor, took an Uber out to the open-air museum to see the turf-roofed houses — the boys were genuinely interested in how people had lived in this climate. We bought authentic Icelandic wool sweaters at one of the wool shops, which weren’t cheap but cost roughly half what they’d cost in the U.S., and we claimed the VAT refund at the airport on the way out. People still compliment those sweaters years later. Dinner was at a burger place the kids destroyed, and on the walk back we found a dessert shop selling Astarpungar — “love balls,” basically Icelandic doughnut holes topped with whatever you want. Letting the kids pick their own toppings was a tactical error. The sugar and Nutella consumption that followed was not something either of them was equipped to handle.
Which brings us to the night at Hotel Cabin. Around 1 AM Henry felt sick, made it to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and then projectile-vomited everything in every direction — floor, walls, toilet, himself. Why our kids consistently fail to identify the warning signs of impending illness is a question I have not solved. The bathroom was handicap-accessible with a walk-in shower and a floor drain, so we thought cleanup would be easy. It was not. The floor sloped the wrong way, which meant the vomit water flowed out of the bathroom and toward our packed suitcases in the bedroom. What followed was a midnight cleanup operation with towels as sandbags, the hand-held shower nozzle as our main tool, and serious dry-heaving from the cleanup crew, all conducted in the dark to keep from waking Elias. We left a substantial tip for housekeeping, warned the front desk, and got out.
At the airport the next morning, Keflavik felt like a resort. Jen was flying on to Porto for work; the boys and I were on the early afternoon flight back to Stewart. Clean bathrooms, decent food, no vomit. We bought the sweaters’ VAT refund, ate, and decompressed.
Iceland was extraordinary. The lava field, the south coast drive, the northern lights, Diamond Beach — those four things alone would make me get on a plane tomorrow. We’d go back. We’d just stay somewhere other than Hotel Cabin.
The Reference Version
At-a-glance route.
Keflavik → Reykjanes Peninsula (lava fields) → Selfoss (2 nights, Golden Circle base) → south coast / Vik area (1 night) → Skaftafell (1 night, northern lights) → Diamond Beach / Hotel Laekur (1 night) → Reykjavik (1 night) → fly home.
The trip.
October 2–9, 2022. Family of four: me, Jennifer, Henry (10), and Elias (8). Booked through Hey Iceland, which builds a custom itinerary, books the lodging, provides the rental car, and supplies a pre-loaded tablet with navigation and activity notes. Flew Play Airlines out of Stewart Airport (SWF), 20 minutes from home — a major reason this trip happened when it did.
Where we stayed.
Vatnsholt Farm Hotel, about 10 minutes outside Selfoss. Comfortable, welcoming, well-located as a Golden Circle base. Two nights.
Sólheimahjáleiga Guesthouse, south coast near Vik. One night. Good.
Hótel Skaftafell. Initial booking mix-up — they had us at a different property — but they found us a room. Helpful staff. They run a northern lights wake-up call, which is how we saw them. Eat at the Freysnes gas station restaurant directly across the road — genuinely good food at reasonable prices. One night.
Hotel Laekur, near Diamond Beach. Comfortable. One night.
Hotel Cabin, Reykjavik. Do not stay here. Rundown, musty/smoky smell, street-level traffic noise, deteriorating furniture. One night and one regrettable bathroom incident.
Getting there.
Play Airlines from Stewart Airport (SWF) to Keflavik (KEF). The proximity of Stewart was the unlock — 20 minutes from home, no JFK or Newark slog. We landed at 4 AM, which we’d recommend against if you can help it — the airport is largely closed at that hour and the rental desks don’t open until 6.
Renting the car.
Hey Iceland’s included rental was a manual-transmission small SUV with hand-crank windows, no backup camera, and somewhat bald tires — same model most other tourists were driving. If you can’t drive stick, request an automatic upfront. The Hey Iceland desk at Keflavik did not open on time when we arrived; their emergency number works but they could do a better job flagging known late-arrival risk before your flight.
Day by day.
Day 1 (Sun Oct 2). 4 AM arrival at Keflavik, two-hour wait for rental desks to open. Rolled out around 6:30. Stopped at the Bridge Between Continents (a footbridge across the rift between tectonic plates, west Reykjanes Peninsula) in pre-dawn dark. Brimketill (small ocean pool carved into the lava shore west of Grindavík). Nearby thermal area. Fresh lava field hike from a 2022 eruption — long uphill but worth it. On to Vatnsholt Farm Hotel near Selfoss. Burgers at a shack in Selfoss; bakery in town.
Day 2 (Mon Oct 3). Golden Circle. Thingvellir National Park (rift valley with wooden walkway and snack shop at the entrance), Haukadalur Geothermal Field and Geysir (be patient — eruption intervals vary; the surprise is the fun), Gullfoss (two-tier waterfall, walk down to the lower viewpoint). Back to Vatnsholt for the night.
Day 3 (Tue Oct 4). South coast drive. Seljalandsfoss (walk-behind waterfall — pack full rain gear). Skógar outdoor museum (grass-roofed traditional homes). Skógafoss (60m waterfall, ~100 steps to the top viewpoint). Secret Lagoon (geothermal pool, gets hotter near the source; floating particles in the water; communal naked shower setup is rough on kids — have a plan or skip it). Dyrhólaey (dramatic coastal formations, brutal wind, minimal safety barriers — hold tight to kids). Reynisfjara near Vik (basalt columns, lava caves, sea stacks, dangerous sneaker waves — check both parking lots, go at low tide if possible). Night at Sólheimahjáleiga Guesthouse.
Day 4 (Wed Oct 5). Katla Ice Cave tour out of Vik via super-jeep. The drive in is spectacular; the cave itself is tiny due to climate erosion (about a minute inside). Lunch in Vik — soup in bread bowls — and the Lava Show, which is excellent and worth doing. Drive east to Skógafoss area, stop for fuel and a waterfall at Kirkjubaejarklaustur. Booking confusion at Hótel Skaftafell resolved on arrival. Northern lights call at 9 PM — they move slower than time-lapse footage and the colors are softer than photos, but the experience is something else.
Day 5 (Thu Oct 6). Diamond Beach — the trip’s highlight, glacial ice on black sand. Short hike afterward to Magnusarfoss waterfall and a glacier vista nearby (the geography of that whole park area blurs together a bit). Night at Hotel Laekur.
Day 6 (Fri Oct 7). Drive back to Reykjavik. Walked the old town, saw the presidential house, walked the harbor, took an Uber out to the open-air museum (turf-roofed houses). Bought Icelandic wool sweaters — claim the VAT refund at the airport on departure. Dinner at a highly-rated burger place. Astarpungar (Icelandic doughnut holes with toppings) on the way back — do not let kids pick their own toppings unsupervised. Hotel Cabin. Henry projectile-vomited at 1 AM; bathroom floor sloped the wrong way, vomit water flowed toward our suitcases, midnight towel-sandbag cleanup in the dark to avoid waking Elias.
Day 7 (Sat Oct 8). Early morning to Keflavik. Jen split off for a Porto work trip; the boys and I flew Play back to Stewart in the early afternoon. VAT refund claimed at the airport.
What worked.
Play Airlines from Stewart — the regional-airport access was the whole reason this trip was easy. Hey Iceland as a planning service — the pre-loaded tablet, the pre-booked rooms, the curated stops worked exactly as advertised. The east-as-far-as-Diamond-Beach route — a friend’s sister had specifically warned us not to skip Diamond Beach and she was right. The northern lights wake-up call at Hótel Skaftafell. The Lava Show in Vik. Wool sweaters bought in Iceland with the VAT refund claimed at departure.
What we’d do differently.
Book the Blue Lagoon well in advance — we missed it by booking too late. Add a horseback ride at one of the Icelandic horse farms — we passed and regretted it. Skip the Katla Ice Cave; do a bigger ice cave tour further east instead. Skip the Secret Lagoon if you’re doing the Blue Lagoon or Sky Lagoon — particles in the water and communal showers made it the most logistically awkward stop of the trip. Skip the “earthquake town” attraction (no actual earthquakes, mediocre food, not particularly scenic). Maybe loop further around the island next time. Pack more layers and waterproof gear than feels reasonable. And: do not stay at Hotel Cabin.
Things to know.
Iceland is expensive. Plan for it. Gas station restaurants — Freysnes was the best example — are often the best food-to-price ratio in the country, better than many sit-down restaurants. Sunrise in early October is around 8 AM; plan accordingly if you’ve got pre-dawn stops. The weather changes constantly — waterproof everything is not negotiable. The wind at exposed coastal sites (Dyrhólaey especially) can knock a small kid off their feet. Reynisfjara beach has dangerous sneaker waves — people are killed there with regularity; do not turn your back on the ocean. VAT refunds on items like wool sweaters are claimable at Keflavik on departure — bring receipts. Hey Iceland’s emergency contact line works when their desk doesn’t.
Booking links recap.
Hey Iceland (itinerary, lodging, rental, tablet).
Play Airlines (Stewart Airport to Keflavik).
Vatnsholt Farm Hotel (Selfoss).
Sólheimahjáleiga Guesthouse (south coast).
Hótel Skaftafell — with the Freysnes gas station restaurant across the road.
Hotel Laekur (Diamond Beach area).
Even that's Odd 
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