Driving In Iceland

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Author: Mick Swift

Compared to driving in the UK, driving in Iceland is an absolute dream. You can download pictures of Iceland and see videos at The Holiday Directory. The number of cars on the road is only a fraction of those in the UK and traffic jams are unheard of except perhaps in Reykjavik where most of the total population of 283,000 Icelanders live (yes not much more than quarter of a million total population in year 2000). Even there you can hardly call it a traffic jam as we know it in the UK as most people either walk to work or use public transport. Whilst on holiday in Iceland in 2008 the only dual carriageway I came across was between the main airport at Keflavic and the capitol Reykjavic. There is just no need for them as the amount of traffic doesn’t warrant them.

Much of Iceland is inaccessible by road and a lot of the roads are no better than gravel tracks so to see many attractions you need access to a four wheel drive vehicle. There is one very good road, route number 1 which completely encircles the island and is very pleasant to drive along although in places that also degenerates to a dirt track. Because of the long ocean voyage required to get to Iceland almost all of the visitors arrive by air, so to see the island they all have to hire a vehicle. Because of this there is no shortage of car hire companies, however it is always best to hire a car prior to your arrival as you would be really stuck without one.

There is a choice of cars to hire but when booking you must be aware of the following conditions of hire. The conditions will state that you are only allowed to travel on gravel roads in a four wheel drive vehicle. If you hire a smaller more economical car you cannot use them on gravel roads so basically you are confined to tarmac roads which seriously limits where you can travel. They are very keen on this and will examine the car before and after use to check for chips on the paintwork to determine whether or not you have actually been driving where you shouldn’t have. This can be a little worrying as we found out, when after hiring one of the smaller cars, the tarmac road came to an end a few times and turned into a gravel track for a few miles before returning to tarmac. The cost of hiring a four wheel drive in 2008 was between £700 and £800 for ten days. This we thought was ludicrously expensive so hired a smaller one. As I have already said this did limit our range a little but there is so much to see in Iceland it didn’t stop us having a wonderful time and seeing many amazing sites. In the ten days we stayed we spent a couple of days in Reykjavik then flew to Akureyri where we collected our hire car then drove around the east and south coast ending our tour at the airport after a very enjoyable holiday.