Iceland Remote Hotels: Getting There Without a Tour
Iceland's most extraordinary places to stay — geodesic domes on glacier lagoons, converted lighthouses on Atlantic peninsulas, aurora bubble cabins deep in the Westfjords — require planning that goes well beyond Booking.com. This is how to get to the remote ones without a tour group.
Iceland rewards the traveller who doesn’t follow the group. The Golden Circle — Geysir, Gullfoss, Þingvellir — runs on schedule buses that disgorge tour groups at 20-minute intervals. The places worth staying, the ones that generate the photographs and the genuinely altered state that good travel produces, are almost never on those buses.
They are reached by 4WD down F-roads that close in autumn. They are lighthouses on remote peninsulas where the ferry goes twice a day. They are converted farmhouses that the Ring Road passes within five kilometres of but no signpost acknowledges. Getting to them requires a car, a map, and the willingness to drive in a country where the weather changes within minutes and the road surface changes from tarmac to gravel to something that requires genuine attention.
This is how you do it.
Finding Your Flights
The starting point is Keflavík International Airport (KEF), 50 kilometres southwest of Reykjavík. Icelandair is the dominant carrier for transatlantic routes, with direct connections from New York JFK, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, and Toronto, plus London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, and Copenhagen. PLAY offers budget North Atlantic fares from select European cities.
The trick with Iceland flights: shoulder season is the secret. May and early June give you nearly the same light as July with significantly fewer people and markedly lower prices. October combines autumn colours (yes, Iceland has a brief and excellent leaf season in the Westfjords and Lake Mývatn area) with the first serious aurora activity. Both periods regularly deliver flights at 50–60% of July peak prices.
Search flights on Kiwi.com — their flexible date search shows price calendars that make shoulder season planning straightforward. Aviasales aggregates the same routes with occasionally different pricing.
One underused tactic: flying into Reykjavík’s domestic Reykjavík Airport (RVK) from Copenhagen, London, or Edinburgh via Icelandic charter services can save significant money if your Icelandic itinerary starts outside Keflavík’s immediate area.
The Airport Transfer Question
Keflavík is 50km from Reykjavík. The Flybus connects the airport to Mjódd bus terminal in the eastern suburbs (45 minutes, connecting to city hotels), but if you’re picking up a rental car immediately — which most self-drive Iceland travellers should — the car rental desks are at the airport. Don’t pay for a Flybus you don’t need.
If you’re arriving late and not picking up your car until morning: book a private transfer rather than paying for an overpriced airport taxi. Welcome Pickups and KiwiTaxi both have reliable Keflavík coverage and fixed pricing that beats what the taxi stand will offer.
One genuinely useful option: transfers that stop at the Blue Lagoon en route to Reykjavík. If you’ve booked a Blue Lagoon slot (book online months in advance — it sells out), the 20-minute deviation from the airport makes this the most efficient arrival routine for a Sunday-evening Blue Lagoon soak before starting your itinerary.
The Car: The Central Decision
Almost everything interesting in Iceland requires a vehicle. But not any vehicle.
The 4WD question is not optional if you’re going anywhere significant. Iceland’s F-roads — the highland interior routes open roughly July through mid-September — require a 4WD by law. The penalties for driving a regular car on an F-road are significant; more importantly, the roads themselves, river crossings included, will simply defeat a 2WD. But beyond the F-roads, ordinary Ring Road driving in winter requires winter tyres and comfort with icy surfaces that a 4WD handles more confidently.
The rental market in Iceland is competitive but quality varies significantly at the budget end. The best approach:
- Compare on Localrent — this platform specialises in local Icelandic car rental agencies, often 20–30% cheaper than multinational brands for equivalent 4WD vehicles.
- Check QEEQ for comparison across multiple providers.
- Book AutoEurope if you prefer the security of a known multinational brand.
Book well in advance for summer. The Icelandic 4WD rental market is genuinely constrained in July–August; arriving without a reservation and expecting to find a capable vehicle is optimistic.
For winter driving: winter tyres are mandatory by law from November 1. Any reputable rental will have these on the vehicle automatically. Studded tyres (available to add) provide additional confidence on glaciated road surfaces.
The Remote Hotels Worth the Drive
The Westfjords
Iceland’s northwest peninsula — dramatically undervisited relative to the rest of the country — holds some of the island’s finest accommodation and its most extreme landscape. The Dynjandi waterfall, the Hornstrandir nature reserve (accessible only by boat), and the small fishing villages of Ísafjörður and Flateyri are all worth the drive. The Westfjords are 5–7 hours from Reykjavík via the Ring Road north.
Several converted lighthouse keeper’s cottages and remote farmhouses along the Westfjords coast operate as self-catering accommodation; book well in advance as capacity is genuinely small.
Getting there: From Reykjavík, Route 1 north to Borgarnes, then Route 60 into the Westfjords. Summer only for the inner Westfjords roads; winter driving requires care.
The South Coast and the Ice Lagoon
Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon — where icebergs calve from Breiðamerkurjökull glacier and drift to the black sand beach — sits 4.5 hours east of Reykjavík on Route 1. The properties within reach of the lagoon that are worth staying in tend to be small farmhouse-style accommodations on the Ring Road: Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon is the most prominent, but smaller farmhouse guesthouses offer more atmosphere and direct access to the landscape without the tour bus traffic.
Deplar Farm, Troll Peninsula
Deplar Farm sits on the Troll Peninsula (Tröllaskagi) in northern Iceland — a helicopter skiing and summer fly fishing lodge that operates at the very top of the Icelandic accommodation market. The northern location means aurora viewing almost every clear winter night. Summer helicopter tours of the surrounding fjords are available.
Getting there: Fly Reykjavík to Akureyri domestic (50 minutes), then transfer to Deplar by helicopter or ground vehicle depending on season. The lodge coordinates all logistics.
Winter Driving: What No One Tells You
Iceland’s winter driving reputation is partly overblown and partly completely justified. The Ring Road is ploughed and treated during and after storms; the south and west sections are generally passable. The east, north, and Westfjords are the sections that demand genuine respect.
The practical rules:
- Check road.is before every driving day. It shows live road conditions with closures and ice warnings. The equivalent English version is safetravel.is.
- Drive slower than feels necessary on ice. Iceland’s Ring Road speed limit is 90km/h on paved sections; 60% of that in winter conditions is appropriate.
- The N1 petrol station network covers most of the Ring Road; fill up whenever you’re below half a tank in the east and north.
- Check weather at en.vedur.is — the Icelandic Met Office issues colour-coded warnings (yellow, orange, red) that correspond to conditions where driving should be delayed.
The eSIM: Stay Connected Without the Costs
Iceland’s mobile network covers the Ring Road and most of the south and west. The Westfjords interior and parts of the Highlands have no signal.
An Iceland eSIM from Airalo — typically a 10GB data plan from around $15–18 — connects to Síminn and Nova’s networks without a physical SIM. Buy it before departure and activate it on arrival; it’s active within minutes. This eliminates the need for a pocket WiFi device or a roaming plan that will invoice more than the eSIM costs per day.
For remote lodges with no signal, most properties have WiFi (often via satellite). Download offline maps for your entire Icelandic route before leaving Reykjavík.
Travel Insurance: Don’t Skip This
Iceland’s F-road driving environment, glacier hiking, and the general exposure of remote accommodation requires proper travel insurance. Two things to check:
- Off-road driving coverage: Some standard policies and some rental car insurance waivers exclude F-road damage. Buy the Sand and Ash Protection (SAAP) or Super Collision Damage Waiver (SCDW) from your rental company for full peace of mind, or verify your credit card’s rental coverage covers Icelandic conditions specifically.
- Search and Rescue coverage: Iceland’s ICE-SAR (Iceann Search and Rescue) is free, but medical evacuation from remote locations costs money. SafetyWing covers adventure activities including glacier hiking at no extra premium.
The Planning Sequence
A sensible self-drive Iceland sequence that hits the remote properties:
- Flights: Book 3–4 months ahead for shoulder season; 6+ months for July. Search on Kiwi.com.
- Car rental: Book simultaneously with flights. Localrent for budget 4WDs; multinational brands through QEEQ for additional insurance comfort.
- eSIM: Buy an Airalo Iceland eSIM and install on your phone.
- Remote lodges: Book directly. Most small Icelandic properties don’t have OTA presence and fill up via direct email reservation.
- Blue Lagoon: Pre-book online — it genuinely sells out.
- Travel insurance: SafetyWing as baseline; check F-road vehicle coverage separately.
The formula for Iceland travel that most people discover on their second visit: fewer nights in Reykjavík, more nights in places that aren’t Reykjavík. The capital is worth two nights. The south coast, the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, and the north are worth the rest of however long you have.
