Driving to Langjokull Yourself: What You Can and Cannot Reach
The short answer
You can drive to Gullfoss and to Húsafell in any hire car, all year, on tarmac. You cannot drive the mountain roads without a four-wheel-drive, and those are shut for seven months. You cannot drive onto the ice at all, in any vehicle, and no Icelandic hire agreement covers it. The cheapest honest version of this trip is to drive yourself to the base and buy only the glacier leg, which is the leg you were never going to drive.
Can you drive to Langjokull?
To the edge of the story, yes. To the glacier, no, and it is worth being precise about where the line falls, because the internet is vague about it and hire companies are not.
There are two bases from which Langjökull tours leave, and both are reachable in an ordinary car on paved road: the upper Gullfoss car park on the southern side, and Húsafell on the western side. Everything beyond either of those is a track, and then a glacier.
What a two-wheel-drive hire car reaches
More than people expect. Route 35 from Reykjavik through Þingvellir and Geysir to Gullfoss is paved for its whole length and takes about two hours. The route north and west to Húsafell is paved too, and takes about an hour and forty minutes.
Both end somewhere useful. Gullfoss has a free car park, a café and lavatories. Húsafell has a hotel, a bistro, geothermal baths, a petrol station and the check-in desk for the ice tunnel. Neither is a lay-by in the middle of nowhere.
What a two-wheel-drive cannot do is leave the tarmac. That is not a caution, it is what your rental agreement says.
What a four-wheel-drive adds, and when
It adds the two mountain roads, and only in summer. A proper 4×4 opens up Kaldidalur between Húsafell and the Klaki base camp, and Kjölur between Gullfoss and Hveravellir, both of which are marked F-roads or their equivalent and both of which are gravel.
What it does not add is the ice cap. A hired Land Cruiser is no more insured on a glacier than a hired Yaris, and the vehicles that do go up are modified to a degree no rental fleet contains: forty-inch tyres, deflated to single-figure pressures, on a route somebody checked that week.
Kaldidalur, road 550
The highland track between Langjökull and the small ice cap of Ók, and the way to the Klaki base camp from the west. It is rough gravel, four-wheel-drive only, and open from June to mid-October. Outside those months it closes entirely.
There is a shuttle, and it is the detail that makes the western side work all year. The run from Húsafell to the base camp takes about forty minutes and costs ISK 2,000 return. From mid-October to May everybody uses it, and in practice a good many people use it in July too rather than take a hire car onto gravel.
Kjolur, road F35
The old highland crossing between Langjökull and Hofsjökull, running north from Gullfoss to Hveravellir and on into the north of the country. The Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration publishes an average opening date of 1 June for the Gullfoss to Hveravellir stretch. The earliest recent opening was 30 May; the latest was 14 June.
That fortnight of variation is decided by snow cover, in the road authority's own words, rather than by the calendar. If a highland crossing is part of your plan, check their page in the week before you travel.
Why nobody drives onto the ice
Crevasses, and the fact that they move. The fields the glacier trucks pick through are not in the same place they were a decade ago, which is why a driver checks a route rather than following a track. Fresh snow bridges a crevasse without filling it, so the surface tells you nothing.
That is the whole reason every route on Langjökull is led and every vehicle on it is driven by somebody who has been up recently. It is not a commercial arrangement dressed up as a safety rule; it is the reason these tours exist in the shape they do.
Is it cheaper to drive yourself?
Only partly, and the honest arithmetic is worth doing.
| Approach | What you drive | What you buy | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everything by tour, from Reykjavik | Nothing | The whole day | From $361 per person |
| Drive to Gullfoss, buy the ride | 2 h each way, paved | The glacier leg only | $204 per person plus fuel |
| Drive to Gullfoss, buy the truck day | 2 h each way, paved | The glacier leg only | From $155 per person plus fuel |
| Drive to Húsafell, buy the tunnel | 1 h 40 each way, paved | The glacier leg only | From $203 per person plus fuel |
You save the transfer and you spend four hours of your own driving instead. For two people with a car already hired for other reasons, that is clearly worth it. For one person without a car it is not, because a rental for the day costs more than the transfer you avoided.
The hybrid that most people should take
Drive the Golden Circle at your own pace, park at Gullfoss and join a tour there. Þingvellir and Geysir get as long as you want rather than thirty minutes, the glacier leg is bought as a three-and-a-half or four-hour block, and you are back in your own car at the end of it.
It is the shape a great many visitors end up wishing they had booked, and it is why several of the tours listed on Langjokull Tours meet at that car park rather than in the city.
What your hire agreement says about all this
- Gravel damage is excluded from standard cover on most Icelandic rentals, and sold as a separate waiver.
- F-roads require a four-wheel-drive by law and by contract. Driving a two-wheel-drive on one voids the collision cover.
- River crossings are excluded from every agreement, without exception. Kjölur has them.
- Glaciers are not contemplated by any of it. There is no waiver you can buy.
Winter, and what changes
The paved approaches stay open and are cleared, so Gullfoss and Húsafell are reachable through the winter in a normal car with winter tyres, which are compulsory and which every rental fits. What closes is the gravel: road 550 from mid-October, and Kjölur with it.
The tunnel and the snowmobile tours both keep running. The western side runs on the shuttle and the southern side runs off the paved road, which is why a January visit is a question of daylight rather than access. The month-by-month picture is on Langjokull weather.
When a tour from Reykjavik is the right answer
When you have no car and were not going to hire one; when you are in Iceland for two days and do not want one of them to be a driving day; when the light is short and you would rather somebody else did the highland road in the dark; or when the whole party wants a drink at the end of it.
Most of the fares gathered on Langjokull guided tour listings collect you in the city, either at your hotel door or at one of eleven numbered bus stops, and hand you back at the end of the day.
The honest verdict
Drive to the base and buy the glacier. It is the cheapest version, it gives you the Golden Circle on your own timetable, and it removes exactly the part of the journey no private vehicle can legally or safely do.
What it asks in return is four hours of driving and a willingness to be at a car park at a set time. If either of those is a problem, take a tour from the city and spend the saved effort on the ice instead.
Frequently asked questions
Can I drive onto Langjokull glacier?
Do I need a 4x4 to reach the tours?
When does the road to the Klaki base camp open?
When does the Kjolur route open?
Is it cheaper to drive myself and join a tour at the glacier?
Can I reach the ice cave without a tour?
Tours you can join with your own car
Gullfoss: Sleipnir Monster Truck Tour of Langjokull Glacier
No licence and no minimum age past four: a truck drives you out onto the ice.
From $155 per person
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From Gullfoss: Langjokull Glacier Snowmobile Tour
An hour on the ice from the Gullfoss car park, gear and transfer included.
From $204 per person
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Into the Glacier: Langjokull Glacier Ice Cave from Husafell
An hour inside the tunnel at 1,260 metres, entry fee in the fare.
From $203 per person
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