You do not need a car to get onto Langjökull. Ten of these fares collect you in Reykjavik — some at your hotel door, one from any of eleven numbered city bus stops — and hand you back at the end of the day. What you are buying alongside the glacier is the road: two hours out, two hours back, and somebody else doing both. The trade is time, and it is worth understanding before you book a Langjokull ticket prices comparison on length alone.
Eight hours door to door with a super jeep or monster truck for the highland leg, and an hour riding at the end of it. All the gear is issued at base camp.
From $329 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
A Land Rover Defender on forty-inch wheels with a driver-guide of your own, national park fees paid, and the route rearranged as you like. Reaches the ice edge; the snowmobiling is named outside the fare.
From $1,849 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Ten hours by coach with the classic three stops and three hours at the glacier. Pickup from the BSI terminal or your own hotel door.
From $361 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Eleven and a half hours in a small-group super jeep, with two hours at the glacier instead of the usual one and the group capped at sixteen.
From $386 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
West rather than south: Kaldidalur, the ice edge, Húsafell, Hraunfossar and Deildartunguhver, in a jeep of your own. No ride and no tunnel are included.
From $2,294 per group, up to 4
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Hotel pickup, a super jeep through the Geysir geothermal field, an hour on the ice and a thermal bath to finish. Ten hours, group capped at fifteen.
From $450 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
A private jeep that runs the route and then stays out for the aurora in winter or the low midnight sun in summer. The snowmobile ride is at your own expense.
From $2,222 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Hotel or cruise-berth pickup and a driver-guide for eight or nine hours, with a super jeep that goes out onto the ice cap. Guiding in four languages.
From $2,188 per group, up to 4
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The shortest city day here at six hours, collected from any of eleven numbered bus stops and run north-west to Húsafell rather than round the Golden Circle.
From $269 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Nine hours, sixteen travellers maximum, and ninety minutes at the glacier with an hour of it riding. Pickup covers Reykjavik hotels and bus stops, and the full Golden Circle sits either side of the ice.
From $374 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Six to eleven hours door to door, with the glacier, the gear and the guide all in one fare.
See Langjokull tours from ReykjavikA vehicle collects you in the morning and returns you in the evening, and everything in between is arranged. The shortest of these runs six hours and goes straight north-west to Húsafell; the longest runs eleven and a half and puts the whole Golden Circle either side of the ice.
Two pickup arrangements exist and they are not the same promise. Most tours collect from your hotel door. One collects from any of eleven numbered bus stops across the city, which is the more useful of the two if you are staying in an apartment without a recognised name.
The vehicle changes at least once. A coach or minibus does the tarmac, a super jeep or monster truck does the track, and on the glacier itself it is a machine built for the surface. That last change is included in every fare here and it is the leg no private car can legally do.
Hiring a vehicle for one day costs more than the transfer you would be avoiding, and in winter it means driving a highland road in very little daylight. These fares remove both.
Hotel doors on most, numbered city bus stops on one. Pickup windows run twenty to thirty minutes and the vehicle will not wait, so be outside at the start of yours rather than the end.
Not just on the ice. On the Golden Circle days somebody explains Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss on the way, which is the difference between three car parks and three places.
An underrated argument, and a real one. Nobody in the party is driving four hours of highland road afterwards.
Transfer, glacier vehicle, gear, briefing and guide. The only things left over are food, footwear and the single-rider supplement if you want a machine to yourself.
The alternative is to drive yourself to Gullfoss or Húsafell and buy only the glacier leg. It is cheaper and shorter, and it costs you four hours of your own driving.
| From Reykjavik | Meeting at the glacier | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 6 to 11.5 hours | 3.5 to 4 hours |
| You drive | Nothing | 2 hours each way, paved |
| Car needed | No | Yes |
| Guide on the route | Yes, on the Golden Circle days | No |
| Golden Circle included | On six of them | Your own timetable |
| From | From $269 | From $155 |
The arithmetic is straightforward. Two people with a car already hired save roughly $250 by meeting at the glacier; one person without a car does not save anything, because the rental costs more than the transfer. The full working is on driving to Langjokull yourself, and the fares either way are compared on Langjokull Tours.
Price band. From $269 for the shortest at six hours, From $361 for the full Golden Circle day at ten, and up to $2,294 a group for a private jeep.
Duration. Six hours at the shortest and eleven and a half at the longest. Roughly half of any of them is spent in a vehicle, which is the geography rather than the itinerary.
Pickup. Windows of twenty to thirty minutes. Check whether yours is a hotel door or a numbered bus stop before the morning — they are set out on where tours start.
Cruise passengers. One private jeep tour offers pickup at the berth itself. Anything built round the Golden Circle runs nine to eleven hours, which is longer than most port calls allow.
The western days are a different route. Instead of the Golden Circle they run north into Borgarfjörður, and the private jeep on that side takes in the Kaldidalur track, the Hraunfossar waterfalls seeping out of a lava field, and Deildartunguhver, the highest-flow hot spring in Europe. Same city pickup, entirely different day.
Every fare here includes the pickup, the glacier vehicle and the gear, and every one refunds in full up to 24 hours before the tour starts.
See Langjokull tours from ReykjavikAnyone already driving the Golden Circle. You would be paying twice for the same road. Meet a tour at Gullfoss instead and buy only the glacier hour.
Anyone with half a day. The shortest of these is six hours door to door. If that is more than you have, there is no city departure that fits, and the answer is to drive out and join a Langjokull snowmobile tour at the glacier side.
Anyone booking a private jeep for the ice. Read the inclusions first. Not one of the private tours here includes a snowmobile ride or the ice cave — two say so in their own exclusions and the other two never list either. They reach the ice edge, and that is a different day.
Anyone who dislikes long coach days. Half of a ten-hour tour is a vehicle. The ice cave tours out of Húsafell are four hours end to end if you can get yourself there.