The first day of our trip had a pretty easy blueprint. Iceland has a loop road near Reykjavik called the Golden Circle road, which covers a couple nice river canyons, a set of geysers, one of Iceland’s highest volume waterfalls, and some serene lakes. It’s easy to go through these leisurely on a single day, so that’s exactly what we did. After fueling up with a morning at Joe and the Juice, we started on Iceland’s highway 36 to set out on the road!

Our first stop was a rocky canyon in Pingvellir Nat’l Park. There’s a short trail through the canyon that’s a really pleasant stroll, and it took us about 45 minutes to meander through. One of the greatest pleasantries of this stop was the snow flurries that started drifting about during our walk. There were also many gorgeous lakes and evergreen trees visible along the way. It was a wonderful example of why it was special to visit Iceland during the off season, where snow flurries like this were a greater possibility and lended an extra layer of beauty to our day!

Our next stop was this Great Geysir, which is accompanied by a few smaller geysers nearby. What makes this one special is that it’s a rare geyser that erupts frequently. We personally only had to wait a few minutes for an eruption. Unfortunately I didn’t save a video from that, but it’s less impressive than the Old Faithful eruptions in Yellowstone. It was some of my friends’ first times seeing a geyser though, so we really appreciated that. There was also a nearby market where we grabbed some food for lunch, so that was a good opportunity for us.

The star stop along the Golden Circle was the Gulfoss waterfall, a thunderous pouring of water into the Pingvellir canyon. The river pours straight into the canyon before abruptly changing course, which makes it harder to get a frontal shot of the falls. But this also means that it’s easier to get a shot with both the falls and canyon in it. Just the roar that that amount of water creates as it tumbles town is incredible, and we struggled to hear each other talk without raising our voices. There are a couple walkways with closer viewing points to the falls, but they were closed because they were too slippery. Just the normal spray of the falls makes those areas pretty slippery, though. After gazing at their magnificence for awhile, we decided to begin our journey back to Reykjavik. 

We did have one more stop on the way back, though. This one was Kerid crater, a natural crater that had filled up into a clear lake. The crater walls were all very steep, so there was no trail to the edge of the water itself. Instead, it was the redness of the soil and the vibrant traces of algae along the crater’s sides that make this a photogenic stop. We took the quick walkway around the crater to get a few different shots. At one point, a couple of our group members tried to see if they could throw a rock far enough that it would make a splash in the lake below. The distance is deceptively far however, so neither of them made it. 

The Golden Circle is usually praised as one of Iceland’s top day trips, so how does that high praise compare with our experience? Out of our 3 full days, we were probably the least impressed with this one. Part of that is due to the nature of our group though, as we prefer a couple longer trails to a few short stops for our travel days. Looking back, the Pingvellir canyon area was probably my favorite, because that’s where we encountered the snow flurries and more gorgeous scenery. The geyser was also a neat experience, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must for anyone who’s seen say, Old Faithful before. Gulfoss was certainly a spectacular waterfall and I’d absolutely recommend going to see it. And the crater lake was nice, but only somewhere I’d stop again if it was right along the way. At the peak of Iceland’s tourist boom these locations would have experienced large crowds in the summer, which is why we were glad we went in an off season that didn’t also experience the harshest part of winter. But when travel resumes, maybe the summer crowds won’t be a detractor for visiting in peak season like before.