Landmannalaugar Tour from Reykjavík with Hiking, Hot Spring & Háifoss

The tour starts at 7:00 at Bus Stop 12 in central Reykjavík, with pick-up within 30 minutes, or you can add hotel pick-up for an extra fee. The day is about 13 hours, with a long drive in a 4x4 bus built for the Highland roads.

Hjálparfoss means 'Help Falls'. It is a twin waterfall where the Fossá river splits into two falls just before it joins the Þjórsá, Iceland's longest river. Travellers heading into the highlands used to stop here to rest their horses and let them graze along the riverbanks before the harder ground inland, and the name has stuck.

Also called Bláhylur, this crater formed over 1,200 years ago and is now filled with deep blue-green water. You walk a short way up to the rim and look down into it.

Your guide leads the Laugahraun and Grænagil loop, a 1.5 to 2 hour walk of about 4.5 km past steaming vents, obsidian lava and the coloured slopes. The ground is uneven and rocky. Those who want a steeper climb can go up Bláhnúkur on their own. You have about 4 hours in Landmannalaugar, with toilets, showers for a fee and a small snack shop.

Landmannalaugar, in the Fjallabak Nature Reserve, is known for its rhyolite mountains, which weather into shades of pink, green, yellow and orange rather than the black basalt found across most of Iceland. Black lava fields, steaming ground and a natural hot spring, usually 36 to 40°C, complete the landscape. The roads in are F-roads with river crossings, generally open from late June to early September, and this is where the Laugavegur trail begins.

Háifoss drops about 122 metres from the edge of the highlands into a deep canyon cut by the Fossá river, with the smaller Granni waterfall tumbling beside it. The setting is bare highland terrain, a narrow gorge and, on a clear day, a view towards Hekla. It is quieter than the South Coast waterfalls, partly because the last 7 kilometres of road are gravel and need a 4x4 with good clearance.