Last month we tried something here that we’ve never done before. We have published the full schedule and total price of a private Ring Road tour ahead of its release. Nine days, two travelers California2,503,000 ISK, call it $19,700. We promised to write about what really happened once they got home, and judging by the messages that came in afterward, many of you intend to hold us to that. Very good for us. Here’s the same journey, told from the driver’s seat. Philippe, co-owner of Tours in Liljaguided him from the first pickup to the last goodbye.
Two notes before we begin. Our guests have asked us not to post their photos, which we totally respect, which is why the images in this piece are from our own archives rather than their week. Their names are changed for the same reason. We’ll call them Daniel and Erin.
The journey lost a day before starting It all started with the sort of thing that no route survives intact. Daniel and Erin had booked their own international flights, as most of our guests do, and a mix-up in that booking meant they landed at Iceland a whole day late. The first day, the sweet day of arrival, simply disappeared. Worse, they were now landing on the day the Golden Circle was scheduled, so Geysir and Gullfoss followed it, as did the snowmobile race on Langjökull.
You take these things as they come. What saved the evening was June himself. The lights barely go out at this time of year, so after checking in and having dinner at the Ion Adventure Hotel, Philippe still drove them to Þingvellir National Park. A place that was teeming with visitors at noon was almost deserted by ten o’clock in the evening. Two continental plates moving apart, golden light, hardly anyone else there. Not the day they had booked. A nice consolation prize though.
The south coast, back as planned From there, the program kicked into high gear. Seljalandsfoss first, the one you can walk behind. Next, Skógafoss, which permeates anyone who gets close enough, and everyone gets close enough. At Reynisfjara, the black sand beach, there is a detail that Philippe found interesting to highlight: after the landslide at the beginning of the year, the ocean quietly returned the sand, tide after tide. The island repairs itself according to its own clock.
They continued to the Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon and drove under the sheer wall of Lómagnúpur before dropping off their bags for two nights at the Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon.
A full day of ice cream The next morning begins in the Skaftafell reserve, inside the Vatnajökull national park, with a short hike of a few kilometers to Svartifoss and its basalt columns which seem stacked by hand.
Then Jökulsárlón. The icebergs did what they do: capture the sun and send it back. What people rarely expect is wildlife. Seabirds travel the estuary in loops, feeding on small fish trapped in the strong currents, and seals join them as Daniel and Erin cross the estuary toward Diamond Beach, where chunks of completely clear ice wash up on black sand.
In the afternoon, they boarded a zodiac on Fjallsárlón, the quieter lagoon nearby, and went near the glacial tongue of Fjallsjökull itself. The ice is cracking. Beginners always turn their heads at the sound.
Everything you need to plan your trip in 2026 Is, in time The fourth day of tour brought change. The temperature is dropping, the rain is coming, the wind is rising, just as they were pointing towards the East Fjords, geologically one of the oldest corners of Iceland. It did no harm to the area. The mountains met the clouds and broke through them, the bare rocky peaks above the valleys turned a bright green from the rain. Hundreds of whooper swans had gathered in the lagoons and reindeer appeared not once but several times along the road.
Lunch consisted of fresh fish in the small fishing village of Djúpivogur. Then came the climb up the Öxi Pass on the gravel track, a real mountain shortcut where the Toyota Land Cruiser they had for the week earned its place, and a final stop at the Rjúkandafoss waterfall before the night base. And what a base. Fjalladýrð in Möðrudalur is Iceland’s highest working farm, a cluster of turf-roofed houses with farm animals grazing around them, sitting alone in the middle of the desert plateau. The adjoining restaurant serves what the land around it produces. Daniel and Erin were, in Philippe’s words, beside themselves.
Mývatn, then a question in a botanical garden The Mývatn region is where Iceland stops pretending to be Earth. They hiked the geothermal field of Krafla and the boiling mud pots of Hverir, peered into Grjótagjá, the underground thermal cave made famous by Game of Thrones, and wandered the lava maze of Dimmuborgir with its freestanding chimneys.
On the way west, they stopped at Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, where a Viking-era chieftain is said to have thrown his pagan idols into the water when Iceland adopted Christianity in AD 1000. The plan was to end the day at the Mývatn Natural Baths, but renovations failed and the baths did not reopen in time. the north. Nobody complained.
Their evening in Akureyri was free. At least that’s what we thought. During a walk in the city’s botanical garden, one of the greenest places in the country, Daniel asked Erin to marry him. She said yes. Philippe heard the news the same evening and, honestly, took it a little personally, in the best possible way. You plan an itinerary for months and the trip gets its own title anyway.
Barely recovered from this, they begin the last stage before Reykjavík. The weather improved with each mountain pass they crossed, and in the Borgarfjörður valley the sun was back. It was time to leave the beaten track for Kolugljúfur Canyon, then Glanni Waterfall, then Deildartunguhver, which pushes out more boiling water than any other hot spring in Europe. In Reykholt, they discovered the story of Snorri Sturluson, the medieval leader and writer without whom most of what we know about the Norse sagas would not exist.
The night was spent at the Húsafell Hotel and ended in front of the lobby television. The World Cup was on, USA against Australiaand our two Californians are serious football fans. Final score 2-0 for the Americans. A noisy and joyful evening, guide included.
The last stretch The final morning saw Barnafoss and Hraunfossar, two waterfalls located just steps from each other and both shrouded in saga legends, then the Víðgelmir lava tube, where you descend into a thousand-year-old tunnel and learn how effusive eruptions really work. After a scenic loop of Reykjavík to get their bearings, Daniel and Erin had the afternoon alone in the world’s northernmost capital. Early the next morning, private transfer to the airport. The goodbyes were not quick.
What the paper version couldn’t tell you When we released the schedule and the price, we said the only thing the numbers couldn’t show was what the trip would be like. Now we know it. It felt like a wasted day saved by the midnight sun, two days of rain that made the East better rather than worse, reindeer where we expected them to be, an engagement no one saw coming, and a football score celebrated in a hotel lobby under a glacier.
This is also, discreetly, the argument in favor of this trip. When an entire day fell out of schedule before the plane even landed, no one needed to renegotiate anything with a tour operator’s call center. The guide reconstructed the plan in his head during the ride to the airport. This flexibility represents much of what the bill in the previous article was actually intended to purchase.
At Lilja Tours we only run private tours, so every trip we run is a version of this story, with different weather conditions and people. Erin came home with a ring that she didn’t land with. We call this a decent exchange rate.
Julien Achache Julien Achache is the owner of Tours in Lilja. Lilja Tours is a private tour operator based in Reykjavík, Iceland, specializing in tailor-made private tours with a perfect 5-star rating on all platforms. If you would like to become a guest blogger on A Luxury Travel Blog to raise your profile, please Contact us.
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