Iceland Ring Road: Vik to Hofn

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Vík

   Vík í Mýrdal is a tiny village on the south coast of Iceland with a red-roofed church on a hill, a long black beach below, and a reputation far larger than its size. A few hundred people live here, mostly in low houses below the cliffs, and the Atlantic crashes onto the sand in front of them with ceaseless force. Offshore, a group of tall basalt sea stacks called Reynisdrangar rises from the surf, and legend says they are trolls who were caught by the sun while trying to drag a ship to shore and turned to stone.

   Read the complete Vik write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Vík is where the day begins. Next is Jokulsarlon.

2. 2. Jökulsárlón

   Jökulsárlón is a lagoon full of icebergs, and the first view of it can leave you simply standing by the bike. The ice comes from Breiðamerkurjökull, a tongue of the great Vatnajökull ice cap, which has been retreating for decades and leaving behind a deep, cold lake. The lagoon appeared in the 1930s and has grown steadily as the glacier melts back, and it is now one of the deepest lakes in Iceland, with the bottom lying a couple of hundred metres below the surface. Blocks of ice in shades of blue, white and black, striped with volcanic ash, float slowly toward a short channel where the tide carries them out to sea.

   Read the complete Jokulsarlon write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Jökulsárlón comes up about 397 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hofn.

3. 3. Höfn

   Höfn is a fishing town that has spent decades staring at a glacier, and the glacier has finally started to answer back. It sits at the mouth of the Hornafjörður on Iceland's southeast coast, a small town of fewer than two thousand people on a low peninsula, with the vast white dome of Vatnajökull, Europe's largest ice cap by volume, filling the northern horizon. On a clear day, the tongues of ice that spill down the mountains look close enough to walk to, and at sunset they glow pink and gold. The name simply means harbour.

   Read the complete Hofn write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 530 km.