Iceland for many good reasons, such as its underground waters, natural beauties, vast countryside and the chance to watch the northern lights. /strong> is at the top of almost every traveler’s list of places they want to explore. The main reason for delaying exploration dreams is the cost, which is our common problem for Northern European countries.. That’s why in this article I will give you Iceland hotel prices, car rental fees, Blue Lagoon entrance ticket, food and beverage prices > I will try to explain all the expenses during the trip and give information about Iceland holiday prices. Thus, you will be able to shape your holiday plans whether Iceland is expensive and whether it fits your budget.
In order to set an example throughout the article, I will explain the expenditures that my wife and I made during our 8 days in Iceland by categorizing them.. At the end of the article you will also find a chart summarizing all our expenditures and showing how the total cost of 2088 Euros came to be.
Icelandic as Icelandic coin Although the krona (Icelandic krona) is used, we have never made any money conversions because credit cards are accepted everywhere. If you are going to do it, I recommend you to go with Euro or Dollar, it may be difficult to find an exchange office that accepts Turkish lira.. In case you spend with a credit card like us, it would be better if you define a dollar statement on your credit card while you are in Turkey, so all your expenses will be charged in dollars (even if this process is free, have a euro statement defined while you’re at it). Otherwise, you may find it harmful when the prices are converted to TL with your bank’s low exchange rates.
Since our credit cards have both dollar and euro statements, some of our expenses have been converted to dollars and some to euros, depending on where we bought them.. In this article, I preferred to explain all of them in euros, dollars could also be given.
How much is 1 icelandic krona in tl (or dollar/euro)? When we look at it, we can see very small numbers, so let’s go over 1000 krona.. As of February 2019, round calculations such as 1000 ISK = 45 TRY = 8 USD = 7 EUR can be made, click to see the current rates.
As I said, it is a more familiar one. Since it is the exchange rate, almost everything will be in Euro in this article.. Expenditures are for two people unless I state otherwise and are for December 2018 (but will not change much for a few years as there is no inflation in Europe).
FLIGHT TICKET PRICES TO ICELAND
Where is Iceland, it is quite far from our country we see that. And unfortunately, there is no direct flight from Turkey to Iceland, which may require some thinking about how to Iceland. I suggest you try different combinations to find flights that don’t have long connecting times and are affordable.
Iceland’s capital flights need to arrive at Reykjavik Airport (Keflavik International Airport – airport code KEF). There is also Reykjavik Airport (airport code RKV), which is generally used for domestic flights, but there is little chance of business there, so don’t get confused and make the wrong plan by marking it on the map.
We in Munich We bought a direct flight from Turkey for 267 Euros per person. The prices of flights from Turkey may be slightly higher, but you can find cheap flight tickets by following the campaign periods.
ICELAND HOTEL RATES
Although trips to Iceland always start from the capital Reykjavik, depending on how many days you spend on vacation Two different methods can be followed. First; Staying in Reykjavik and making daily trips to the surrounding places as you have 3 – 4 days. In this option, you can see places in South Iceland called Blue Lagoon and Golden Circle, which are close to Reykjavik, we can say “I’ll take a look” trip
The second is to circumnavigate all of Iceland as a more comprehensive plan that you can do if you have at least 7 – 8 days.. In this option, you stay at a different hotel almost every day, as you always go forward on the round island of Iceland and eventually return to Reykjavik, where you started.. We did this because we had 8 nights, and we paid 751 Euros for 8 nights in total.
Where the hotels we stayed, how many nights we stayed, hotel name, property and the total prices we paid for the double room are as follows, respectively. it happened. Since we went during the Christmas holidays, the prices may be higher than those that someone who goes during the non-holiday time in the winter will pay, and in the summer it may even be higher than the high season.. We tried to choose well-rated affordable hotels, as cheap as Iceland can be..
Click on the hotels name to navigate to booking.com pages, read their prices and customer reviews and make a reservation .
Reykjavik (3 nights): Stay Apartments Bolholt – studio apartment with kitchen, 298 Euro
Vik (1 night): Icelandair Hotel Vik – hotel, 165 Euros. Unfortunately, this place made us sad, but it was just Christmas evening so the prices were sky high
Egilsstadir (1 night): Lyngas Guesthouse – guesthouse with shared kitchen and bathroom , 58.5 Euro
Akureyri (1 night): Saeluhus Apartments & Houses – studio apartment with kitchen, 76.5 Euros
Hvammstangi (1 night): Hvammstangi Cottages – cottage with kitchen, 97 Euros
Reykjavik (1 night): Guesthouse Alfar – guesthouse with shared kitchen and bathroom, 56 Euros.
As you can see, last night around Iceland we completed our apartment and stayed in the city where we started, because we had an early return flight the next morning.. But we chose a different location from our first hotel because it was close to the airport.
As cottages in Iceland are a common concept, I recommend you to stay in a cottage like us for at least one night.. Another popular choice we didn’t make is accommodation options with outdoor hot tubs and jacuzzis.. Since we had already been to the Blue Lagoon and experienced something similar, we did not try to stay in a place with a pool and a bathtub again, but those who are interested can consider such options.. After opening the link of the hotels above, you will look at the hotels with spa pools nearby on the map.
CAR RENTAL PRICES IN ICELAND
In this section, I will talk about both car rental prices in Iceland and the second inevitable cost item of car rental, gasoline prices, and even talk about parking
First of all, if you are going to go in winter like us, I recommend you to choose 4×4 type vehicles.. Because you can only enter asphalt roads with normal vehicles, whereas to go to some of the places to visit, you have to pass through the paths and bumpy roads called off-road.. Maybe it doesn’t matter in the summer, but if you don’t have a 4×4 vehicle in winter conditions, you will have a hard time.
It is not possible to travel without renting a car, but if you are doing the Golden Circle route, which I mentioned as a small tour, you can visit there. it may be possible by taking a tour. I’ve never heard of people traveling using public transport in Iceland.
We paid 271 Euros for a 4×4 diesel car that we rented for 8 days. Do not forget that your credit card, which you use for payment in online rental transactions, must be with you when purchasing the vehicle and that you have an empty limit of at least 300 Euros on your card.. The car rental company will block your limit of around 300 Euros for two weeks, and when it decides that there is no problem with the vehicle, it will be put back. You can open the limit by prepaying your card. For car rental reservation, you can use Discover Car Hire, which shows the best offers from different companies, click for its website.. Write Reykjavik Airport at the pickup point.
The gas cost, which we drove around 2500km all around Iceland, cost 255 Euros.. If we think that we arrived late on the first day and left early on the last day, we may think that we did not use the full 8 days, so the average daily gasoline price was around 35 – 40 Euros. If you pay with your credit card (usually there is no other option), your card will be pre-authorized for a very high amount and you see it like that for a day or two, then it returns to the normal amount.. So, if you see a large amount on your credit card made at the gas station, do not panic for the first few days After inserting your card into the machines, a screen asking how much petrol you want to buy comes up, I recommend you to proceed with the “make full” option instead of entering the amount.. Otherwise, if you enter an amount more than necessary for the full, your extra money is gone because you can’t get the change.
In Iceland You should be extra careful about speed limits while driving, because people want to ‘help’, so to speak, “But it’s an empty road”, so you might think that it’s okay to go fast and then pay high fines.. Also, the signs are not placed optimally, for example, when you go with 70, you suddenly see 50 sign and there is a radar right behind the sign, so you can enter the radar before you get to 50 yet, be careful.
The last expense after the vehicle itself and its gas is the parking fee.. By choosing the places where we stayed, whose names and links I have given above, with free parking, we got away cheap here, we paid a total of 8 Euros.. Once, while touring downtown Reykjavik, we entered the parking garage and paid 320 ISK for two hours.
The other time we saw a strange system; When we parked to go to the waterfall named Svartifoss, there were warnings like “Please pay the parking fee”. It felt strange as we are used to paying the parking fee when tickets are purchased through the barrier.. It turns out that they send a penalty if you take a photo of the license plate while passing through certain points and then do not pay.. Even though we thought that Icelanders wouldn’t do it, we read on the forums and when we saw that people said pay, we paid 750 ISK for the machines there.. Some of the other attractions have a similar system, it’s up to you whether you pay now or take the risk.
ICELAND BLUE LAGOON ENTRANCE FEE
If you’ve started reading travel articles about Iceland, you can see the Blue Lagoon as it is expensive and crowded. You can see that there are travelers who complain that it is very touristic there.. In general, they will recommend you other cheap or free lagoons that are not known by name.
Obviously for me, the Blue Lagoon was a place identified with an Icelandic holiday and I wanted to experience it during my trip, so I didn’t think of going to another lagoon. If you have the same ideas as me, the first thing you should do when your Iceland trip is finalized is to buy your Blue Lagoon ticket from the official website, otherwise the cheapest tickets may be sold out.. Since the Blue Lagoon’s location is close to Reykjavik, you can get tickets for your first full day after arriving in Iceland, which we did.
Blue Lagoon ticket price can change periodically, the cheapest ticket during the Christmas period I go Comfort ticket type was 71 Euros per person.. A towel, a shower, a drink and a silica mask are included in the ticket price, we took the flip-flops that are not included, but they are not required as you can enter the water immediately from the locker room (no walking distance).. So this ticket is quite enough, of course, if you want to have more fun, you can check out the additional services provided in the high-priced ticket categories.
In the end, we paid 142 Euros for two people for the Blue Lagoon.. There are unexplored lagoons that are much cheaper and beautiful, but for me the Blue Lagoon was nice enough and it was totally worth the money.
ICELANDS FOOD AND BEVERAGE PRICES