Hiking the Icelandic Highlands: Landmannalaugar and the Laugavegur Trail

The Icelandic interior is empty in a way the coast is not. No towns, no farms, no trees, no permanent population — just ice caps, black desert, and mountains in colours that look wrong for the latitude. It is accessible for roughly ten weeks a year, and Landmannalaugar is the doorway most people use.

What makes Landmannalaugar different

The mountains here are rhyolite rather than the basalt that makes up most of Iceland. Rhyolite forms in a more silica-rich, slower-cooling process, and it weathers into streaks of yellow, orange, pink, green and grey that look painted on. Set against them is Laugahraun, a lava field of black obsidian that flowed as recently as the 15th century, its surface still glassy and sharp.

Sitting at around 600 metres in the Fjallabak Nature Reserve, Landmannalaugar also has a natural geothermal pool at the edge of the lava, fed by hot and cold streams that meet at bathing temperature. Walking out of the mountains and into that pool is the reason many people come.

Good day hikes from the hut include Bláhnúkur, a steep 940-metre cone with a panoramic summit and a two-hour round trip, and Brennisteinsalda, the "sulphur wave", whose flanks are streaked with yellow deposits.

Getting there

Landmannalaugar is reached only by F-road, and F-roads are legally restricted to four-wheel-drive vehicles. They typically open between mid-June and early July depending on snowmelt, and close again in September; the Icelandic Road Administration publishes the dates at road.is.

There are two driving routes. F208 from the north, off road 26, is the more forgiving and has no significant river crossing. F208 from the south, and F225, involve unbridged fords — and no rental insurance in Iceland covers water damage, so a misjudged crossing is entirely at your own cost.

The genuinely sensible alternative is the highland bus. Scheduled services run daily in summer from Reykjavík and from Hella, take about four hours, cross the rivers in vehicles built for it, and cost far less than the 4x4 upgrade. If you are hiking the Laugavegur one-way, this is also how you solve the transport problem at both ends.

The Laugavegur trail

The Laugavegur runs 55 kilometres from Landmannalaugar south to Þórsmörk, and is routinely listed among the best multi-day hikes in the world. Most people take four days, though strong walkers do it in two or three. It is walked north to south to take advantage of the net descent.

The standard stages are Landmannalaugar to Hrafntinnusker (12 km, the route’s highest point at around 1,050 metres), Hrafntinnusker to Álftavatn (12 km, with a substantial descent), Álftavatn to Emstrur/Botnar (15 km across black desert), and Emstrur to Þórsmörk (15 km, ending in birch woodland).

The terrain changes completely every few hours: steaming rhyolite hills, snow patches that persist all summer, a green lake basin, then volcanic desert, then a canyon and finally trees. Few trails anywhere compress that much variety into 55 kilometres.

Huts, camping and booking

Ferðafélag Íslands, the Icelandic Touring Association, operates the huts. They provide bunk space, a shared kitchen and a warden, and sell out extremely early — bookings for the summer typically open the preceding autumn and fill within days.

Camping is permitted only in the designated areas beside the huts, not anywhere along the trail. Campers can generally book without the same lead time but should still reserve. Wild camping in Iceland is heavily restricted by law and is not an option here.

The Fimmvörðuháls extension

Many walkers continue from Þórsmörk over Fimmvörðuháls to Skógar, adding around 25 kilometres and a climb to about 1,000 metres between the Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull ice caps. The route passes Magni and Móði, the two craters formed in the 2010 eruption, where the ground is still warm in places, and finishes by descending past a long chain of waterfalls to the top of Skógafoss.

It is a long, exposed day and the pass holds snow and fog well into summer. Do not attempt it in poor visibility.

What to know before you go

• River crossings on foot are part of the trail. Bring sandals or water shoes and trekking poles, unbuckle your hip belt before wading, and cross facing upstream. Never cross alone in high water.
• Snow can fall in any month at this altitude, and Hrafntinnusker is frequently in cloud. A four-season sleeping bag, proper waterproofs and a warm layer are not optional.
• There is little to no mobile coverage. Leave a travel plan at safetravel.is, and consider a personal locator beacon — they can be rented in Reykjavík.
• Carry all your food. The huts sell almost nothing and there are no shops between the two ends.
• Take everything out with you, and stay on the marked path. The moss and vegetation here take decades to recover from a footprint off-trail, let alone a tyre track.

Other highland destinations

The interior has more. Kerlingarfjöll, off the Kjölur route, has the Hveradalir geothermal valley — steaming red and orange slopes threaded with hot streams. Askja, in the northeast interior, holds a caldera lake and the warm crater of Víti, reached across the Ódáðahraun desert. Þórsmörk, sheltered between three glaciers, is worth a couple of days on its own.

All share the same window and the same rules. Come between late June and early September, take road conditions seriously, and understand that out here there is nobody nearby to help.