Camping in Iceland

Camping beside the river at the nature reserve between 2 glaciers, Hveravellir.

The accommodation for our trip was mixed between camping and Airbnb, so some nights were spent in a tent and on some nights, we slept in a bed. Even in camping, we have experienced both ‘wild’ camping, as in we looked around and picked a spot to pitch our tent, and camping on designated camp ground. So having tried the different affordable accommodation possibilities, here’s my opinion about camping in Iceland.

First, to be clear, we’re the kind of campers who like the seclusion that camping brings. We hope that nobody finds our tent so we look for areas away from the main road and away from houses. And when we leave, we hope nobody would have realised that we were there which means that we take everything with us including our waste and we try not to damage any of the flora around us. We are not fans of camping at designated camp grounds – being able to hear someone else snoring in the next tent is an issue for us both. Knowing this, in our opinion, camping in Iceland was not as easy as we thought it would be.

Camping away from the main roads.

Ok, I’ll say it bluntly: Camping in Iceland was difficult!!! And I’m not just talking about the physical challenges that always goes along with camping. If you are interested in camping on designated camp ground only, Iceland has many of such sites and it would be super easy to pitch the tent. However, firstly, what would the point be in camping if its not to challenge yourself for self-reliance and to feel the tranquility of being completely alone? Secondly, making use of these campsites costs (and not little either) as they usually provide toilet facilities and a small kitchen for cooking (which you would have to share with a bunch of other people and take turns to use the facilities). While it is still definitely not considered much as compared to staying in a hotel or Airbnb, it will be of no surprise if prices will increase exponentially in the following years to come with increasing tourism on Iceland. We had the chance to meet re-visiting tourists and everyone we met agreed that the number of designated camp grounds have increased significantly. Having said that, camping in Iceland is taxing because the areas for wild camping have reduced considerably making it extremely challenging to find a secluded spot away from traffic and sheltered from the harsh winds (that got really crazy as we had learned at one point during our trip).

A spot we camped at in North Iceland.

In preparing for this adventure, we read many contradictory reports about ‘wild’ camping not being allowed while in others, camping seemed to be ok as long as it was not on private land. But that’s where we got confused. What’s considered private land? Our rule of thumb, which we had observed for our entire trip, was to assume that any stretch of land that was fenced was considered private and there were many such areas that were fenced with no visible marker or signpost labeling them as private land. However, we were later told that that’s not always the case. Many Icelandic farmers fenced areas to keep sheep from wandering. Still, it was difficult to differentiate private from non-private and we did not dare to climb over the fences to pitch our tent where we wanted to. This narrowed our camp ground possibilities A LOT and there were areas where we took hours to find a descent spot.

The tent pegs we used in Iceland. Left to right: Our original aluminum tent pegs, the titanium tent stakes and the Cyclone stakes.

Another thing we considered before our trip to Iceland, which we later found to be very useful, were the appropriate tent pegs. We own a Mountain Hardwear Trango 2 tent which already had aluminum tent pegs but we had read that the ground in Iceland was sandy or hard and decided to be ready and got different tent pegs to cover the variety of conditions we thought we would encounter. We purchased the Cyclone stakes from MSR and titanium tent stakes (picture on the right). By the end of our adventure, we were both thankful for our earlier planning. We found the ground in Iceland to be on either extreme depending on the location – it was either soft and sandy for which we used the twisted Cyclone stakes, or rock hard and impossible to drive a regular tent peg through. In the latter case, we used the titanium stakes and the rocks and boulders around to secure the tent. With the harsh windy conditions in Iceland, we were glad we were prepared.

Can’t always be camping in the open with an amazing backdrop! 🙂 Sometimes the best spots are behind a rock. This was close to Lake Mývatn and in this case, we did this not only to be out of sight but also to get out of some really strong wind.

Having mentioned the wind in Iceland, I should also disclose that we made use of our canopy on most nights when we camped. There were a couple of nights when the canopy was a bit much and we baked in the tent; Mountain Hardwear Trango 2 is an excellent tent for cold climates which was why we used it in Iceland. In the middle of June, we had encountered heavy rain and strong wind (together and separately) during our stay so the canopy was essential to our camping needs. Despite the additional weight, I do not recommend leaving the canopy at home!

Some of the No Camping signs taken around the Lake Mývatn area.

While I know I sound rather negative, I must admit that we had amazing camping experiences in Iceland which we will probably be talking about for a good long while. But during our visit, it became apparent that tourism is taking its toll on the locals. For example, before heading to Iceland, we had friends who told us that we should definitely do wild camping around Lake Mývatn because they found camping there (10 years ago) to be amazing but when we got there, we found the entire area around the lake to be fenced off and labeled as private or with ‘no camping’ signs. The only place we could camp were designated camp grounds which were already full and crowded. So instead of our highly anticipated romantic spot beside the water, we had to settle for a camp site further away from the lake. At this point, I think ‘wild’ camping is thankfully still being tolerated by the locals but I can understand if this fuse is growing shorter by the year. We have seen tents pitched where signs had been raised explicitly expressing that there should not be any camping in the area. We have even seen food strewn across rocks and burnt grass where camping was not even allowed in the first place. It would be sad to see Iceland stop ‘wild’ camping entirely but if they do in the years to come, and I believe that day will come soon, can we really blame them??

Note: This trip took place in the last 2 weeks of June 2016.