This tour offers a unique glimpse at sustainable living in Iceland, a visit to famous Golden Circle attractions, and a rare chance to see the Northern Lights!
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During this day tour, you'll get an array of experiences. First, there's a visit to Geothermal Energy Exhibition, Sólheimar Eco Village, and Ljósafossvirkjun Power Station, where you'll learn a lot about how Iceland uses green energy. Later, you'll continue a journey to the famous Golden Circle and its attractions – Gullfoss Waterfall, Geysir Geothermal Area, and Thingvellir National Park. You'll end your day with a thrilling hunt for Northern Lights with a group of like-minded people. What there be a better ending to a fascinating day than this?
Iceland is famously a country that makes almost 100% using renewable energy. The primary energy sources are geothermal (~30%) and hydropower (~70%). During this tour, you'll get an opportunity to see how nature's forces are transformed into power.
The tour will begin with a pick-up from Reykjavik at 8:00 a.m. Then, we'll head towards the Hellisheiðarvirkjun to see the Geothermal Energy Exhibition. This exhibition, situated at the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant, shows how Icelanders learned to use geothermal energy as a source of power hundreds of years ago. You'll also see how the latest developments turned Hellisheiði into one of the world's greenest energy sources.
Next, we'll make a short stop at Ljósafossvirkjun, a hydro-based power plant, where we feel the tremendous force of running water – the same force is later transformed into energy. Here we can look at the power plant and take some photos.
Up next is a visit to Sólheimar Eco Village, a community living of sustainable values. There, friendly staff will tell you all they know about sustainable development in Iceland. All the work in Sólheimar is done by the population of approximately 100 people living there. This eco-village is truly something you don't want to miss out on.
Golden Circle is one of Iceland's most popular touristic routes, holding three major attractions – Thingvellir National Park, Geysir, and Gullfoss waterfall.
Gullfoss is, without any doubt, one of the most iconic waterfalls in Iceland. This beautiful water cascade, originating from the Hvítá river, falls 32 meters in two stages. Sometimes, during the summer, you can see the rainbow going over this amazing waterfall.
Next on our agenda is Geysir – a natural phenomenon after which all the other geysers in the world were named. Today, the Geysir is dormant, but its little brother, Strokkur, is shooting a boiling water stream up 35 meters into the sky every 5-10 minutes.
Afterward, we'll head to the final Golden Circle attraction – Thingvellir National Park. Thingvellir is situated in a historically and geologically significant area. It is a place where the first Icelandic parliament took place in 930 AD. It is also where the two continents – North American and Eurasian – meet. You'll be able to walk on the ridge between the two tectonic plates drifting apart!
After shortly returning to the city, we'll head on yet another adventure. You'll get picked up by the minibus and head for a thrilling Northern Lights hunt. We'll drive away from the city and light pollution to get the best chance of seeing the amazing auroras. The expert guide will take you to the place with the highest probability. We guarantee this will be something you'll want to remember – that's why we offer free photos with you surrounded by the Northern Lights for free!
Pick-up for Golden Circle & Geothermal Energy tour from Reykjavik is at 08:00 a.m. We will come back to Reykjavik around 18:00 (6:00 p.m.). Then, you will be picked up for the Northern Light tour at either 20:30 (8:30 p.m.) or 21:30 (9:30 p.m.), depending on the season, and come back to Reykjavik around midnight.
Available pick-up points: Arctic Adventures’s pick-up list.
The pickup time is stated on your voucher and therefore we recommend you to review your voucher carefully. We ask all participants to be ready from the start of the pickup time indicated as you may well be the first pick up of the day. Please be at your assigned location at the right pick up time that you chose when booking the tour.
Wait for your guide at your assigned pick up location.
Have your email and phone number listed with us so we can contact you if we run into any trouble finding you.
View our pick-up locations in Reykjavík.
We reserve the rights to adjust the itinerary and/or take different routes depending on conditions. Your safety is our number one priority.
Please read more information in our terms and conditions in regards to this matter.
Yes, we have specially trained and certified guide on all of our tours, expect on our self-drive tours.
All of our tours are English guided.
Yes, we do have a tour into Langjökull Ice Cave that has no minimum age and it is a fantastic option for the whole family. As a Whale Watching with our partner company Special Tours, enjoyable tour for a family traveling with young children, these guys have an enormous success rate in seeing whales (upwards of 98% in the summertime).
If you want to explore parts of Icelandic Highlands than we have our magnificent Landmannalaugar Safari tour that also offers you to bathe in natural hot springs. Almost all of our jeep tours are suitable for children over the age of 6 years old. Then we also have a relaxing experience that we highly recommend, our Golden Circle & Secret Lagoon tour.
The Northern Lights are natural phenomena and we, unfortunately, cannot promise you will see them. Their appearance depends upon atmospheric and weather conditions.
For more information on the Northern Lights, please have a look at our Northern Lights tours.
The Northern Lights season is from late August until mid-April. However, if you want to increase your changes of seeing them, it is best to wait until the clear winter months of mid-September until March.
Yes, the guide on your tour will take a photo of you with the northern lights in the background.
These can be single or group photo’s and are free of charge.
We, unfortunately, do not have one simple answer to this question.
There isn’t just one single setting for your camera that ensures great photos. However, if you have manual options, you are probably best served with experimenting with various combinations of ISO, aperture, and exposure settings. As a rule of thumb, ISO setting between 800 and 3200, aperture between f/2 8 and f/5.6, and shutter speed at between 15 seconds and 30 seconds have proven effective.
A good thing to keep in mind, ISO setting between 800 and 3200, aperture between f/2.8 and f/5.6, and shutter speed between 15 seconds and 30 seconds have given great results.
Different combinations may give very different results. Higher ISO setting will allow you to capture faster exposures, but the downside to this might be for example grainier images.
If the shutter speed is above 15 seconds it will result in a slight star movement.
Wider angle lenses are usually more versatile in low light settings, but longer lenses give you different options for compositions. Make sure that you remove all lens filters, as they may distort images. You will probably get the best results with manual setting for infinite focal length.
Reimbursement is not given if the northern lights tour goes ahead and no lights are seen but we do offer you the change to join a Northern Lights Minibus tour free of charge.
Please contact our Customer Care to re-book your tour.
When Northern Lights tours are canceled it’s usually due to unfavorable weather conditions.
In that case, your options will be to:
Please go to the customer portal to re-book your tour or contact us by phone at +354 562 7000.
The northern lights are a pretty difficult thing to predict. We recommend you to check en.vedur.is to see the forecast and if the level is high and the skies are clear then it’s very likely that the tour is going ahead. We do update our website’s tour departure sheet with the information at 17:00 pm the latest. If your tour is canceled then you will receive an email from us.
If we think there is no chance at all of seeing the lights we will cancel the tour. We don’t want to bring you out and disappoint if there is no chance of the lights to be seen.
We have four different categories that help participants to get a better understanding of what to expect from the tour. The categories are Easy, Moderate, Challenging and Demanding. All of our tours are rated to make it easier for you to find a tour that suits you.
For further information about the difficulty ratings and descriptions.
