No Car? No Problem! Travelling Iceland For Cheap

In this day and age, it’s hard to travel without breaking the bank. Left and right, you hear everyone complaining about prices, tourists and locals alike (albeit tourists are a bit louder about it).

Are you planning on leaving the city? Those gas prices can kill. Thinking about renting a car? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Luckily, there are still a few vestiges of cheaper travel. Sorry, we know, In This Economy?! usually focuses on the free. But trust me when I say these methods will still help you save crazy amounts of krónur. Here we present: Grapevine’s Guide To Cheap Travel In Iceland.

Number one: good old-fashioned hitchhiking

While not as popular as it was in the good old days (it’s been a couple of years since Þorgeir Ástvaldsson’s 1982 hit “Á Puttanum” where the chorus just repeats “I travelled by hitchhiking”), people still do hitchhike in Iceland. Information is still accessible on megasite hitchwiki.org, and you’ll see excited travellers ask questions on Reddit about the ins and outs of hitchhiking. I haven’t hitchhiked in Iceland (yet), so I recruited my friend Lou to tell me a bit about it. We met in a ride-share for the Hátíðni festival in Borðeyri, and on our way back to the city, we dropped them off to hitchhike from Borgarnes to Stykkishólmur.

I ask if they’d say hitchhiking in Iceland is safe. They explain, “I would say it is safe if I think about being safe from people,” but add, “however, you know you don’t fuck — sorry — with the weather in Iceland, so I took warnings seriously in ways I maybe don’t do when I hitchhike in other countries.”

“Iceland is one of the easiest places I have found to hitchhike,” they note, “because of the road structure!” They advise standing at an intersection or by a gas station, so that cars aren’t heading at full speed. However, wait times can vary, as they say, “sometimes I didn’t even have time to fully put down my backpack, and sometimes I waited more than a few hours.” Any fun stories?

Well, they’ve ridden with a member of Alþingi. Another is that they were picked up by a guy driving home to Mosfellsbær, but he “ended up dropping me at Borgarnes, where he insisted we get ice cream at the gas station because he said it was tradition.”

Car-sharing

If you prefer a bit more planning or the idea of hitchhiking stresses you out, no fear. There’s still a way to find someone heading in the same direction you hope to. Two of the most popular ways to hail a ride in advance are samferda.is and the Facebook group Samferða á Íslandi. Samferða means co-travel, or simply carpool, and these sites allow people who are already planning to travel to ask for company, or people who are looking for a ride to ask if anyone’s heading that way.

In this type of travel, it’s commonplace to split gas costs, but hey — it’s still a lot cheaper than if you had to cover any of the costs yourself.

Strætó

Grapevine has covered (and used) the infamous cross-country bus routes a few times; if you’ve ever dreamed of leaving the desolate wasteland of Mjódd for the countryside, these trips are for you. Since GV last took one of these buses, the price has risen (the fare is determined by how far you travel; Reykjavík to Akureyri costs around 13.000 ISK). But that’s still easier on the wallet than renting a car and hitting the road solo.

We’ll say this: it is possible to do the Ring Road by bus. Is it ideal? That’s for you to make a cost-over-comfort call. It takes coordination, stops and transfers, and patience. That being said, we at GVHQ hope to do it one day.

Bikepacking

For the athletes and fresh-air lovers, there’s always the possibility of bikepacking. We’re including this one in hopes of increasing bicycle infrastructure in Iceland, but understand that this demands a bit of equipment and some skill. That being said, buying or renting a bike is cheaper than buying or renting a car, so it’s worth adding.

However, bikepacking in Iceland is also hotly contested. “Ringroad on a bicycle – a terrible idea” reads one post on Reddit, followed by 149 comments ranging from “The closest I ever came to killing a man was on the Ring Road, a bicyclist clad in all black” to “Don’t listen to this guy. He’s always posting shit about cycling.”

Our conclusion? It’s possible, but you should know what you’re doing and be safe about it. One lunatic suggests shifting your circadian rhythm to cycle at night and sleep during the day.

Step by step

This piece would not be complete without noting that you can accomplish this journey with nature’s vehicle: your own two legs. Many brave souls have walked and run the Ring Road, and you can too. Currently, the record time is 17 days. Think you can beat it?

So there you have it — our ideas for taking on the Ring Road for cheap. But, if you decide to take it easy and rent a car — give us a shout, so we can hitch a ride with you.

Times are tough, and money is tight. In This Economy?! spotlights things to do that don’t cost a single krónur (well, not today, but usually). Got a free event you want more people to know about? Let us know at grapevine@grapevine.is

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