Last Updated: February 15th, 2020

If we learned anything during our 10 day campervan trip to Iceland, we learned that visiting this country is not exactly an inexpensive trip.

We were well prepared for this going in, and in the year in advance we booked our flights, we were able to do a whole lot of research to try to keep costs as low as possible. To say the least, we’re not exactly made out of money – and are generally frugal people in our day-to-day lives. The thought of dropping thousands of dollars for a trip to Iceland seems sort of far off from our usual lifestyle, but we’d gladly do it again if the exchange would be the beautiful vistas and experiences we had while there again.

In our 10 day stay in Iceland, we learned a whole lot. A lot about the country itself, and even moreso about ourselves.

While we’ve taken great trips in the past, none compare to our time here.

Through the challenges of living out of a van, dealing with harsh weather, driving on frightening roads on the top of fjords – it was worth it. The exchange for these tough parts of the journey? Incomparable scenic views of an often alien landscape, the quietness of nature, and just a general change of pace from the hustle-and-bustle of our regular lives – which regularly consist of working round-the-clock hours. It’s difficult to put into words, though try as we may 😊

Of course, we feel like we’re trying to sell you on the experience of being in Iceland, because it is worth every dollar spent. But, with this in mind, we know many people are budget conscious – and while often getting to Iceland is pretty inexpensive thanks to fairly cheap airfare costs, most things on the island are expensive.

Initial Considerations for a Trip to Iceland on a Budget

Before we break down the specific costs of our trip to Iceland, we wanted to share some thoughts on how you can influence the cost of your trip there.

The first and probably most significant consideration is the length of time you are planning to stay.

A 2-day trip is going to be far more affordable than a 10 day one, and a 10 day one more affordable than spending a month. Budget restrictions will not necessarily make it so you are unable to travel to Iceland, but may limit the amount of time you will have to stay there. Of course, the amount of time you can spend may not just be financial – but may be limited as well by other factors such as personal responsibilities at home and available vacation days through work. You probably know this already, though 😊

Outside of this, you will need to define what kind of trip you are looking to have in Iceland.

If you are planning to be comfortable most of the time and stay in hotels and other “nice” accommodations, you are going to be spending a lot more money. Certainly, the city life in Reykjavik can make this sort of trip quite attractive and an alternative to hot-and-sunny beach locations such as those found in Mexico and the Caribbean islands.

On the other end of things, living out of a campervan like we did, camping in a tent, or even hitchhiking are all options as well – each coming with their pros & cons, but most being more affordable than comfy living on the island.

A big part of defining the trip you want to have is identifying the places you actually want to visit as well.

Many tourists stick to Reykjavik, The Blue Lagoon, The Golden Circle and the South Coast, which includes really popular sites like the Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon. We visited all of these spots ourselves, and they were great in their own ways. Generally speaking, these are all places fairly easy to get to – and even if you don’t want to drive yourself, tour groups regularly go to all of these spots.

If you are really attracted to some sights more off the beaten path such as in the Westfjords or Northern part of Iceland, the requirements from you may be a bit different.

If you want to do a little bit of everything and see the entire country, this is entirely possible to when taking the Ring Road around the country and selecting places to stop off.

These are just a few things to keep in mind as you shape your own travels to Iceland.

With this out of the way, let’s talk about our Iceland budget and actual cost.

For more thoughts on this to consider for a trip to Iceland, check out our article Top Considerations When Planning a Trip to Iceland.

Our Iceland Trip Budget & Actual Costs

Our 10 day campervan trip around Iceland’s Ring Road, into the Westfjords, and around the Snaefellsnes Peninsula cost $6,000 (USD). Mind you, this figure is representative of two travelers, so it will be a little high if you are planning to do a comparable trip solo.

So, how does $6,000 get spent in a manner of 10 days? We’ll break this down for you now:

Iceland Preparation Expenses

The cost of your trip does not begin when you get on the airplane to fly to Iceland.

We spent a good chunk of change just to get our bags packed with the appropriate attire and supplies. Given the generally high costs of goods in this country, if you have space, it is valuable to purchase things at home and bring them with you. We break down the specific items we brought along with us in our article How to Pack for a Trip to Iceland. You can check that out if you are needing some advice for what you should expect to pack yourself.

On the cost end of things, for all “preparation expenses”, this is how things broke out for us:

Clothing (shirts, coats, boots, etc.): $300

Bulk dry food (nuts, protein bars, etc.): $50

Other supplies (such as flashlights, chargers, etc.): $200

TOTAL: $550

Some of these expenses will be mitigated if you already have some of the right supplies.

As an example in our own lives, Chris tends to live with just a few pairs of pants, but given living in a campervan doesn’t exactly offer direct access to a washing machine (most of the time) – the result was that he had to buy a bunch of pants that added up in cost pretty quickly. The same went for hiking boots, because regular sneakers just wouldn’t cut it for the kind of adventure we were going to set out on.

Photography gear – add on expenses

Given that we are a blog for photographers, it would be wrong to ignore the reality that many photographers traveling to Iceland will want to take some pictures. Iceland is so photogenic, it’s incredible the number of times we would just pull off on the side of the road to snap a few shots of the landscapes.

We will not bog this article down with a huge list of recommended photography gear, but if this is interesting to you, we suggest you check out our article: The Best Photography Gear for an Icelandic Adventure.

Iceland travel expenses

Now that your bags are packed and have the right supplies in them, you can really begin your Icelandic journey. You will need to be sure to book your flights and rent your car/lodging well in advance. As mentioned earlier in this article, our preparations began a year in advance – and we had our van booked about 6 months out from our trip.

If you are planning a trip during the summer months, making advanced reservations and securing your rental is very important. As time moves into the off season, it’s a little easier (and cheaper) to get rental vehicles and lodging, but you should still be prepared and book in advance.

Here we break down the costs of these core travel expenses:

How to Save Money on Your Iceland Trip

Given our experience spending a good chunk of money in Iceland, as we reflect back on our time there – there are many opportunities to save money that we ignored often for the sake of convenience or luxury. Your specific budget and lifestyle expectations will ultimately decide whether you spend money or don’t in certain situations, but given we have broken down our expenses above – we’d like to highlight some areas where we could have saved money just to more clearly show how more budget-friendly decisions can be made.

Savings Area #1: Don’t rent a campervan AND a hotel

Our decision to book a hotel room was a last minute one (as in: the day before departure to Iceland), and we paid a hefty cost for our room as a result as all hotels were booked with the exception of the Northern Lights Inn – which had only a deluxe room available.

(If you’re asking us if it was worth it, yes it was worth it!)

Still, this is the sort of luxury we rarely treat ourselves too. After 10 days in the van, most of which were spent without a shower, just lying in a regular bed and having access to a heated room and soap was worth it for us. This trip to Iceland also marked our wedding anniversary, so chalk it up to a little romance to suggest splurging on a room for a night.

Savings Area #2: Skip The Blue Lagoon

Sometimes The Blue Lagoon gets a bad rep. It’s a great place, even though it’s overrun by tourists (like ourselves). It’s maybe not the most authentic Icelandic spa on the island, but it is relaxing and a good time in our experience. Still – it is pretty expensive (and recently costs increased even more since we were there).

Alternatives to the Blue Lagoon are all around the country. If you happen to be traveling North past Akureyri, the Myvatyn Natural Baths are a great alternative at about quarter of the price.

If you are interested in learning about more alternatives to the Blue Lagoon than what we had mentioned here, be sure to check out these great articles!:

Savings Area #3: Pack more non-perishable food items at home

We packed a good amount of food – or so we thought. We mostly lived off of grocery store food and gas station food for most of our trip. The only time we actually ate out at a restaurant was on our last evening. It’s sort of embarrassing to think we spent $6k on a trip to Iceland, and spent it mostly eating PB&J sandwiches, skyr (yogurt), rice, pasta, and candy. Basically – all the carbs for easy energy. On occasion, an Icelandic hot dog because THEY ARE ADDICTING!!

Because most food products cost so much in Iceland, even small stops at the gas station could add up quickly. We suggest spending more at home and packing your bags if you have space, so you can have food already on hand and save.

Savings Area #4: Skip on souvenir purchases

Maybe the easiest area to save money when traveling through Iceland is to avoid the urge to buy souvenirs. Generally speaking, we don’t tend to like a lot of knick-knacks around the house or things we otherwise won’t use, so this isn’t too much of a issue for us. With that said, we did spend a good chunk on an Icelandic wool blanket – that we still use and enjoy. We also snagged a few little items for our nephews.

How to Make Purchases in Iceland

The last topic we want to cover in our discussion of the costs of Iceland is how to actually make purchases.

You might be thinking…”well, this is dumb”…and you might be right. However…

If you are unfamiliar with traveling to Iceland (or most European countries which have similar protocols), you may come to find making purchases to be a bit more challenging, and possibly even costly.

Generally speaking, most places accept normal forms of payment: cash, credit, debit.

As a rule of thumb, cash purchases, while accepted, are not really the “norm” in Icelandic culture these days. Incidentally, we mistakenly took out $500 (USD) worth of Icelandic krona currency upon arrival, and ended up making plenty of purchases with cash ourselves without issue.

Outside of cash purchases, we much preferred payments via credit card due to no traveler fees and the simple fact each purchase is insured in case something bad would happen like someone stealing the card information.

Vhip-and-Pin vs. Chip-and-Sign Credit Card

When it comes to credit card purchases, this is where we got a bit confused – even before traveling to Iceland ourselves.

First, while most stores in Iceland do accept credit cards, most only accept Visa and MasterCard. Having used Discover cards all of our lives, without any secondary cards, this ended up resulting in us getting a Visa credit card. Specifically – we enrolled for the Amazon Visa Credit Card so as to be rewarded with 5% back on Amazon purchases, and some cash back even on “normal” expenses.

Outside of having the right type of credit card brand, you will also want to know the difference between chip-and-pin cards and chip-and-sign cards.

As the names imply, the first type of card involves putting in your credit card chip and using a pin # to verify your identity as the card holder. This is a more secure method, but unfortunately not something found on credit cards in the United States. Our standard bank issued debit cards covered this, though, when it was absolutely needed such as at unmanned gas stations found throughout the country (especially in more rural areas outside of the big cities).

The second type of card involves putting in your credit card chip and signing to confirm your purchase. These are the norm in the US, and while generally fine to use throughout Iceland, they are likely more of a sign that you are from the US vs. a European country. We personally had no issues with using ours anywhere.

Conclusion

Traveling to Iceland isn’t a cheap trip, but you can manage your budget pretty effectively by reducing unnecessary spending and packing well in advance. At the end of the day, while money is great to have on hand – spending money on travel is probably one of the best investments you can make into your own life experience.

For us, we feel like Iceland is our home away from home. We sometimes sit around thinking about it, and feel a connection with this place like no other. It’s a strange feeling, and one that calls us to return some day 🙂

Have any questions about traveling to Iceland and keeping it within your budget? Ask away in the comment section below!!

If you are interested in reading more of our Iceland-related article content we have written and published here at FFL, you can do so by clicking on the following links:

…Or, you can check out our complete FFL Iceland archives HERE!