About this guide
Visit Golden Circle is an independent travel guide to the Golden Circle in south-west Iceland: Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss, along with Kerið, Brúarfoss, Laugarvatn, Flúðir and the Langjökull glacier. It is written by Patrick Kühne, a travel publisher based in Germany.
Not an official site
This guide has no link to any Icelandic authority, tourist board or tour operator. Þingvellir National Park is managed by the Þingvellir Committee, which works under the Icelandic Parliament; its site at thingvellir.is covers the Hakið visitor centre, parking and the rules for Silfra. The Environment Agency of Iceland (ust.is) manages the protected area at Gullfoss. For the region as a whole, Visit South Iceland (south.is) handles tourism and events in South Iceland, and Visit Iceland (visiticeland.com), run by Business Iceland, is the country’s official travel guide.
Road closures change quickly in Iceland. Before a drive, check umferdin.is or call 1777, and in an emergency call 112.
Where the facts come from
Opening hours, rules, heights and dates on this site come from published sources: Þingvellir National Park, the Environment Agency of Iceland, Visit Iceland, Visit South Iceland, UNESCO, Safetravel, the US Naval Observatory for sunrise and sunset, and the websites of places such as Kerið, Fontana, the Secret Lagoon and Friðheimar. Driving distances and times come from our own route calculations with OpenStreetMap data, so the pages say “about” and leave out stops, roadworks and winter conditions. Each page lists its sources, checked in November 2026.
Sources do not always agree. The length of the Golden Circle loop is given as anything from about 250 to about 300 km, and the interval between Strokkur’s eruptions differs from one source to the next. In such cases we give the range or leave the number out.
How tours are picked
A tour appears here when the Golden Circle or one of its places is its main subject. Most start in Reykjavík; some meet at Silfra, Geysir or Gullfoss for travellers with their own car. Trips that centre on the south coast, Snæfellsnes or the Blue Lagoon alone are left out, as are plain transfers. Duration, meeting point, age limits and what is included are taken from the tour pages. Where reviewers keep raising the same point, such as short stops on the big coach tours, Kerið missing from afternoon departures or snowmobile rides cancelled by weather, the page says so. When the booking platform stops listing a tour, it disappears from the site automatically.
How the site is paid for
Tour cards and comparison tables link to GetYourGuide and, for tours not listed there, to Viator. If you book through one of these links, we receive a commission and your price stays the same. Prices and ratings are loaded from the platform; we do not write or change them.
We are not a tour operator and do not take bookings. Questions about a booking go to the platform or to the operator named on it.
Photos
The photos come from Unsplash. Most show the place they illustrate; a few, such as the horses, the lagoon, the northern lights or the winter roads, were taken elsewhere in Iceland, and their captions describe only what is in the picture and credit the photographer.
Contact
Contact details are in the legal notice.