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Driving Iceland’s Ring Road - Day 1: Drive to Skagafjordur (Skagafjörður)

If you arrive at the KFE airport in Keflavik, get your rental car at the airport and either drive directly to your hotel in Skagafjörður (4h drive) or explore the Reykjanes Peninsula first. 

If you are coming from the US or Canada and have an overnight flight behind you, then it may be beneficial to drive to immediately drive to your hotel in Skagafjörður as this is a 4h drive and you want to get there safely before you get tired.

For more detailed information incl. links to google maps locations, more photos, reviews, website links, etc., check out our Iceland Highlights Purple Guide.

Before you take the 4h drive to Skagafjörður, make sure to buy groceries and drinks in Keflavik.  Food is expensive in Iceland, but there are budget supermarkets like Bónus which have comparably low prices, but unfortunately they only open at 10am or 11am and close between 6 and 7pm.  So, if you need to get groceries, there are Extra24 markets, which are open 24h per day.

For Pinterest users, here are some pins that you can use:

Our Iceland Travel Guide has detailed information about the individual destinations, links to their locations in google maps, reviews and websites (if available).

Please see the Backpack & Snorkel Travel Store for more information.

Here are more Iceland destinations to explore:

Icelandic Seal Center - Selasetur Íslands

The Icelandic Seal Center is a research center and it has a small museum and gift shop that are all dedicated to seals.  Here you can learn about the local seal colonies and book a seal-watching boat tour.

Hotel Mikligardur in Skagafjordur (book)

Hotel Mikligardur is only open from June through August.  It provides clean basic rooms with comfortable beds, night stands, a table and chair, basic shelf, closet with hangers, blackout curtains, free wifi and a bathroom with a shower.  Liquid soap and shampoo are in multi-use containers.  Parking is free and the hotel’s orange color makes it easy to find.

And that’s it.

Breakfast was included and plentiful.  It consisted mostly of sliced bread, sausages and cheese.

The hotel is only about 1,000ft (300m) from the fjord and there is a hiking path and small river in the back of the hotel.

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