An Iceland Itinerary: Reykjavik and the Remote North

Pace ClaytonNoon Travel Advisor

Most people do Iceland one of two ways: a ring-road blur with a different guesthouse every night, or a Blue Lagoon soak on the way to somewhere else. Both are fine. Neither is the trip I book.

The version I send people on has two bases and a short flight in between. You start in Reykjavik at a black-timber design hotel a few steps from the harbour, eat extremely well, and let the capital do its thing for a night or two. Then you fly north to a converted sheep farm at the edge of the Arctic Circle, where the helicopters sit on the lawn and the pool is warm enough to swim in at midnight.

It is the difference between seeing Iceland and being handed the keys to it. Here is how I route it.

Why split Iceland between the capital and the far north?

Because they do completely different jobs, and trying to make one place cover both is where these trips go soft. Reykjavik is your landing pad, your good dinner, your design fix — a walkable city you can absorb in two nights without feeling like you rushed it. The Troll Peninsula, five hundred kilometres north, is the wild half: empty valleys, sea cliffs, and the kind of guided adventure you cannot arrange from a city hotel lobby.

The mistake is basing the whole trip in Reykjavik and taking day tours out to the "real" Iceland. You spend the best hours of the day in a van. Splitting it — city first, then a proper northern base — means you are staying inside the landscape instead of commuting to it.

Where do I stay in Reykjavik?

The Reykjavik EDITION, without much debate. It opened in late 2021 on the Old Harbour, right beside the Harpa concert hall and a short walk from Laugavegur, the main shopping street — so you can land, drop your bags, and be at dinner on foot. It is an Ian Schrager and Marriott project, with interiors by the New York firm Roman and Williams and a local practice, and a facade of charred timber done in the Japanese shou sugi ban technique that reads as very Iceland: black, elemental, a little severe.

There are 253 rooms, including 26 suites and a penthouse, but the parts you will actually remember are the public ones. Tides, the ground-floor restaurant from chef Gunnar Karl Gíslason, leans hard into Icelandic seafood and is the easiest good meal in the city. The ROOF, on the seventh floor, is where you want to be at either end of the year — floor-to-ceiling glass onto the harbour and mountains, the northern lights in the cold months, and the endless bright evenings in summer. There is also a spa with a hammam and a plunge pool, which is the right way to reset after an overnight flight.

Two nights is the number. Ask for a harbour-facing room high in the building; the ocean-and-mountain view is the whole point, and the lower floors give some of it back.

What makes Deplar Farm worth the trip north?

Deplar Farm is an Eleven Experience lodge in the Fljot Valley, on the Troll Peninsula in northern Iceland — roughly sixty-six degrees north, close enough to the Arctic Circle that in June the sun barely sets. It was a working sheep farm before Eleven turned it into a 13-room, all-inclusive adventure lodge with a turf roof, floor-to-ceiling glass, and an indoor-outdoor geothermal pool with a swim-up bar. There is a spa, a sauna built for the Viking heat-and-ice ritual, and a helipad on the property.

What you are paying for is everything being handled. The rate covers your guides, your gear, and all your meals, and the lodge runs on a small number of guests at a time — 13 rooms, up to 34 people if a group takes the whole place. Getting there is part of the appeal and part of the logistics: you fly Reykjavik to Akureyri (about forty minutes), then it is a ninety-minute drive, and Eleven runs the airport transfers on a fixed schedule so you are not renting a car for the north.

The activity list changes with the season. In summer it is fly fishing, sea kayaking, e-biking, hiking, and riding the sure-footed Icelandic horses under a sun that never fully drops. In winter it is snowshoeing, Nordic skiing, fat biking, snowmobiling, whale watching, and the northern lights straight from the pool. And from early March into spring, Deplar becomes one of the few places on earth where you can heli-ski from a summit down to the sea and be back in the geothermal water by late afternoon.

When should you go — summer or winter?

It depends on which Iceland you want, and there is no wrong answer. Summer, roughly June through August, is the midnight-sun trip: long, warm-ish days, salmon in the rivers, and a green valley that stays lit past midnight. This is also the version I steer people toward when they want a cool-weather escape from an August heatwave rather than a full winter expedition.

Winter, from October through February, is the aurora-and-snow trip: shorter days, the northern lights on a clear night, and a lodge that feels like the warmest room in the North Atlantic. If skiing is the reason you are going, target early March onward, when the heli-ski season opens and the days are long enough to chase runs from top to bottom. Whichever window you pick, the two-base structure holds — Reykjavik first, then the drive north.

If a remote lodge base is the part that appeals to you, it travels well to other trips too; it is the same instinct behind the farm stays I keep sending people to, and Iceland in summer sits comfortably alongside the cool-weather summer trips and the Norwegian fjords for anyone building a Nordic run.

What You Actually Want to Know

How many days do I need?

Five to seven. Two nights in Reykjavik and three at Deplar is the sweet spot — Deplar runs a three-night minimum anyway, and three nights is what lets you fit a real adventure day, a weather day, and a slow one. Add a night if you want to breathe.

How do I get from Reykjavik to Deplar Farm?

Fly. It is a forty-minute domestic hop from Reykjavik to Akureyri, then about ninety minutes by road into the Fljot Valley. Eleven handles the transfer from Akureyri on a set schedule, so you do not need a rental car for the northern leg. Driving the whole way from Reykjavik is possible but it is five hours-plus each way — not worth it.

What does Deplar Farm cost?

For the 2026–27 winter season, individual rooms start around $4,200 a night based on double occupancy, with a three-night minimum, and that rate is all-inclusive — guides, gear, and every meal. Taking the whole lodge as a buyout starts around $60,350 a night and sleeps up to 34. It is a serious number; it is also genuinely everything.

Can I see the northern lights and heli-ski on the same trip?

The overlap is narrow but real. The heli-ski season opens in early March, and the aurora is still very much in play on clear nights early in the month before the days grow long. If you want both, aim for the first couple of weeks of March.

Is the Blue Lagoon worth building in?

Only as a bookend. It is close to Keflavik airport, so it works as a first-morning soak after you land or a last stop before you fly home. But once you have floated in Deplar's geothermal pool under the northern lights, the Blue Lagoon is not the highlight of the trip — it is a nice airport ritual.

Iceland rewards people who commit to it rather than skim it. If you want the two-base version — the design hotel, the flight north, the lodge with the helicopters on the lawn — tell me your dates and I will build it around the season you want.