Behind Seljalandsfoss and into Gljúfrabúi

Seljalandsfoss drops off an old sea cliff with a path that loops behind the water, and a few minutes north along the same cliff Gljúfrabúi falls into a narrow gorge you enter along the stream. Walking both takes an hour to an hour and a half. It suits anyone on the first day of a South Coast trip who is happy to get wet, and it costs one car-park fee for the day. It does not suit anyone unsteady on wet rock: the loop behind the falls is uneven and constantly sprayed.

The figures, read today on checkit.is, the car-park operator's page: 900 ISK for a car of up to five seats, and the same 900 ISK for six to nine seats; 1,800 ISK for a bus of 10 to 19, 3,500 ISK for 20 or more, and 400 ISK for a motorcycle (all 2026-11-01). The fee covers the day from midnight to midnight, stays under 10 minutes are free, and toilets are included. Plates are read automatically; pay at the machines or online, and if nothing is paid within 24 hours the claim goes to the owner's bank with a 100 ISK charge. The page also notes a café at the site.

Computed from the falls' coordinates on OpenStreetMap, Gljúfrabúi lies about 650 m in a straight line north of Seljalandsfoss, roughly eight minutes at a steady 80 m a minute. The gorge itself is short; the stream is the floor.

#The arithmetic

On the Keflavík–Vík day of the seven-day and ten-day Ring Road journeys, and on day 3 of the five-day South Coast and Golden Circle, Seljalandsfoss is already a stop. The extra time is the walk: 45 minutes for the loop behind the main falls and 30 for Gljúfrabúi and back, 5 minutes for the turn up road 249 and back, and a 10-minute buffer for the queue on the path, about 90 minutes. From a Hvolsvöllur bed it is 22 km and 21 minutes each way by OSRM on OpenStreetMap, so a return visit costs about 130 minutes. A quick look at the main falls only, without the loop, stays near the 30 minutes most ledgers allow.

#What goes wrong

Water: the path behind the falls runs through the spray, and the gorge floor is a stream; cameras and phones need covers. Ice: from late autumn the rock and steps behind the curtain glaze over. No official page read today gives a closure date, so take the signs at the falls as the rule and turn back where they say. Crowds: the narrow loop moves at the pace of the slowest walker in the middle of the day.

Safetravel's hiking page, read today, asks even short walkers to carry a hat, gloves and a rain- and windproof jacket and trousers, because the weather changes in moments. That advice fits here even on a fine day; the spray is the weather.

#Alternatives on the same road

Thirty kilometres east, Skógafoss and the first hour of the Fimmvörðuháls path is the drier waterfall walk with a staircase instead of spray. For a full day inland, the Þórsmörk bus leaves from the same stretch of Route 1. Further east, the Sólheimasandur plane-wreck walk is flat and dry.