Iceland Highlands by 4x4 in 5 days

Five days in the highlands is sane only if the roads are open, and the roads are open only when the road authority says so. That is the whole premise of this ledger. Each highland row carries the published opening window for its road — Vegagerðin's tables of earliest, latest and average opening dates across five seasons — and the start date you choose is read against them. The route itself is built to avoid the rivers: Þórsmörk is done by the scheduled bus because F249 fords the Krossá; Landmannalaugar is reached by the northern F208 from Sigalda, which has no crossing until the campsite; Kjölur is bridged throughout; Askja is approached by F905 and F910 from Möðrudalur rather than by F88 and its two fords. It comes to about 1,140 km and 21 hours of driving, roughly 400 km of it on gravel or F-road, and it ends at Mývatn rather than Reykjavík so that the 7-hour Askja day is not followed by a 6-hour drive home. It is for a party of two to four with a 4x4 whose rental contract allows F-roads, between late June and early September.

Arithmetic: road legs routed over OpenStreetMap with OSRM, checked against the Wikipedia lengths for Kjölur (about 165 km Gullfoss to Blöndudalur) and the Askja approach (about 100 km of F-road from Route 1); 80 km/h on paved road, 40 on Kjölur's graded gravel, 30–35 on F-roads, rounded to five. Stops on top. Consumption is set at 10 l/100 km because that is what a 4x4 does at those speeds.

#Day 1 — Reykjavík to Hvolsvöllur, and Þórsmörk by bus, 100 km

Route 1 to Hvolsvöllur, 100 km, and park. The scheduled highland buses leave from the village in summer for Þórsmörk, cross the Krossá in vehicles built for it, and come back in the afternoon; several companies run them, the timetable is theirs, and none is recommended here. If the day's timetable does not allow a return, stay the night in Þórsmörk and shift the rest of the ledger by one. The reason for the bus is the river: F249 has no bridge over the Krossá, the bed moves, and safetravel.is puts it plainly — "Know that no insurance covers any damage of a vehicle while crossing a river!" and "If you're unsure of crossing a river then don't do it, turn around". Valahnúkur from Langidalur is the two-hour walk.

#Day 2 — Hvolsvöllur to Landmannalaugar, 110 km

Route 1 to Hella (fuel), Route 26 north past Hrauneyjar (the last fuel) to Sigalda, then F208 north. This is the approach that makes Landmannalaugar possible in a rental 4x4: 40 km of gravel and washboard with no river until the small ford at the campsite, where you leave the car on the near side and walk the footbridge. Vegagerðin's 2021–2025 table has the Sigalda–Landmannalaugar section opening between 23 May and 23 June, average 2 June. The Environment Agency (Umhverfisstofnun) has required a parking reservation for arrivals between 08:00 and 15:00 in summer since 2024; it is booked online and the fee is on their page. The southern F208 and the F225 Dómadalur road both have real fords and are not in the ledger. Laugahraun and the hot stream are the afternoon; Brennisteinsalda the longer walk.

#Day 3 — Landmannalaugar to Hveravellir by Kjölur, 270 km

Out the way you came, round by Hella, and up Routes 30 and 35 through Flúðir (fuel) to Gullfoss; 180 km of mostly paved road before the plateau. Kjölur — Route 35 without an F, which matters for some rental contracts — is 91 km of graded gravel from Gullfoss to Hveravellir between Langjökull and Hofsjökull, bridged throughout, open to ordinary cars in summer by the Icelandic Wikipedia's description and still a road where 40 km/h is the honest average. Vegagerðin's table: Gullfoss–Hveravellir opened between 30 May and 14 June in 2021–2025, average 1 June. Hveravellir is the hot-spring field at the top with huts, a campsite and a pool; Kerlingarfjöll is a 15 km detour on F347 that the ledger leaves out.

#Day 4 — Hveravellir to Mývatn, 340 km

Kjölur north — the Hveravellir–Blönduvirkjun section, opening 1–14 June on the same table — is gravel down to the Blanda dam road and paved from there to Blönduós on Route 1. Then the Ring Road east: 147 km to Akureyri (fuel), Goðafoss beside the road, 84 km to Reykjahlíð. It is a long paved day and it is the price of joining the two highland halves without Sprengisandur, which has fords and opened between 21 June and 13 July in 2021–2025.

#Day 5 — Askja from Mývatn and back, 320 km

The long day, and the one the opening tables decide. Route 1 east to Möðrudalur (70 km, paved, the last fuel), then F905 and F910 across the Ódáðahraun to the Dreki huts at Drekagil, 90 km of lava track at 30–35 km/h, then the 8 km track to Vikraborgir and the 2.5 km walk to Víti and the caldera lake. Back the same way. The handbook table for 2019–2023 has F905 opening between 13 and 30 June, F910 between 14 June and 26 July, and F88 — the shorter Herðubreiðarlindir approach, which crosses the Lindaá and Grafarlandaá without bridges — between 14 June and 1 July. The English Wikipedia article puts the Askja roads' season at roughly late June to early October. Seven hours of driving plus two of walking fits a July day; it does not fit an August evening after a late start, and the Dreki huts are the fallback bed.

#What it costs

Fuel: 1,140 km at 10 l/100 km is 114 litres, priced at the dated figure on the Iceland country page; carry a full tank out of Hrauneyjar and out of Möðrudalur, because there is nothing on the plateau. Beds are huts and campsites in the budget band at Landmannalaugar and Hveravellir — booked through the hut associations months ahead in July — and guesthouses at Hvolsvöllur and Reykjahlíð. The fees that exist: the Landmannalaugar parking reservation, hut and campsite charges, the Vatnajökull National Park service fee at Dreki if levied that season; all published by the bodies that charge them. The 4x4 itself is the cost that dominates, and it is a band, not a number.

#What goes wrong

Rivers, even on a ledger built to avoid them: a wet week raises the campsite ford at Landmannalaugar and the small streams on F910, and safetravel.is's rules are the rules that count — "drive very slowly in lowest gear, low drive and steady – do not switch gears while in the water!", go in downstream of the line you walked, and turn round if unsure. The car: "Notice that not all 4WD vehicles are good for the F-roads!" — the same page says some roads suit a small SUV and others need a large one, and the F910 lava is the latter. Snow in June and sleet in August close roads that were open the day before; the highland map on vegagerdin.is and umferdin.is are the morning check, and "Off-road driving is strictly forbidden" is the sentence that follows every closure. Fuel, on the Askja day, if the tank was not full at Möðrudalur.

#Variations

Three days: Landmannalaugar and Þórsmörk only, from a base at Hvolsvöllur, which removes every long day. Seven: add Sprengisandur southbound as the way home, for a vehicle and a driver with the fords in them. For anyone unsure about any of it, the highland bus network and the day tours from Mývatn do the same ground in someone else's vehicle; the car-versus-tours comparison on the site sets out the trade.

#Sources

Opening dates: Vegagerðin's opening-of-mountain-roads table (2021–2025) and the June 2024 handbook table (2019–2023) for the roads the newer table omits. River, vehicle and insurance wording: safetravel.is, highland driving. Road lengths: Icelandic Wikipedia (Kjalvegur), English Wikipedia (Askja, Landmannalaugar); legs routed with OSRM over OpenStreetMap, 1 November 2026. Road status: umferdin.is. Ledger checked 1 November 2026.