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Iceland recommendations?


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My mobility is limited. I can walk for short periods of time, but no hiking or uneven surfaces. We will visit Iceland on HA in August of 2018. The ports are Seydisfjordur, Akureyri, Isafjordur and Reykjavik. Are there some impressive waterfalls that I could check out without long or strenuous walking? Also interested in the availability of local sightseeing instead of HA tours. Is it possible to find locals who accept passengers that would like to share rides in a private vehicle. Are they generally cheaper than HA?

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Iceland is covered on the Northern Europe board (to be fair, geographically it's split between Europe and North America, so your posting here isn't too far off! But folks with cruise experience, and helpful locals, will be browsing the other board so you'll get way more chance of a useful reply over there...)

 

I've only visited by flying, so haven't hit any of your ports but Reykjavik. I can confirm there are active local tours run by several companies - we had a short stay to only took one 'Golden Circle' bus tour day with a local Gray Line affiliate ourselves, but I have no doubt you'll be able to find private tours in smaller vehicles too. Bus was able to park near most attractions with short walks into geysers, churches etc. The big waterfall, Gullfoss, involved the longest walk and frankly is unimpressive IMO. It's two wide but not tall falls close together - plenty photos and videos online you can check out of this and other falls, as your opinion will probably vary significantly depending how many other falls you've seen and how impressive they are (having lived near Niagara and now Multnomah Falls, with many visits to both, I must admit that I have very high standards on this topic!)

 

Usual rule of thumb is local-run tours are either cheaper than cruiseline or about the same price but with benefits like a smaller bus or boat being used. An actual private car with your very own guide is however always going to be pricier than a bus tour unless you can find enough other bodies on your roll call to split such a tour with - even then, it may be more of a qualitative improvement (customize exactly what you want to see) than an actual price saving if you are in a car rather than minibus or bigger.

 

Iceland isn't cheap - but it's very safe to assume that your guides will speak excellent English, websites will have an English language option, and Yelp/Trip Advisor will have reviews of any company that's been around for more than a very short time so you can do some more research.

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Another option is to rent your own car in the ports. We did that in both

Akureyri and Reykjavik. Roads are in great shape and well-marked. Rental rates were very reasonable - certainly much cheaper than tours. We just used a good map to get around and saw everything we wanted to see. It was awesome arriving at sites before the tour buses and the crowds. You'd also be able to decide whether or not you wanted to walk a particular site and wouldn't be stuck there wasting time while the rest of your bus spent an hour walking the site.

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Tons of tour options in Reykjavik and quite a few out of Akureyri.

 

We used a company called West Tours in Isafjordur for a trip to Vigur Island that we loved: http://www.westtours.is/

 

It's a walking tour once on the island but check with them to see if you can hang out near the many buildings that are open to the visitors.

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