Iceland’s Glacier Lagoon

The Glacier Lagoon – isn’t that just the best name?? It reminds me of the mermaid lagoon in Peter Pan. Anyways, the Glacier Lagoon, or as it is formally known, Jökulsárlón, was very high on our list of places to visit in Iceland. I had seen photos of the glacial lake with floating icebergs on Pinterest and knew I just had to see it will my own eyes.

When we started planning our Iceland road trip driving route, we discovered that Jökulsárlón was about a 5 hour drive from Rejkavik and decided to make our way there slowly over the coarse of several days. We stopped constantly along our drive to visit all of the incredible waterfalls, lighthouses, and beaches – but that’s a story for another post. We finally arrived at the Glacier Lagoon late in the evening, but luckily for us it does not really get dark until after 11pm in Iceland’s summer. The late evening light allowed us to get a little bit of time at the lagoon.

The blue ice of the glacier made the most beautiful patterns in the icebergs. The blue color of the water seemed unreal to us – like someone dumped food coloring in the water. Similarly to our experiences in the rest of Iceland, the landscape made us feel as if we were on another planet or inside of a postcard.

So, part of the ‘adventure’ of our Icelandic road trip was that we did not pre-book hotels or accommodations. We liked the idea of being able to ‘go wherever the road takes us’ and travel off the beaten path. I know this is not everyone’s idea of fun, but it worked out really well for us – at least until we got to this remote area of Iceland. There are only a couple of hotels in the area around Jökulsárlón and all of the them were full, so we ended up sleeping in our rental car – with a beautiful view of the lagoon!

The above photos were taken around 3am, so this shows you how light it is in Iceland during the summer nights. The combination of the cold and the light made our night feel very long, but it’s a great story to tell! Funnily enough, there were many other people in our same situation and there were several other cars around us all night. The photo below was taken the next morning after our night in the car.

There are boat tours of the lagoon available as well, but we opted to get a head start on our drive back to Rejkavik instead of waiting for the tour companies to open. After six weeks of touring, we were a little done with group tours haha.

The day before this was full of strong rain and hail, so after that and a night in the car, my hair was beginning to form dread locks. It was fun to brush out, let me tell you.

We managed to get a photo together – looking a little ragged after the rain and night in the car, but happy to be at the Glacier Lagoon!

And then we saw some seals swimming around in the lagoon!

Before we left, we drove over the bridge to watch the ice float into the ocean. The melting ice on the black sand beach was so eerily beautiful.

We would highly recommend a stop at the Glacier Lagoon if you are visiting Iceland. The long drive is worth it!

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