Glacier & Ice Cave Tours

Ice Cave Tour in Vatnajökull

The cave we choose depends on the time of winter, time of day, weather and other conditions.

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Duration

3-4 hours

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Departure

10:15 and 14:30 Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon (next to Diamond Beach)

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Min ratio

1 people

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Availability

Daily from Oct 1st – Mar 31st (longer if conditions allow)

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Skill level

Easy (1/4)

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Price

From 23900 ISK

Regarding tour

Notice

The caves are not safe

Glaciers are alive — always moving, shifting, and reshaping themselves with the seasons. Following an unusually warm summer and heavy rainfall at the end of September, Vatnajökull has undergone significant changes. At the beginning of October, it is not possible to safely access the main ice caves. For this reason, we are currently offering the Blue Ice Glacier Tour as the best and safest way to experience natural blue ice on a half-day adventure.

Blue Ice Glacier Tour – the magic hasn’t gone anywhere!

But the magic of the blue ice hasn’t gone anywhere. On this tour, you’ll step directly onto the glacier with our experienced local guides to discover vivid blue ice formations as well as breathtaking views of Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon from a side few visitors ever get to see.

Your safety is our priority

Because the glacier and its conditions change daily, we work closely with the National Park to ensure that every tour explores the most beautiful and safe areas available at the time. This means the experience can look very different just a few days from now. All the photos you see on this page are recent and taken by our team, so you know exactly what to expect.

Please note: in our booking system, the name “Ice Cave Tour” is still displayed. At this time, this refers to the ~4h Blue Ice Glacier Tour.

Description

About the tour

An unforgettable Ice Cave Tour in Vatnajökull

In autumn each year we start looking for the ice caves for the winter. Normally we find caves in several different locations on the south side of Vatnajökull, sometimes they are special immediately, and sometimes not so initially but become very special in the right light and conditions.

Some caves we find are very stable and we can go in there in any weather, but others are less safe and we might not even go there at all, even if they are very beautiful. Some caves are only accessible in below zero conditions for example if there is water in the floor that needs to be frozen to walk into the cave.

The cave we choose from day to day depends on the time of winter, time of day, weather, and other conditions at the time. We always go to the most interesting cave available at each time. We normally go into one cave per trip.
We do not only look at the size of the ice cave but the beauty and colors, the ice caves are normally from 30-100 meters long.

*The duration of the Ice Cave Tour in Vatnajökull tour depends on several things, how far we need to drive, how far we have to walk, and how complicated the ice cave is (sometimes there is only a few meters walk from the car to the cave, other times it can be up to 1 km).

Local Guide was the first ice cave tour operator in Iceland, we started visiting the ice caves for the first time around 20 years ago.
In that time we have gathered a lot of knowledge on how to get our clients to the best available cave each day as the conditions of the caves change daily.

If you are looking for a photography tour of the ice caves next winter we do offer private tours, send us an email at info@localguide.is for information!

Due to the popularity of the ice caves you can expect groups from other companies inside the cave at the same time on our public ice cave tours.

We always go to the nicest ice cave that is possible at the time

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon (next to Diamond Beach)

370km east of Reykjavík, located by the main highway road number 1. When driving the ring road you will see a big lagoon with floating icebergs, we are there at the main parking lot next to the cafeteria, look for a black truck marked Local Guide: Meeting point.