Driving Iceland Alone: Ten Days on the Ring Road

People kept asking if I was nervous doing it solo. Honestly, being alone is half the reason it worked. No compromises on where to stop, how long to stay, or when to pull over because something looked interesting from the road.

The Westfjords — the part nobody talks about

Everyone does the Golden Circle and the south coast. But the Westfjords in the northwest are where Iceland gets properly remote. I drove three hours on a gravel road to see a waterfall called Dynjandi and passed four other cars the entire way. It drops in stages down a clifftop and looks completely fake — too perfect, too big. I sat there for a full hour and couldn’t explain why I didn’t want to move.

Practical things that actually matter

Fill your tank every single time you see a petrol station, even if it’s half full. Cannot stress this enough. Also: the wind is genuinely violent in parts. I had a car door nearly ripped off in a gust near Vik. Hold on to it when you get out.

Was it lonely?

Sometimes. Mostly no. You talk to people at guesthouses, wave at farmers on empty roads, have entire one-sided conversations with Icelandic horses that materialise from nowhere and stare at you over fence posts. It’s a good kind of alone. The kind that makes you feel like yourself again.