Did you know? For centuries Europeans believed Hekla volcano was one of the entrances to Hell. During eruptions, people thought they could hear souls escaping from inside the mountain.
Icelandic Highlands
4x4 Vehicle Required
Highlands F-roads require 4WD vehicles. Open only June-September. Always check road conditions at road.is before traveling.
Top Highland Experiences
Volcanic wilderness and bookable super jeep adventures
Aldeyjarfoss Highlands
Aldeyjarfoss Highlands is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
Learn More →Bruarpotturinn is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
Learn More →Faxi Highlands
Faxi Highlands is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Private Silfra Snorkeling 6 p. group - Meet on Location - with Underwater Photos
From $899
Book NowFjallabak
Fjallabak is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Gjáin
Gjáin is a stunning waterfall located in Highlands. This magnificent cascade showcases the raw power and beauty of Iceland's landscape. Fed by glacial meltwater and rainfall, the waterfall is a spectacular sight in all seasons, surrounded by dramatic lava rock formations.
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Gudrunarlaug is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Private Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon 2 Day Tour & Glacier Hike
From $7240
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Háifoss
Háifoss is a stunning waterfall located in Highlands. This magnificent cascade showcases the raw power and beauty of Iceland's landscape. Fed by glacial meltwater and rainfall, the waterfall is a spectacular sight in all seasons, surrounded by dramatic lava rock formations.
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Hekla
Hekla is a remarkable volcanic wonder in Highlands. This dramatic landscape was shaped by powerful volcanic forces over thousands of years. Visitors can witness the raw geological power of Iceland's volcanic heritage through dramatic lava fields, craters and unique rock formations.
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Hrunalaug Hot Spring
Hrunalaug is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Private 2-Day Glacier Lagoon, Ice Cave and Northern Lights
From $7400
Book NowHúsafell Canyon Baths
Husafell Canyon Baths is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
Learn More →Hvammsvík Hot Springs
Hvammsvik Hot Springs is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Hveravellir
Hveravellir is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Reykjavik Private Northern Lights Tour with Pro Photographer
From $1652.09
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Kerlingarfjöll
Kerlingarfjöll is a remarkable natural wonder in Highlands. This breathtaking natural attraction showcases the diverse and dramatic landscapes that make Iceland one of the world's most unique destinations. From its geological formations to its rich biodiversity, this site offers an unforgettable experience.
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Kerlingarfjoll Hot Spring is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Kjalvegur
Kjalvegur is a remarkable natural wonder in Highlands. This breathtaking natural attraction showcases the diverse and dramatic landscapes that make Iceland one of the world's most unique destinations. From its geological formations to its rich biodiversity, this site offers an unforgettable experience.
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Glacier Adventure at Sólheimajökull Private Tour
From $386.28
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Laki Craters
Laki Craters is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Landmannalaugar
Landmannalaugar is a remarkable natural wonder in Highlands. This breathtaking natural attraction showcases the diverse and dramatic landscapes that make Iceland one of the world's most unique destinations. From its geological formations to its rich biodiversity, this site offers an unforgettable experience.
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Langisjór
Langisjór is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Visit the Volcanoes - Half Day Private Tour - up to 9 passengers
From $1200
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Maelifell
Maelifell is a remarkable natural wonder in Highlands. This breathtaking natural attraction showcases the diverse and dramatic landscapes that make Iceland one of the world's most unique destinations. From its geological formations to its rich biodiversity, this site offers an unforgettable experience.
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Nauthólsvík Geothermal Beach
Nautholsvik Beach is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Ófærufoss
Ófærufoss is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
Learn More →Ófærufoss
Ófærufoss is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Þórsmörk
Þórsmörk is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Sigöldugljúfur
Sigöldugljúfur is a stunning waterfall located in Highlands. This magnificent cascade showcases the raw power and beauty of Iceland's landscape. Fed by glacial meltwater and rainfall, the waterfall is a spectacular sight in all seasons, surrounded by dramatic lava rock formations.
Learn More →Skatalaug is a natural hot spring located in highlands. This geothermal pool offers visitors a chance to relax in warm, mineral-rich waters surrounded by Iceland's stunning natural landscape. Perfect for those seeking an authentic Icelandic bathing experience away from the crowds.
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Sprengisandur
Sprengisandur is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Strútslaug
Strútslaug is a geothermal attraction in Highlands. Experience Iceland's powerful geothermal energy up close at this remarkable natural site. The area features hot springs, steam vents and mineral-rich waters that showcase the raw volcanic forces beneath Iceland's surface.
Learn More →Þórsmörk
Þórsmörk is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
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Veiðivötn
Veiðivötn is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
Learn More →Veiðivötn
Veiðivötn is a unique destination and attraction in Highlands. Discover the natural beauty and cultural richness that make Iceland such a special place to visit. Whether you're seeking adventure, history or simply stunning scenery, this attraction offers something memorable for every visitor.
Learn More →Hidden Highland Gems
Secret volcanic wonders few travelers see
Ljótipollur Crater Lake
Ljótipollur — meaning 'ugly puddle' — is a vivid blood-red volcanic crater lake near Landmannalaugar. Despite its unglamorous name it is one of the most striking sights in the Highlands, with steep red and black crater walls plunging into deep blue water. The crater formed in a lava field eruption around 500 years ago. Few visitors make the short hike to the rim, making it a remarkably peaceful spot even during the peak summer season.
Hveravellir Hot Springs
Hveravellir is a geothermal oasis in the centre of the Kjölur highland route — a collection of boiling mud pools, blue hot springs and fumaroles set in a lava field between two glaciers. A natural bathing pool filled with warm geothermal water sits right beside the hot springs. According to legend, Hveravellir was a hideout for the 18th-century outlaw Fjalla-Eyvindur, who survived in the Highlands for years by bathing in the warm springs to endure the freezing winters.
Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall
Aldeyjarfoss is one of Iceland's most dramatic waterfalls — a thundering 20-meter cascade surrounded by perfectly symmetrical basalt columns rising from the riverbank like cathedral pillars. Located on the Sprengisandur route near the highland edge, it sees a fraction of the visitors that more accessible waterfalls receive. The contrast between the white churning water and the dark, geometric basalt formations creates one of the most striking compositions in Icelandic nature photography.
Highlands Legends & Folklore
Stories of outlaws, trolls, and volcanic gods
Kerlingarfjöll – The Petrified Troll Woman
📍 Central HighlandsThe geothermal Highland mountains named after a troll woman called Kerling — 'the old hag' — who was petrified at dawn while crossing the interior with her troll followers.
Kerlingarfjöll — 'The Mountains of the Troll Woman' — take their name directly from a figure in Highland folklore. According to the legend, a large troll woman called Kerling (simply 'the hag' or 'the crone') led a group of trolls across the volcanic interior of Iceland by night. Trolls, as all Icelanders know, cannot survive exposure to sunlight — when daylight touches them, they solidify instantly into stone.
Kerling and her followers were moving through the highlands, believed to be heading west toward the coast, when dawn broke faster than expected. The mountains caught them all mid-stride. The strange, towering peaks of the Kerlingarfjöll range — with their steaming fumaroles and shades of orange and red — are said to be the remains of Kerling and her companions, frozen in the moment of their petrification.
The landscape itself seems to support the myth. Steam vents rise continuously from the valley floors. The mountain ridges take on strange, anthropomorphic shapes in certain light. And the sheer remoteness of the area — accessible only in summer by 4x4 on the Kjölur highland road — gives it the feeling of a place that belongs to older forces than humans.
Read Full Legend →Outlaws of the Highland Interior
📍 Icelandic HighlandsFor centuries the Highlands served as refuge for outlaws banished from Icelandic society — real men whose desperate lives became woven into folklore.
The Icelandic legal term was útlegðarmaður — outlaw. A person declared an outlaw under the old Alþingi parliament was cast from all protection of law and society. Anyone could kill them without legal consequence. The only place to survive was the interior — the Highlands, which had no farms, no villages, and only minimal patrol. It was a death sentence dressed as exile.
The most famous outlaw of the Highlands was Fjalla-Eyvindur — Eyvindur of the Mountains — who lived as a fugitive in the Highland interior for over twenty years in the 18th century. He and his wife Halla survived winters that would have killed most people, sheltering in caves and natural overhangs, hunting and living on the land. Their shelter near Hveravellir on the Kjölur route is still pointed out to visitors: a low stone enclosure tucked into a geothermal area where the ground stayed above freezing even in the depths of winter.
Fjalla-Eyvindur became a folk hero — a symbol of endurance, defiance and Highland survival. His story has been told in plays, films and novels. The shelter at Hveravellir is one of the oldest surviving man-made structures in the Highlands.
Read Full Legend →Katla Volcano Legend
📍 Mýrdalsjökull glacier, South IcelandThe legend of Katla the cook, whose stolen stockings unleashed Iceland's most feared glacier volcano — a myth so embedded in culture that eruptions are still called 'Katla is waking'.
The Katla volcano lies beneath the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap in southern Iceland. It has erupted regularly throughout recorded Icelandic history — roughly every 40 to 80 years — and each eruption triggers catastrophic glacial floods (jökulhlaup) that have swept away farms, reshaped coastlines, and in one case transported icebergs bigger than houses out to sea.
The name 'Katla' comes from a legend set at the medieval farm of Þykkvabæjarklaustur monastery. Katla was a cook there — a bad-tempered woman with a pair of magical stockings that gave the wearer superhuman speed and endurance. When a young shepherd called Barði discovered and stole the stockings, Katla was furious. She threw herself into the volcano in rage, and the volcano erupted with so much power it swept Barði and everything around him away in a torrent of meltwater and ice.
Katla has not had a major eruption since 1918. Volcanologists consider it one of the most dangerous volcanoes in Iceland and monitor it closely. When Icelanders speak of Katla 'waking up,' there is a cultural weight in the phrase that goes far beyond seismology — it reaches back to the old story of a furious cook throwing herself into the fire.
Read Full Legend →Highland Adventures
The Icelandic Highlands offer some of the most extreme and rewarding adventures in Europe.
From multi-day hiking trails to super jeep expeditions across volcanic deserts.
Experience geothermal hot springs, glacial rivers, and complete wilderness.
Hiking
Laugavegur trail
Super Jeep
F-road expeditions
Hot Springs
Geothermal pools
Highland Tours & Activities
Explore the Highlands with expert guides
Private Silfra Snorkeling 6 p. group - Meet on Location - with Underwater Photos
From $899
Book NowPrivate Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon 2 Day Tour & Glacier Hike
From $7240
Book NowReykjavik Private Northern Lights Tour with Pro Photographer
From $1652.09
Book NowVisit the Volcanoes - Half Day Private Tour - up to 9 passengers
From $1200
Book NowFrequently Asked Questions
What are the Icelandic Highlands?▾
A vast uninhabited volcanic interior accessible only in summer by 4x4 vehicles.
When can I visit the Highlands?▾
Mid-June to early September when F-roads open. Check road.is before traveling.
Do I need a 4x4 vehicle?▾
Yes, all Highland F-roads require 4WD. Regular cars are prohibited and dangerous.
What is the best Highland destination?▾
Landmannalaugar for colorful rhyolite mountains and hot springs.
Can I camp in the Highlands?▾
Yes, but only in designated camping areas. Wild camping is strictly regulated.
Haunted Places in the Icelandic Highlands
The Highlands are the most remote and mysterious region of Iceland. Many travelers historically believed spirits protected these landscapes — and medieval Europeans thought one volcano marked the entrance to Hell.
Landmannalaugar
Steam vents rising from the colorful rhyolite mountains were believed to be entrances to hidden underground worlds.
Kerlingarfjöll
The mountains are said to be petrified trolls caught by sunrise — Kerling herself led them across the highlands before dawn broke.
Askja Caldera
This remote volcanic caldera is often described as a gateway to underground fire worlds — formed in a catastrophic eruption in 1875.
Hekla Volcano
For centuries, Europeans believed Hekla was one of the entrances to Hell itself — a belief documented in medieval manuscripts across Europe.
🌌 See the Northern Lights
Track real-time aurora activity and plan your Northern Lights trip with AuroraVision.
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Complete Travel Services
🚐 Getting Around Iceland
Airport Transfers & Sightseeing Rides
Pre-book a private transfer from Keflavík Airport to Reykjavík, or explore Iceland by private sightseeing ride. Fixed prices, professional local drivers, instant confirmation.
⚔️ Viking Heritage
Saga sites and Viking routes in this region