Golden Circle Private Evening Tour: Chasing the Midnight Sun

Your private vehicle picks you up directly from your Reykjavík accommodation at 5 PM. No transfer, no assembly point - the tour starts from your front door. Pickup time will be confirmed 24 hours in advance.

Iceland's most historically significant landscape and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Þingvellir is the place where the world's first parliament - the Alþing - was founded in 930 AD. By early evening the site is calm and largely to yourselves. The walk through Almannagjá canyon carries a thousand years of Icelandic history, and the wide open rift valley in the low afternoon light is a world away from the midday tourist rush.

Strokkur erupts every five to eight minutes regardless of the hour - but the steaming geothermal field in the low evening light has a quality that daytime visits rarely capture. The steam catches the amber sun, the colours of the surrounding hillsides deepen, and the landscape feels quieter and stranger than it does at noon. Strokkur shoots up to 30 metres into the air with each eruption. You will want to watch it more than once.

This is the reason for the 4 or 5 PM departure. Gullfoss in golden hour - when the sun is low on the horizon and the light falls warm and sideways across the canyon and the falling water - is one of the most visually striking things Iceland offers in summer. The two-tier waterfall drops 32 metres into its canyon, and in the evening the mist and the light interact in ways that are impossible to forget in person. With most visitors long gone, the viewing platforms are yours.

On the return south, the tour stops at Kerið - an oval volcanic crater with steep red walls dropping to a still, turquoise lake at the base. The colours here are extraordinary at any time of day, but in the last light of the Icelandic evening they become something else entirely. Walk the rim for the full panoramic view, or follow the path down to the water's edge. Entrance fee not included.