Krafla Volcano and Lake Myvatn Tours

A Volcanic Field, Not an Attraction

The Lake Myvatn area is volcanic ground from edge to edge. The pack of features around the lake includes pseudo craters on the lake shore, the Dimmuborgir lava pillars, the Namaskard geothermal field and the Krafla system to the north of it. That is why there is no single Krafla entry fee on this page. You experience the area as a set of stops on a driving loop or as a specific target such as a crater rim or a lava tube.

It is worth being blunt about what that means. If you arrive expecting a Krafla volcano visitor center with an eruption exhibit and a marked crater trail, that is not what the operators here sell. What they sell is access to the surface features of the field: steaming ground at Namaskard, lava formations at Dimmuborgir, a tephra crater at Hverfjall and ice inside a lava tube at Lofthellir. The listing descriptions are honest about this, and so is this page.

This is also the key difference from the southwest of Iceland, where recent eruptions have created walkable new lava near Grindavik. There is no such fresh flow in the Myvatn listings, and no eruption is flowing anywhere as things stand. Every tour on this page walks cooled lava, which is what the operators sell even when their photographs show fountains.

What Each Way In Costs

The Myvatn volcanic field is cheap to see from a coach and expensive to go inside. The six-hour loops from Akureyri run $182 and $188 and cover the pseudo craters, Dimmuborgir, the Namaskard mud pools and Godafoss. The guided sunrise hike up Hverfjall is $143 for 2.5 hours.

Lofthellir, the lava tube holding permanent ice, is $399 for 4.5 hours and admits one group a day. So the gap between looking at volcanic ground and standing inside it here is about $200, and the cave is the part that sells out first.

The Named Features Around the Lake

Four names come up again and again in the tour descriptions, and each is a different kind of volcanic feature. Dimmuborgir is a field of lava pillars left behind when a lava lake drained out from under its own crust, so you walk through the hollowed remains of a former lava lake surface. Hverfjall is one of the largest tephra craters on earth, and it stands directly beside the lake, which is why a rim walk there gives a panorama over the whole field. Namaskard is the geothermal area on the route, with mud pools listed among the highlights of the coach tours.

Lofthellir is the outlier. It is a protected lava tube holding permanent ice, and the protection is real: only one group a day is allowed inside. That is a conservation limit written into the listing, not a marketing line, and it is the reason the tour costs $399 while the coach loops cost $182 and $188.

For orientation, think of it this way. The coach tours cover the widest ground with the least effort. Hverfjall gives you the single best physical climb. Lofthellir gives you the most unusual interior. Krafla itself frames the north of the field, reached as part of the driving route rather than as a separate ticketed stop. The exact walking distances between these features are not stated in the listings.

Departure Points and Transport

The two coach day trips, Lake Myvatn, Hot Springs and Godafoss Waterfall Tour from Akureyri and Myvatn Lake, Craters and Waterfall Tour, leave from Akureyri, and the pickup window is stated simply as Akureyri. Hotel pickup is not included on either. Both are coach journeys of about six hours including the driving between stops, which tells you how much of the day is road time on this route. The winter departures of tour-41 depend specifically on the road over the heath staying open, so a closed mountain road cancels the day rather than reroutes it.

The two smaller tours, the Lofthellir ice cave and the Hverfjall sunrise hike, start from the Lake Myvatn area itself, so staying near the lake removes the long drive from Akureyri. Lofthellir uses a 4x4 vehicle and then a walk to the cave. Hverfjall is a guided hike from the start.

Exact departure times are not stated in the listings, so confirm them at booking. If you are driving yourself and joining a tour only for the cave or the crater, budget the drive to the lake separately. The distance from Akureyri to Myvatn is not stated in the pack, so this page gives no number for it.

Prices and What Is Included

The four listings range from $143 to $399, and the inclusions differ enough to matter when you compare. The table below gathers the money facts from the operators' own listings. The cheapest option is not the same as the best value for your group, because lunch, gear and group size shift what the ticket actually buys.

| Tour | Price | Lunch | Other inclusions | Cancellation | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Lake, Hot Springs and Godafoss | $188 | Packed meal included | Water bottle | Free cancellation 24h | | Myvatn Lake, Craters and Waterfall | $182 | Not included | Not stated | Free cancellation 24h | | Lofthellir Ice Cave | $399 | Not included | Conservation fee, helmet, lights, boots | Free cancellation 24h | | Hverfjall Sunrise Hike | $143 | Not included | Crampons when conditions require | Free cancellation 24h |

Two details are easy to miss. Tour-40 is the only one that feeds you, with a packed sandwich and a water bottle in the ticket. Lofthellir folds its conservation fee and all cave gear into the price, which softens the gap to the cheaper tours. All four carry free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start.

The Coach Day Trips

Both Akureyri day trips are suitable for all fitness levels, and neither states a minimum age or a group size. They suit travelers based in Akureyri without a car, cruise passengers with one long day in the north, and anyone who wants the geothermal fields and crater scenery with zero planning. The difference between them is the middle stop. Lake Myvatn, Hot Springs and Godafoss Waterfall Tour from Akureyri includes a packed meal and water, which matters if your Akureyri morning is rushed. Myvatn Lake, Craters and Waterfall Tour swaps the meal for Dimmuborgir, the field of lava pillars, and it carries the stronger review record of the two: a 4.6 rating from 870 reviews against 4.5 from 563.

Neither coach tour states how long it spends at any single stop, which is the main honest caveat. If your priority is standing on volcanic ground for an extended period rather than photographing it, the smaller tours fit better.

The Cave and the Crater Hike

The Lofthellir ice cave tour at $399 is the deep option. It requires moderate fitness and involves scrambling inside the cave, with helmet, lights and boots provided against a conservation fee, and only one group a day is permitted. It suits travelers already based near Myvatn who want a genuine underground experience that cannot be replicated on a coach loop. Check the health notes in the limits section below before booking, because the listing rules some people out.

The Hverfjall crater sunrise hike at $143 is the shortest and cheapest, at two and a half hours. The difficulty is described as moderate with a steep climb on loose tephra, and crampons are issued when conditions require them. It suits early risers who want the panorama over the Lake Myvatn field from the rim of one of the largest tephra craters on earth. One honest flag: this listing has no reviews published yet, so you are booking on the operator's description rather than social proof. If the weather shifts your plans, the 24 hour free cancellation applies to it like the others.

What You Will Not See

No eruption is flowing currently, and none of these listings promises lava. Every tour here walks cooled lava, even where the marketing photographs show fountains. That is not a slight on the operators, it is the state of the volcano. The Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest is where the recent eruptive activity has been, and even there access to an eruption site is decided by the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, not by the operator.

The coach tours also do not state their time at the volcano, so a stop at Namaskard or the pseudo craters may be shorter than you hope. Krafla itself has no stated visitor hours, entry fee or marked crater trail in the pack, so this page cannot give you any of those. And the Hverfjall hike is new enough to carry zero published reviews, which means the sunrise timing and the group size are promises from the listing rather than confirmed by past customers.

Volcanic gas is a real closure factor in geothermal areas. Trails close on days when the wind pushes gas over the route, and that can happen without warning.

Who Should Not Book What

The Lofthellir listing is explicit about exclusions. It is not recommended for people with spinal injuries, for people in pregnancy, or for people with poor cardiovascular health, because of the scrambling inside the cave. The Hverfjall hike involves a steep climb on loose tephra, which is hard on ankles and knees even though no health restriction is stated. The coach tours carry the broadest access, rated suitable for all fitness levels with infants allowed on tour-36 only as lap children.

Winter adds its own filter. The winter departures of tour-41 depend on the road over the heath staying open, so a storm day can end the plan. For the emergency number in Iceland, dial 112, and ICE-SAR also publishes 599-0112 as a backup line after the 2G and 3G shutdown. For live trail warnings, the Safetravel service at safetravel.is is the reference the rescue service itself uses. If the exclusions or the closures put you off, the indoor lava show in Iceland shows molten lava with no trail conditions attached.

Timing Your Visit

The listings themselves are light on season dates, but two operational facts frame the calendar. The winter departures of the Akureyri coach tour depend on the road over the heath staying open, which makes the driving route the seasonal bottleneck. The Hverfjall sunrise hike issues crampons when conditions require them, which tells you the rim is icy for part of the year. Lofthellir holds permanent ice inside the tube year round, so the cave does not melt out in summer.

Outside of those constraints, no opening seasons or blackout dates are stated in the pack. What is stated is that access to any eruption site in Iceland is a civil protection decision, so if activity resumes anywhere, closures follow the authorities rather than the tour calendar. The general packing advice for the tephra slopes and the cave is the same as anywhere in Iceland, and our page on what to wear on a volcano hike covers it layer by layer.

If you want to understand what an eruption changes on the ground, our page on safety during an eruption explains how closures work in practice. One practical consequence: the Lofthellir cave takes 4.5 hours and admits a single group a day, so pairing it with a 6 hour lake loop means starting at 08:00 and accepting that one of the two will be rushed.

The Current Volcanic Picture

The live activity in Iceland right now is not at Krafla. The Icelandic Met Office reports continued uplift at Svartsengi on the Reykjanes peninsula, with the land risen about five centimetres over the past three months, and while uplift continues the most likely scenario stays a magma intrusion propagating from Svartsengi into the Sundhnukur crater row. In the highlands, the uplift episode at Askja that began in 2021 has ended, per measurements by the lake there.

For the north this means your Krafla and Myvatn trip is a landscape trip, not an eruption chase, and that is worth internalizing before you pay for anything. If seeing active lava is the actual goal, the honest answer is to look southwest, where the helicopter operator's own listing describes an area with 12 eruptions in the last 4 years, about 30 km from Reykjavik. Even there, nothing is guaranteed, no eruption is flowing for now, and the civil protection authority opens and closes sites. The Reykjanes volcano tours page tracks that situation separately.