Kerid is a volcanic crater about fifteen minutes north of Selfoss in the Grimsnes area, roughly an hour from Reykjavik and a short detour off the Golden Circle road. The first photograph is what you see from the rim: an oval bowl about 270 metres across and 55 metres deep, with walls of red and black volcanic rock, and a lake of startling green water sitting in the bottom of it.
IT IS NOT A BLAST CRATER AND THAT IS THE INTERESTING PART. The usual assumption is that a hole this shape was made by an explosion. Kerid is a CONE THAT COLLAPSED: a magma chamber emptied, the roof fell in, and what is left is the inside of a volcano rather than its crater. It is also around three thousand years old, which is young enough that the rock has not weathered to grey and is still the iron red the second and third photographs show. The lake has no inflow or outflow you can see. It is the water table, sitting seven to fourteen metres deep depending on the season, and the green is algae and mineral rather than depth.
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What Is Here
KERID IS PRIVATELY OWNED AND YOU PAY TO GO IN. This is the thing to know before you arrive. Almost everything in Iceland that looks like this is free or state-run, so a barrier and a till at a crater surprises people and occasionally annoys them. The crater sits on private farmland, the landowners built and maintain the staircase and the rim path, and the charge is modest and goes to that upkeep. Bring a card. The hours are daylight hours in practice and the site is unstaffed in winter, when there is an honesty box arrangement.
THERE ARE TWO WALKS AND THEY TAKE TWENTY MINUTES EACH. The rim path goes all the way round, which is the view in the second photograph seen from the ground, and the stepped path goes down to the water's edge. THE STEPS ARE STEEP, UNEVEN AND MADE OF LOOSE SCORIA held by timber risers, and the handrail does not run the whole way. Going down is easy and coming up is a genuine climb. You cannot swim: the water is cold, the edges shelve into soft mud, and the landowners ask you not to.
THE SOUND IS WHY MUSICIANS COME HERE. The bowl is an almost perfect acoustic shell, and concerts have been played from a raft on the lake with the audience sitting on the rim. If you are alone down at the water, speak at a normal volume and listen to what the walls do with it. It is the most memorable thing about a twenty-minute stop.
AND IT IS FIFTEEN MINUTES FROM THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, WHICH IS WHY IT EXISTS AS A DESTINATION. Most people come here between Gullfoss and the Secret Lagoon, or on the way back to Reykjavik. FRIDHEIMAR, the tomato greenhouse that serves soup, and the Secret Lagoon at Fludir are both within half an hour, and Selfoss has the supermarket and the petrol.
When to Go
Late spring to early autumn, and the colour is the reason. May to September gives you the red walls against green moss and the lake at its most vivid, which is the first photograph. Midsummer light lasts most of the night and the site is quietest between six and nine in the evening, after the coach tours have gone.
WINTER CLOSES THE STEPS IN PRACTICE IF NOT IN LAW. Snow and ice make the stepped descent genuinely dangerous and the rim path slippery on a crumbling edge. The crater is beautiful under snow, with the lake frozen and the red rock showing through, and the honest advice is to walk the rim carefully and not go down. There is no gate stopping you; there is also nobody there if you fall.
AND THE WIND ON THE RIM IS WORSE THAN THE WEATHER FORECAST SUGGESTS. The bowl accelerates air over its lip. A day that is merely breezy in Selfoss can be hard to stand up in on the north rim, which matters because the drop is on one side of you.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Iceland and the country has no /regional-risks page, so there is no partial advisory behind the summary. On terrorism it is unusually mild by its own standards, saying that ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO RECENT HISTORY OF TERRORISM IN ICELAND, ATTACKS CANNOT BE RULED OUT. On crime it says levels are LOW, with petty theft and antisocial behaviour PARTICULARLY AROUND BARS IN DOWNTOWN REYKJAVIK, which is the only location it names in the whole country. What the landing page does carry is a named VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS warning, and the detail there matters more than the headline: the eruptions since December 2023 have affected THE TOWN OF GRINDAVIK AND THE SURROUNDING AREA, and the FCDO states plainly that THE CAPITAL CITY, REYKJAVIK, KEFLAVIK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND THE REST OF ICELAND HAVE NOT BEEN AFFECTED. So this is a named-town situation rather than a country-level one, which is the opposite of how a reader skimming headlines would take it.
Getting There
About an hour from Reykjavik and you need a car or a tour. Route 1 east to Selfoss, then Route 35 north towards Fludir; the crater is signposted on the right. The car park is small and gets congested in the middle of the day. There is no bus.
MOST COACH TOURS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE INCLUDE IT AS AN ADD-ON RATHER THAN A STOP, so check the itinerary names Kerid specifically rather than assuming a Golden Circle ticket covers it, and check whether the admission is included in the price or paid at the gate.
Icelandic driving rules differ from British ones in ways that carry fines of up to about five hundred pounds, and the FCDO lists them. KEEP DIPPED HEADLIGHTS ON YEAR ROUND, day and night, which is a legal requirement. Speed limits are lower than in the UK and the DRINK DRIVING LIMIT IS LOWER TOO. Suitable tyres are required, including winter tyres when conditions call for them. A UK photocard licence is valid for thirty days. Beyond the rules, the conditions are the thing: the weather changes fast, distances between towns are far greater than the map suggests, SOME MAIN ROUTES ARE GRAVEL OR DIRT, and some roads and bridges are SINGLE LANE WITH PASSING AREAS. Highland and interior F-roads need four wheel drive, open only for a short part of the summer, and where they cross rivers the instruction is to DRIVE AT FIVE TO TEN KILOMETRES AN HOUR and to understand that RIVER LEVELS CAN CHANGE WITHIN THE SAME DAY. Check the Icelandic Road Administration before every driving day rather than once at the start of the trip.
If you hire a car in Iceland there is one clause worth knowing before you sign, and the FCDO states it rather than hinting at it: THE WEATHER CAN CAUSE DAMAGE TO RENTAL CARS THAT IS NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE. Strong winds are common and throw up sand and ash that strips paintwork, and in its own words BRITISH TOURISTS HAVE HAD TO PAY LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY to repair hire cars damaged that way. Sand and ash protection is sold as a separate product by most Icelandic hire companies and is the one add-on that is usually worth taking. Two related points: BREAKDOWN RECOVERY COSTS IN REMOTE AREAS CAN BE VERY HIGH, and OFF-ROAD DRIVING IS STRICTLY CONTROLLED and illegal outside marked tracks, with large fines, because the vegetation does not recover.
The Kerid Packing List
A steep loose descent, an exposed rim with a drop on one side, wind that the forecast understates, and a twenty-minute stop that can turn into an hour.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the layer this trip is built around, because an Icelandic day on the Golden Circle is twelve hours of getting warm in a car and cold at a viewpoint, repeatedly. Wool handles that swing without the clammy stage a synthetic base layer goes through, and the climb back up those steps will make you sweat whatever the air temperature is.
Salomon X Ultra 4 GTX hiking shoes, and this is the one item that genuinely matters at Kerid: the steps are loose scoria over timber and the rim path is gravel on a slope, so a shoe with an edge and a grippy sole is the difference between a pleasant walk and a nervous one.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, for the wind as much as the rain. A shell that cuts wind is what makes the rim bearable.
Merino glove liners, because you will want hands free for the handrail and a camera, and thick gloves make both awkward.
A merino beanie, which on an exposed rim does more than a hood.
Eagle Creek packing cubes, which earn themselves on a ring-road trip where the car is the wardrobe and you repack daily.
Not linked and worth packing: SUNGLASSES, since the glare off a pale lake and wet rock is constant and this registry holds no eyewear entry; A CARD rather than cash for the admission; and a SMALL DAY BAG, because you want both hands on the way up.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women at Kerid
Emergency numbers: 112 reaches police, ambulance, fire and mountain and sea rescue from any phone including a locked mobile, and English is spoken. Download the 112 Iceland app before you travel: it sends your GPS position to the emergency services with one button and logs your location periodically so you can be found, which is the single most useful free thing a visitor to Iceland can do. For non-urgent medical advice the health service line is 1700.
THE HAZARD IS THE EDGE AND THE STEPS, IN THAT ORDER. The rim path runs along a crumbling lip of loose volcanic rock with a fifty-five metre drop on one side and no fence for most of its length. Stay well back from the edge, especially in wind, and do not step onto the slope for a photograph: the scoria moves. The stepped descent is steep and loose, the handrail is partial, and in ice it should not be attempted at all. If you are alone, do the rim and skip the steps rather than the other way round.
One sentence on Iceland's safety page deserves to be read twice, because it names the three things that actually hurt visitors and all three are things people come here to look at: GOING TOO CLOSE TO THE OCEAN, CLIFF EDGES AND HOT SPRINGS ARE COMMON CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS IN ICELAND. That is not a generic caution. The ocean here produces sneaker waves, which run far higher up a beach than the sets before them with no visible warning and which have killed people standing on black sand looking out to sea. Cliff edges in Iceland are frequently unfenced, often undercut, and made of material that gives way. Hot springs and mud pots are at or near boiling, the ground around them can be a thin crust over water at that temperature, and the burns are severe. The rule in all three cases is the same and it is unglamorous: keep back further than feels necessary, never turn your back on the sea, and stay on the boardwalks and marked paths in a geothermal area.
Iceland runs a national system for exactly the situation a visitor gets into and the FCDO points at it by name. SAFETRAVEL ICELAND publishes route conditions and hazard guides and LETS YOU LODGE A TRAVEL PLAN, so that if you do not return someone knows where to look, and the FCDO's own instruction is to leave your plans and contact details either with your hotel or on Safe Travel. Alongside it, the Icelandic Met Office carries weather and aurora and seismic alerts, the Road Administration carries road status, and 112 is both the emergency number and an app that transmits your position to the rescue services. None of that costs anything, and in a country where SEARCH AND RESCUE MAY BE LIMITED IN SOME AREAS, which the FCDO says plainly because Iceland is inside the Arctic Circle, using it is the difference between an incident and a statistic.
A UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care in Iceland on the same terms as a resident, which is not the same as free: Iceland charges patient co-payments for primary care and outpatient visits, so expect to pay something and keep the receipts. Travel insurance still matters and matters more here than in most of Europe, because the FCDO notes that EMERGENCY MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AND SEARCH AND RESCUE MAY BE LIMITED IN SOME AREAS and because an evacuation from a remote part of the country is expensive. Tap water is among the best in the world and buying bottled is pointless; the hot tap smells of sulphur because it is geothermal, which is harmless. Pharmacies are apotek.
US State Department travel advisory: the Iceland advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/iceland, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital or clinic: SELFOSS has a health centre, HEILSUGAESLAN SELFOSS, fifteen minutes away, which is the nearest medical help and handles the sprains and fractures this site produces. The nearest hospital with a full emergency department is LANDSPITALI in Reykjavik, about an hour west. There is no first aid at the crater and no staff on site out of season. A pharmacy in Selfoss handles minor problems. Bring a UK GHIC or EU EHIC for state care on resident terms, with insurance on top for repatriation, because Iceland charges patient co-payments and an air ambulance is not covered by a health card.
Official health authority: the Directorate of Health of Iceland, is the Directorate of Health
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Reykjavik.
Official tourism authority: the Icelandic Tourist Board, covers the country; Kerid is PRIVATELY OWNED, so its opening arrangements and admission are set by the landowners rather than by any public body and are not on a national site
Takeaways
It is a collapsed cone rather than an explosion crater, about three thousand years old, 270 metres across and 55 deep.
The lake is the water table, not a pool fed by anything you can see.
It is privately owned and you pay to go in, which is unusual in Iceland. Bring a card.
The steps down are steep and loose, the rim has no fence, and the wind over the lip is stronger than the forecast.
The acoustics are the thing nobody mentions. Stand at the water and say something.
Solo women safety assessment: Iceland is among the safest countries in the world for a woman travelling alone and Kerid is a busy roadside site on a well-driven route, so other people are usually within sight. THERE ARE NO ADVISED-AGAINST AREAS ANYWHERE IN ICELAND and crime against visitors is not the thing to plan around. THE RISK HERE IS ENTIRELY TERRAIN. An unfenced fifty-five metre drop on a loose lip, a steep stepped descent with a partial handrail, and wind that the forecast understates are the three things that hurt people at this crater, and the sensible solo choice is to walk the rim away from the edge and give the steps a miss in ice or high wind. There is no staff on site out of season, so nobody is coming unless you call. Lodge a travel plan with SafeTravel Iceland for the driving, download the 112 app, and keep your phone charged in the cold. The wider risks are the ones every Icelandic road trip carries: weather that turns inside an hour, single-track roads, and doors taken out of your hand by a gust. 112 reaches police, ambulance and mountain rescue.
Reading On
Kerid is a detour off a route this library covers in full. Fifteen minutes away, the Selfoss packing list covers the town with the supermarket, the petrol and the health centre. North on the same road, the Gullfoss packing list covers the Golden Circle's great waterfall and the Thingvellir packing list the rift valley where the Althing met. Along the south coast, the Vik packing list covers the black sand village and the Reynisfjara packing list the beach with the sneaker waves. Further east the Jokulsarlon packing list covers the glacier lagoon and the Skaftafell packing list the walking in Vatnajokull. An hour west, the Reykjavik packing list covers the city. For the country as a whole, the Iceland packing list and the Iceland travel guide for women carry the ring road, the seasons and the costs. For why wool handles a day of warm car and cold viewpoint better than anything else, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. On the same south-western loop, the Seljalandsfoss packing list covers the waterfall you can walk behind and the hidden Gljufrabui beside it.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
