Thingvellir is a valley about 40 kilometres east of Reykjavik where the Icelandic parliament, the Althingi, met in the open air from 930 until 1798. It is also the place where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart, which is why the valley floor is dropping and the rift walls are there to walk between. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the inscription is for the parliament rather than for the geology.
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It is the first stop on the Golden Circle, the standard day loop out of Reykjavik, and it is the one most people allow the least time for, because a waterfall and a geyser photograph better than a field. That is the wrong way round. Thingvellir is where you walk, and the other two are where you stand and look.
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What Is Here
Almannagja is the walk and it is the reason to come. The path runs along the base of a rift wall from the visitor centre at Hakid down into the valley, about a kilometre and a half of easy, mostly paved and partly stepped ground. You are walking through a gap between two continental plates, with the wall of North America on one side. At the bottom is Logberg, the Law Rock, where the lawspeaker recited the law to the assembly, now marked by a flagpole.
Oxararfoss is a 13 metre waterfall at the top of the valley, reached by a boardwalk from the upper car park or on foot from the Law Rock. It is smaller than Gullfoss by an enormous margin and the setting is better: the water comes over the rift edge into a bowl of black columnar rock. It freezes into something remarkable in deep winter.
Silfra is a fissure full of glacial meltwater filtered through lava for decades, with visibility over 100 metres, and people snorkel and dive in it all year in drysuits. The water is 2 to 4 degrees Celsius permanently. It is booked through licensed operators, a drysuit certification is required for diving, and snorkelling needs none. It is the single most distinctive thing you can do in the park and it needs booking well ahead.
Thingvallakirkja is the small church on the valley floor, built in 1859, with the Skaldaskjol burial ground of poets beside it. Thingvallavatn, below it, is Iceland's largest natural lake and holds four distinct varieties of Arctic char. Drekkingarhylur, the Drowning Pool, is where women convicted of infanticide and adultery were executed by drowning between 1618 and 1749, and the park's own signage names it plainly.
The visitor centre at Hakid has the park's interpretation, toilets and the viewing platform over the whole valley, and the car parks are paid: P1 at Hakid, P2 and P5 lower down, bought at the machine or online. There is no entrance fee for the park itself.
When to Go
June to August gives long light, every path open and the Silfra trips running frequently. It is also when the Golden Circle coaches arrive, and they come in a wave between about ten and two.
September and early October are the best compromise: paths open, far fewer coaches, autumn colour in the birch scrub and aurora possible from late September.
Winter, November to March, gives the valley under snow, Oxararfoss frozen and the rift walls at their most dramatic, with the hazard being ice on the paths rather than the weather itself. Silfra runs all winter because the water temperature never changes.
Go early or late in the day in any month. Arriving before nine or after four moves you out of the coach window entirely, and the valley is a different place without them.
Getting There
By car, Route 1 then Route 36 from Reykjavik, about 45 minutes. Both main car parks are paid and the fee is per day.
By organised tour, every Golden Circle day trip from Reykjavik includes it, typically giving it 45 minutes to an hour, which is enough for the Almannagja walk and nothing else.
By bus, there is no useful scheduled service to the park. This is a hire car or a tour.
Silfra operators collect from Reykjavik or meet you at the park, and which one depends on the booking.
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.
Is Thingvellir Safe for Women?
Thingvellir is very safe and the risks are underfoot and in the water. 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.
The paths ice over and the valley is full of drops. The Almannagja route runs along the base and the top of rift walls with unfenced edges in places, and from roughly October to April the paved sections carry black ice that is invisible against wet stone. This is the park's most common injury cause and it is entirely preventable with traction devices.
Do not walk off the marked paths onto the rifts or the lava. Some of the fissures hold water and are far deeper than they look, and the moss takes decades to recover from a footprint.
Silfra is cold-water activity with real rules. Two to four degrees in a drysuit is managed rather than dangerous, and the things that go wrong are a poorly fitted suit, a flooded seal and a diver without a drysuit certification. Book a licensed operator, declare any medical condition honestly, and do not dive it on an open water certification alone.
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.
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.
The Thingvellir Packing List
A cold, exposed valley with two hours of walking in it, and a wind that comes straight down the rift.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right next-to-skin layer here because the valley is open on every side and the wind does not drop. You will walk warm and stand cold at every interpretation board. A heavyweight merino base layer from October through April.
Over it, a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, which in this valley is doing more work as a windproof than as a raincoat, with an insulated layer beneath it in winter.
Merrell Moab 3 waterproof hiking boots with Darn Tough merino socks. The Almannagja path is stone and gravel with steps, and the Oxararfoss boardwalk is wet most of the year.
Kahtoola MICROspikes are the single most useful thing you can bring here between October and April, and the reason is specific: the paved valley paths ice under meltwater and refreeze overnight, which produces exactly the surface microspikes are for.
Not linked and worth packing: a hat and gloves in any month, a NECK GAITER, where the only entry in our range has a contested product identity, and a THERMOS, because the visitor centre cafe is the only food in the park and it closes earlier than you expect in winter. If you are doing Silfra, the operator supplies the drysuit, hood and gloves; bring a warm hat and a complete dry change for afterwards, and thin merino under the suit if they allow it.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women at Thingvellir
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 valley paths ice over from roughly October to April and the rift edges are unfenced in places, which makes traction devices the park's most useful single item. Stay on the marked paths: some fissures hold water and are far deeper than they look. Silfra requires a licensed operator and diving requires a drysuit certification, not an open water one. Car parks P1, P2 and P5 are paid per day while the park itself has no entrance fee. Conditions at vedur.is and road status at road.is.
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: there is no hospital at the park. The nearest hospital and the national referral centre is Landspitali in Reykjavik, about 45 minutes west, and the health centre at Selfoss is closer if you continue round the Golden Circle. 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.
Official health authority: the Directorate of Health of Iceland, covers the health centre network outside Reykjavik
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Reykjavik.
Official tourism authority: the Icelandic Tourist Board, publishes Thingvellir National Park conditions, the parking fees and the Silfra operator rules
Takeaways
Walk Almannagja. A tour gives the park an hour and the walk between the plates is what the hour is for.
Go outside the coach window. Before nine or after four and the valley is nearly empty.
Bring traction for winter. Paved paths that ice overnight are exactly what microspikes exist for.
Book Silfra ahead. It is the most distinctive thing here and it sells out.
Solo women safety assessment: Thingvellir is about as safe as a destination gets and its hazards are entirely environmental. Iceland has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, the park is staffed and busy through the day, and a woman walking the rift path alone is completely unremarkable. The FCDO's Iceland page carries no crime warning of substance and points instead at accidents, at the coast, at cliff edges and in hot springs, and names SafeTravel.is. THE FIRST HAZARD HERE IS ICE ON PAVED PATHS, which is the park's most common injury cause and is unglamorous enough to be underestimated: the valley's walkways carry meltwater by day and refreeze overnight from roughly October to April, producing black ice that is invisible against wet stone, and parts of the Almannagja route run along the base and the top of unfenced rift walls. Traction devices solve it and almost nobody arrives with them. THE SECOND IS LEAVING THE PATH. Some of the fissures hold water and are far deeper than they look from the edge, the rock is loose where the valley is actively pulling apart, and the park's own signage is firm about staying on the marked routes. THE THIRD IS SILFRA, which is managed cold-water activity rather than a risk, provided it is booked through a licensed operator: the water is 2 to 4 degrees Celsius all year, DIVING REQUIRES A DRYSUIT CERTIFICATION rather than an open water one, and the failures that matter are a badly fitted suit and an undeclared medical condition. Driving out from Reykjavik in winter is the ordinary Icelandic caution, so check road.is in both directions, and hire car insurance here generally excludes sand and ash damage.
Reading On
Thingvellir is the Golden Circle's first stop and the other two are live here. The Gullfoss packing list covers the waterfall on the same loop, and the Reykjavik packing list covers the city the loop starts from. South along the coast the Skogafoss packing list, the Reynisfjara packing list and the Vik packing list carry the black beaches, with the Jokulsarlon packing list further east. West, the Snaefellsnes packing list covers the peninsula, and the Akureyri packing list, Husavik packing list and Myvatn packing list the north. Inland and far harder to reach, the Landmannalaugar packing list covers the highlands. For the country as a whole the Iceland travel guide for women and the Iceland packing list carry the transport, the weather and the practical material in full. For why wool is the layer for a cold open valley, 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.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
