Iceland is home to a variety of incredible ice caves, offering visitors the opportunity to travel back to a time when ice ruled the world. Iceland ice caves come in all shapes and sizes, with some of the most beautiful ice formations one can ever see such as Frozen rivers, sapphire blue ice and diamond-like walls. However finding ice cave tour which is family friendly and accept a five years old is not easy and I almost gave up.
There are all kind of ice caves in Iceland. There is the man-made ice cave in Langjokull which suits all ages (you can book thru Into the Glacier for the complete experience) , the Katla Ice Cave near Vik which you can visit all year long and the blue ice cave in Vatnajokull Glacier, Europe largest ice cap by volume, which you can only visit during winter (November to March). Among the three options, the blue ice cave is the most beautiful and the most challenging to visit. Hence majority of the tours are not suitable for children.
After browsing various tours, I finally come across a small independent glacier tour which is family friendly and willing to accept our 5 years old. The company name is Glacier Journey and they are going to make our tour suitable for our girl. There is also another tour based in the same area called Blue Iceland but we decided to go with Glacier Journey after exchanging emails with Laufey, the owner.
If you want to do Blue Ice Cave tour, it is recommended to stay near the Jokulsarlon or Vatnajokull area because the pick up point is at Jokulsarlon parking lot. They run 2 tours in a day: Morning and Afternoon tour. We chose the morning tour so we needed to stay somewhere closer.
Katla Ice Cave Tour usually do pick up from Vik Town and Langjokull Ice Cave Tour have option for Reykjavik pick up.
Laufey, the owner of Glacier Journey messaged us the night before the tour to confirm if we would still be doing the tour as a lot of people were cancelling the tour due to the pandemic. We told her we were already on our way to Hali and we should be at the pick up point tomorrow. She told us the weather should be fine tomorrow but she would update us again in the morning. None of us realized that the tour would be the last ice cave tour for the season as few days after our tour EU countries including Iceland are closing borders.
Our guide, Andre picked us up at the meeting point at Jokulsarlon parking area and gave us orientation on what to expect. We were going to ride in the monster truck which would take us to Vatnajokull national park. From there we would walk to the ice cave and saw glacier along the way. As Alyssa was not coming, we were doing the normal tour instead of a shorter one. Glacier Journey also provides boots rentals if we don’t have suitable waterproof boots. He also gave us ice crampon and helmet to wear later on.
After 30 minutes ride the guide parked the truck and we started walking. He told us that usually it is not snowing much in March. But this time around we have abundant snow and thus the ice caves are very beautiful. He told us we are very lucky. Yay 😊
Be prepared to wow when we stepped inside. We have read that the ice cave is actually small and there will be a lot of people so we have to take turn when taking pictures. However due to many cancellation there were very few people inside. In fact only 2 groups were there including us so it felt good to have the ice cave for ourselves.
From this cave we walk to another bigger cave. This cave looks surreal and has the out of space feel.
The third cave we entered has a dragon like sculpture in a black and white surrounding.
Our Ice Cave Tour Video
It started to rain as we were making our way back to the truck. The path was trickier as the snow got muddy every time we stepped onto them. I was so glad that I have invested in solid waterproof boots which didn’t hurt my feet and kept my toes warm and dry.
There are 2 food trucks in Jokulsarlon parking lot so after your Ice Cave Tour you can have lunch as you must be hungry after all the walking. We tried the Heimahumar Food Truck and had a nice yummy lobster soup in and I swear it was the yummiest lobster soup I ever tasted throughout our Iceland trip. Nothing beats a warm soup after a long walk on the ice
I hope our experience helps you in planning for your Ice Cave tour in Iceland. If you come in winter, this is one adventure you cannot get somewhere else. I wholeheartedly recommend this. If you are not driving, you need to take 2 days tour with Operator which includes Ice cave tour along with Southcoast, Glacier lagoon and Diamond beach such as here.
