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Reykjavik: The Lava Tunnel and Golden Circle Small-Group Tour

Badge of Excellence
Reykjavik, Iceland
Great choice
10+ bookings last month.
  • 10 hours (approx.)
  • Pickup offered
  • Mobile ticket
  • Offered in: English

Overview

Discover the Land of Fire and Ice—from above and below ground—on this full-day small-group lava-caving and Golden Circle tour from Reykjavik. Travel to an ancient lava field and head underground to explore beautiful rock formations and volcanic craters. Afterward, join the Golden Circle route to Gullfoss Waterfall, Geysir geothermal area, and the UNESCO–listed Thingvellir National Park. Hotel pickup and drop-off are included for added convenience.
  • Go beyond the Golden Circle and explore the lava caves of the Blue Mountains
  • Leave the navigating to someone else with round-trip transport and hotel pickup
  • Go beyond the guidebooks with facts and insight from your guide
  • Small-group tour for a more intimate experience ;

What's Included

  • Small group experience
  • Reykjavik pickup and drop-off
  • Professional guide
  • Use of caving equipment
  • Free wi-fi on board
  • Food and drinks
  • Gratuities
  • Lunch

Meeting and Pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Pickup details

Please note that we only serve the pick-up locations specified in our pick-up list below. Due to traffic restrictions, we are not allowed to pick up from hotels in the city center nor from private Air BnBs. If your pick-up location is not on our pick-up list then we kindly ask you to find the closest pick-up point to your accommodation from our list: 22 Hill Hótel – Brautarholt 22-24. Arctic Comfort Hótel – Síðumúli 19. BSÍ Bus Terminal – Vatnsmýrarvegi 10. Bus Hostel Reykjavík – Skógarhlíð 10. Bus pick up/drop off nr.1 – City Hall, Vonarstræti Bus pick up/drop off nr.4 – Miðbakki Bus pick up/drop off nr.6 – Safnahúsið (The Culture House) Bus pick up/drop off nr.8 – Hallgrímskirkja Church Bus pick up/drop off nr.9 – Snorrabraut Bus pick up/drop off nr.12 – Höfðatorg Bus pick up/drop off nr.15 – Vesturbugt Cabin Hótel – Borgartún 32. Eyja Guldsmen Hotel – Brautarholt 10. Grand Hótel Reykjavík – Sigtún 38. Grayline – Main bus terminal - Klettagarðar 4. Hilton Reykjavík Nordica – Suðurlandsbraut 2. Hótel Ísland – Ármúla 9. Hotel Ørkin – Brautarholti 29. Icelandair Hotel Reykjavík Natura – við Hlíðarfót, Nauthólsvegur 52. Klettur Hótel – Mjölnisholt 12-14. N1 Gas Station – Ártúnshöfði Radisson Blu Hótel Saga – við Hagatorg. Reykjavík City Hostel – Sundlaugavegur 34. Reykjavík Lights Hotel – Suðurlandsbraut 12. Skarfabakki – Cruise Ship, Reykjavik Harbor, 105 Reykjavik

Operating hours
.8:00 am

Itinerary

1

Raufarholshellir

1 hour Admission Ticket Included

2

Golden Circle Route

Admission Ticket Free

3

Gullfoss Falls

3 minutesAdmission Ticket Free

4

Strokkur

1 hour Admission Ticket Free

5

Thingvellir National Park

30 minutesAdmission Ticket Free

Additional Info

  • Confirmation will be received at time of booking
  • Please dress appropriately with warm outdoor clothing, a waterproof jacket and pants, headwear and gloves for the caving. Good warm sturdy hiking shoes and wool socks are recommended
  • Please note that no previous caving experience is required for this tour, but you will have to crawl or walk through underground passage
  • Not wheelchair accessible
  • This tour is a combo tour, that means that the tour will start by going caving in the morning and then you will join a separate Golden Circle tour in the afternoon. You will be dropped off at a switching point between tours, where you will have time to have lunch. There is a bakery and a supermarket at the switching point.
  • This is a small group tour ensuring a more personalized experience.
  • Service animals allowed
  • Infants must sit on laps
  • Most travelers can participate
  • This tour/activity will have a maximum of 19 travelers

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Gallery picture 1 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 2 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 3 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 4 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 5 (from a traveler's review)

Featured review

Kori_F
This was a brilliant day trip! Our party was myself, husband, and our 8 year old son and it was well-paced, super informative, and the locations were stunning. I had done a golden circle tour previously, but this one was so much better. Our guide, Guna, was absolutely fabulous and I would book another tour with her in a heartbeat. Our lava tunnel guide was also brilliant. Overall the whole day was about 10 hours, but it flew by for us. We will definitely be booking with Arctic Adventures again.

Reviews

4.4
based on 25 reviews
Total reviews and rating from Viator & Tripadvisor

Incredible day out

Kori_F, Feb 2026
This was a brilliant day trip! Our party was myself, husband, and our 8 year old son and it was well-paced, super informative, and the locations were stunning. I had done a golden circle tour previously, but this one was so much better. Our guide, Guna, was absolutely fabulous and I would book another tour with her in a heartbeat. Our lava tunnel guide was also brilliant. Overall the whole day was about 10 hours, but it flew by for us. We will definitely be booking with Arctic Adventures again.

Very informative and a...

Nicole_M, Feb 2026
Very informative and a bit of an adventure to learn and see how the tunnel was formed. Need to be steady on your feet as it’s a bit of a trek over rocks and steps.

Stunning Natural Beauty

Carol_S, Feb 2026
Both the Lava Cave and the Golden Circle tours were fantastic. Our guide in the cave, Dimitri, was informative and fun. The sites on the Golden Circle tour were spectacular! It makes sense that they tell you this is what you should do if you have only one day.

The tour was brilliant....

Paul_B, Dec 2025
The tour was brilliant. All our guides were very knowledgeable and made the tour really interesting. The lava tunnels were beautiful. The scenery on the Golden Circle part of the tour was stunning. We really recommend the smaller, more private tour as it didn’t feel as rushed as some of the bigger coach tours.

Avoid Combo Tour At All Costs

Scott_F, Dec 2025
You should avoid this tour in combo form. The lava tour was great, bit after they bring you back to Reykjavik drop you at a bakery for over an hour so they can pick up people and then rush you through the golden circle. This was sad as the golden circle tour was incredibly rushed with only 20-minutea at each stop which is just nothing. This was all due to the structure of the combo of lava and golden circle. Do anything else, but do not do this combo. Lastly, we got back 30-minutes early and also spent 10-minutea looking at horses, which I still can't figure out why. Way too much time wasted (45-minute return drive and over an hour in a bakery). Just a horrible design which is really too bad.

Great day trip!

James_C, Dec 2025
Action-packed day with a great guide. We enjoyed the stops at the Lava Tunnel and the Golden Circle. Guide (Aliza - sp?) was really knowledgeable and shared a lot of good history and information in between stops.

Absolutely beautiful!!!...

Nichelle_R, Mar 2025
Absolutely beautiful!!! We loved every minute of this experience!!! Really well thought out trip. Highly recommended.

Got more than I expected

Elo_R, Aug 2024
I got more than I excpected from this tour. The Lava Tunel was super cool and very colorful. The guide Sonya was very professional and friendly. The Golden Circle tour was also amazing and our driver and guige Christopher very well prepeared telling stories about places what we passed through.

Great experience

Cindy_G, May 2024
Our guide Kasper was really entertaining and knowledgeable. He was extremely patient with Asian tourists who were consistently late at every stop which I thought was very rude and inconsiderate of others.

Badly Advertised

Anthony_R, Jul 2023
Pick up was arranged 1 hour earlier than booked, unable to attend your, poor organisation between viator and Arctic Challenge, never will I book through Viator again

Fun experience

Corin_H, Aug 2022
Great tour with a good variety of activities. Our driver Gunn was very friendly, the bus was in good order, and there was enough time at each location.

Great Tour

Wesley_F, Jul 2022
This was a great tour to go on, and good way to get to all the golden circle sites without much time available.

Great full day experience!

Jamie_L, Apr 2022
We had a wonderfully kind bus driver, Aron. He was on time, gave us a lot of information about every stop, and gave us enough time to enjoy each location. Plus, his music during the trip made it very enjoyable!

Good balance

Caroline_I, Apr 2019
The expedition to the caves was exciting and both tour guides were friendly, experienced and informative. A unique experience. Doing a condensed golden circle tour was perfect and the balance to the day stopped the teens getting bored. The Greek tour guide was very knowledgeable and I would definitely recommend this trip. Doing both in one day reduced the amount of driving around and still saw the major land marks

Brilliant experience!

Kimberley_F, Dec 2018
Myself and my partner went back to Iceland to do the things we didn’t get to do on the first visit. It was my partners birthday and I knew he wanted to do the golden circle and be a bit more hands on with activities/experiences and loves caves and anything to do with volcanoes so this was perfect! The driver and the tour guide were both very pleasant and helpful and would answer anything you needed to know. They were patient with us tall (perhaps unfit) people trying to crawl through certain parts and would offer a choice of two routes back. The driver led us back the way we came in and the tour guide would take the others on a slightly more challenging route. It was fascinating learning all about the lava trails and forming of the caves and an amazing sight. The storytelling was fun too (troll myths) The golden circle was amazing and definitely worth a visit the experience and the photo opportunities at the geysers is worth every penny! The only thing (and I don’t want to be negative about this trip) was just that they won’t agree to pick up in outskirts of Reykjavík, what would’ve took them 5minutes we had to walk 30mins to meet. Definitely recommended as a tour though and these tour guides and arctic adventures are very good at what they do. We did have a tour with another company and the guide was terrible.

Awesome experience! The tour...

Vidhi G, Sep 2018
Awesome experience! The tour guide/driver was a little late coming to our hotel because the tour company office gave the wrong hotel information. Otherwise, the tour was perfect!

Great trip, cavng was amazing. More...

Chris, Nov 2017
Great trip, cavng was amazing. More time needed for Golden circle tour though. Thankfully I had been before

I found with most things in Iceland...

Adam_P, Jan 2017
I found with most things in Iceland they over-priced, and over-promise and under deliver. Unfortunately this was no different. The driver/guide use the word guide loosely was friendly, but we had to ask her questions, pry for information about Iceland and the places we were visiting. She was also a reckless driver - to the point where quite a few passengers made comment. The sights themselves were great - however my partner and I felt quite rushed on each of the Golden Circle stops - and we were constantly waiting for the same couple to return to the bus the guide didn't hurry them along.

Tour guide, Sveni?, I think, was...

Albert P, Oct 2015
Tour guide, Sveni?, I think, was friendly, knowledgeable and helpful with all aspects of the tour. Totally enjoyed all sights and the approx. 1000 meter lava caving was GREAT! Highly recommend.

Fuer das Wetter kan niemand etwas...

Christl D, Dec 2017
Fuer das Wetter kan niemand etwas aber das der Guide immer im Auto sitzen bleibt und nur sagt: wir sind jetzt ..., ihr habt so und so viele min Zeit dann treffen wir uns wieder hier, war schwach. Jeder Audioguide gibt mehr information. Auch die 1,5 Stunden Wartezeit im Industriegebiet war deutlich zu lang, vorallem wenn man bedenkt das die Dunkelheit so schnell kommt. Die zwei Sterne sind fuer die Lavatour.

From $202.90

per person

up to 24 hours before the experience starts (local time)

Book ahead!
On average, this is booked 75 days in advance.

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