Travel informaton North Iceland

Varmahlid

Akureyri

Myvatn

Godafoss/Fossholl

Before setting off on the Highland routes, check the road conditions and remember that there are unbridged rivers to be forded!

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This part of the interior, the so-called Sprengisandur route, is the longest stretch between the South and the North and is passable by 4wd vehicles during summer. It is mostly very desolate and barren. Only where there is water, sparse vegetation can be found. In earlier times, when people were more superstitious than they are nowadays and believed in ghosts, giants, elves and outlaws, the few who dared use this route rode as fast as possible through and sometimes exhausted their horses. The word for to exhaust in Icelandic is "sprengja", hence the name of the area. The present route lies further east than the original one and the distance between the last farm in the South and the first one in the North is approximately 250 km.

Local maps
Sprengisandur Route