Lake Myvatn: The Sights, the Seasons and the Trips That Get You There

A Lake Sitting on a Rift

Iceland splits down the middle here. The North American and Eurasian plates pull apart across the Mývatn basin, and every few hundred years the ground opens and fills the basin with fresh lava. The current lake took its shape about 2,300 years ago, when the Younger Laxá lava poured down the valley and dammed the water into the outline you see today.

The result covers 37 km², reaches 4.5 m at its deepest point and averages 2.5 m. It sits at 288 m above sea level with about 50 islands and skerries scattered across it, most of them the tops of old craters. Sunlight reaches the bed across almost the whole surface, and that single fact runs the entire food chain: algae on the bottom, midge larvae in the mud, ducks on the water.

The river Laxá drains the lake north towards Húsavík and holds a reputation among fly fishers for brown trout and Atlantic salmon. Beats are leased through the local associations by the day and cost more than most people expect, so treat it as a planned trip rather than something you fit in between stops.

The Ring of Sights Around the Shore

Road 848 loops the lake and links the stops in an order that works whichever way you drive it. Start on the south shore at Skútustaðagígar, where the grassy mounds along the water look like small volcanoes and are not. Lava ran over wet ground here, the water flashed to steam and blew rings of ash upward, leaving a pseudo-crater field with a flat 30-minute walking loop through it.

Dimmuborgir comes next on the east side: a collapsed lava lake that drained and left pillars, arches and hollow chambers standing. Trails run from a 20-minute circuit to an hour, and the Kirkjan arch at the far end is the one people photograph. Icelandic children know the place as the home of the thirteen Yule Lads, which is why the site fills with families in December.

Hverfjall rises behind it, a tephra crater about 1,000 m across and 140 m deep, thrown up in a single eruption around 2,800 years ago. The path from the western car park reaches the rim in 20 minutes over loose black gravel. The rim walk gives you the whole basin at once, the lake on one side and the Krafla system steaming on the other.

Grjótagjá sits a short drive north, a fissure cave with a pool of clear blue water inside. Bathing there stopped in the 1970s when the Krafla Fires pushed the water to around 60°C, and the landowners still ask visitors to stay out. Entry and parking cost nothing. The cave picked up a second life as a Game of Thrones location, so expect company at midday.

Boiling Ground at Hverir and Krafla

Cross the pass east of the lake on Route 1 and the vegetation stops. Hverir, the geothermal field under Námafjall, is bare orange clay with mud pools that thump like a slow heartbeat and vents that hiss steam at pressure. Ground temperatures run past 200°C a short way down, which is why the marked paths matter more here than anywhere else in the region. The crust looks solid and is not.

The smell reaches you before the car park does. Sulphur hangs in the air on still days, and it clings to clothing, so leave anything you care about in the vehicle.

Nine kilometres north the road climbs to Krafla, a caldera with 29 recorded eruptions behind it. The Víti crater at the top holds turquoise water and dates from the 1724 eruption that opened the Mývatn Fires. Leirhnjúkur, the lava field beside it, still steams from the 1975 to 1984 Krafla Fires and offers the most direct look at fresh volcanic ground anywhere near the lake. Snow closes the Krafla road into late spring, so check before driving up in May.

The Baths, Now Called Earth Lagoon

The geothermal baths at Jarðbaðshólar, east of Reykjahlíð, sold tickets as Mývatn Nature Baths for two decades and now trade as Earth Lagoon. Same water, same view over the basin, new name on the sign and on the booking page.

Water in the lagoon sits between 36 and 40°C, drawn from a borehole that runs at well over 100°C before it cools on the way in. Adult entry starts at 7,900 ISK, children of five and under go free with an adult, and towel rental runs 1,200 ISK if you travel light. Opening hours run 10:00 to 23:00, with seasonal variation at both ends. There is a steam bath built over a vent, a swim-up bar and a bistro looking out over the lake.

The late slot is the one to book between September and April. The lagoon faces north across open country with no town lights behind it, which makes it one of the better places in Iceland to sit in warm water and watch for aurora. One of the tours on this page finishes here, and if you are driving yourself it is worth the 6 km detour from Reykjahlíð.

Midges, Ducks and the Marimo Nobody Sees

Mý-vatn translates as midge lake, and the name is a warning as much as a description. Two species swarm here, one that bites and one that does not, and both hatch in clouds from the shallows between June and August. Numbers vary wildly from year to year. Some summers you barely notice them, others you walk from the bus to the viewpoint through a moving wall of insects.

A head net costs a few hundred krónur in any Akureyri shop and turns the problem into a footnote. Guides carry spares, and reviewers who mention the midges tend to mention the net in the same breath. Nora, who travelled in July 2026, put it plainly: the driver told her group that year's swarm was a third of the previous one, and she still recommended buying a net. They fade in late August and clear by early September.

Those midges feed the birdlife that gave the lake its protected status. Fifteen duck species breed around the shore, the densest concentration in Europe, with roughly 6,000 pairs of tufted duck and 1,500 pairs of greater scaup. Barrow's goldeneye lives here year round and nowhere else in Europe. Whooper swans, red-necked phalaropes and great northern divers fill out the list. The Ramsar designation from December 1977 and the 4,400 km² Mývatn and Laxá conservation area exist for them.

On the lake bed grow marimo, spheres of green algae that roll along the bottom and pack together in colonies. Researchers declared the population gone in 2013 after decades of decline, then found it returning. You will not see one without a boat and a still day, which is part of the appeal.

Goðafoss and the Diamond Circle

Every trip on this page stops at Goðafoss, and it earns the stop. The Skjálfandafljót river drops about 12 m over a horseshoe ledge roughly 30 m wide, right beside Route 1 between Akureyri and the lake. Paths run down both banks and the west side gives the better morning light. The name means waterfall of the gods, after the lawspeaker Þorgeir who threw his pagan idols in when Iceland adopted Christianity around the year 1000.

Goðafoss is also the western gate of the Diamond Circle, the northern route that strings together the waterfall, Lake Mývatn, Dettifoss, the Ásbyrgi canyon and the whale-watching harbour at Húsavík. Dettifoss lies about 50 km northeast of the lake, and Húsavík roughly the same distance north. Driving the full circle takes a long day from Akureyri and leaves little time at any single stop.

That gap is what the six-hour tours here are built around. They take the western half, Goðafoss and the lake, and leave Dettifoss and Húsavík for a second day. If you have only one day in the north, this is the half worth taking.

Getting There From Akureyri and Reykjavík

Akureyri to Reykjahlíð is about 100 km on Route 1, roughly 75 minutes without stops. The road is paved the whole way, climbs over one open pass and stays plowed through winter. Road 848 branches off to loop the lake shore.

From Reykjavík the drive runs about 480 km and takes 6 to 7 hours along the north coast, which makes it a leg of a ring road trip rather than a day out. The faster route flies: a 45-minute hop from Reykjavík to Akureyri, then the drive or a tour from there.

Without a car, Strætó route 56 between Akureyri and Egilsstaðir stops at Reykjahlíð. Departures are limited to a couple a day, the journey takes about 80 minutes, and the bus solves only half the problem. Once you step off at Reykjahlíð, the sights are spread over 30 km of road with no local transport between them. Fine if you have booked two nights and plan to walk or cycle. For a single day, a guided trip or a rental car is what works.

Cruise passengers have the simplest decision. Akureyri handles ships at Tangarbryggja and Oddeyrarbryggja, both a short walk from where the tour buses wait, and five of the trips here are timed against ship departures rather than a fixed clock.

How Long to Stay and When to Come

One full day covers the classic ring: Goðafoss, Skútustaðagígar, Dimmuborgir, Hverfjall and Hverir, with an hour to spare. That is the itinerary the six-hour tours run, and it delivers the region's greatest hits without rushing.

A second day buys Krafla and the Víti crater, the Leirhnjúkur lava field, Lofthellir, and either Dettifoss or the whales at Húsavík. Two nights in Reykjahlíð is the sweet spot for anyone driving the ring road, and it costs less than most people assume outside the July peak.

June to August gives you long light, every road open and every operator running. It also gives you midges and company at the car parks. September and early October trade the insects for autumn colour on the heath and the first aurora nights. From November to March the region turns quiet and white, the Krafla road closes, and fewer tours run, though the ones that do are the ones best equipped for it. The winter departure from Saga Travel holds 4.82 from 56 reviews, the strongest rating of the cold-season options here.

Weather at 288 m does what it wants. Reykjahlíð averages 1.4°C over the year and 435 mm of precipitation, with July highs around 14°C and January lows near minus 8°C. Wind is the variable that ruins days, not rain. Bring a shell, a warm layer under it and shoes that handle wet gravel, whatever the month says.

Lofthellir and the Cave You Need a Guide For

About 40 km east of the lake, under a lava field reached by a track no rental agreement covers, sits Lofthellir. The cave formed roughly 3,500 years ago when molten rock drained out of a lava tube. What makes it worth the trouble is the ice: columns and sheets that build up through winter and hold their shape into summer inside the cave.

Getting in means crawling through a narrow entrance, and getting around means crampons and a helmet. Operators run it from May to October with equipment included. It is the one sight in the region you cannot reach on your own, and the one that surprises people who thought they had seen everything the north offers.

Can You Swim in the Lake, and How Do You Say It

No, and two things stop you. The water averages 2.5 m deep, sits close to freezing for most of the year, and the shallows are thick with midge larvae. More to the point, the whole lake is protected under the Mývatn and Laxá conservation area, so swimming, boating and disturbing the shore are all restricted. The soak here is at Earth Lagoon, and one Mývatn tour finishes in that water after five stops on land.

The pronunciation trips almost everyone. Say it MEE-vaht, with the ý as a long ee and the final tn barely voiced. Goðafoss comes out closer to GOTH-a-foss with a soft th, and Skútustaðagígar is SKOO-tu-stath-a-gee-gar. Guides on every trip here will correct you with good humour, and most of them enjoy doing it.