Iceland: Northern Lights Hunting, Black Sand Beaches & Jökulsárlón

Round trip flights are not included in the package, so you can choose from where and when you want to fly. This is to give you maximum freedom of choice!

Everyone arrives in Reykjavik under their own steam, so today is about the group finding each other for the first time!

• Check-in and first meeting: we check into the hotel in Reykjavik and meet the rest of the group: that is when eight days of shared driving start to feel real.

• Icelandic dinner: local specialities in a good setting. The meat and fish here are excellent, and a local beer alongside them starts the trip properly.

The 4x4s are ours from this morning, and we drive out of the capital with a long day of road ahead.

• Snaefellsnes Peninsula: the Snaefellsjokull volcano waits for us, the one from Jules Verne's novel.

• Lunch in Stykkisholmur: Danish-style houses, a port, a modern church, viewpoints and healing hot tubs.

• The aurora hunt begins: after dark, Kirkjufell mountain, familiar from Game of Thrones, becomes our backdrop for photographing the aurora borealis.

Inland today, on the Golden Circle, where the ground does the talking and we end up sitting in hot water.

• Geysir in action: geyser in Icelandic means emitting in streams, and that is exactly what Geysir does: boiling water shot tens of metres up, at a constant rate!

Gullfoss closes the circle: two falls totalling 32 metres, often with a rainbow.

• Falls, then hot springs: an easy dirt path leads in, then the Secret Lagoon thermal springs to finish.

Up early for dawn, then east towards Vik, with a glacier, a black beach and a night of hunting ahead.

• Glacier hike at Solheimajokull: we fasten crampons and hike on top of one of Iceland's most impressive glaciers.

• Photo stops: then we stop wherever the road photographs well, especially for the Hekla volcano.

Just before Vik comes the Dyrholaey viewpoint, with its stone arch on a rocky plateau.

• Black sand at Reynisfjara: then we drop down to walk the surreal black sand of Reynisfjara.

At night, we get to choose:

• Waterfalls or a wreck? An aurora hunt around Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss or the Plane Wreck site.

• Up for a snowy trek? Or a walk through the snow to a free thermal pool, open year-round.

Almost three hours of driving today, which in Iceland is hardly dead time: the road itself is part of the attraction.

• Small stops along the way: we break the drive across endless plains, green in summer and probably under snow now, just to stand and look at where we are.

Then Jokulsarlon, where Vatnajokull, Europe's largest glacier, comes off the mountains and dives in.

• Among the icebergs: the glacier calves icebergs that drift across the bay until the current takes them.

The scene is strangest at sunset or under the northern lights!

Waterfall day! Both of today's let us get close enough to feel them, with a wreck in the sand after.

• Skogafoss from above: a stepped path climbs Skogafoss for the view from above; at the plunge point the water hammers onto the black beach, rainbows in the spray.

• Lunch stop: we have lunch at the tourist office.

Seljalandsfoss is a waterfall we see from behind.

• Behind the falls: waterproofs and sturdy footwear on, we walk round into the cave of black rock and look out through the falling water.

Towards Skogar we go looking for the DC-3 wreckage.

• To the plane wreck: an American plane down in the black desert near the shore, at its most melancholic at night.

Back towards Reykjavik today, and slowly, because the last few stops of the trip are scattered along the road home.

• Kerid crater: first Kerid, one of Iceland's most spectacular craters, 55 metres deep.

• Lunch in a greenhouse: then a tomato greenhouse, with kilometres of towering rows and lunch in the farm's bistro.

The afternoon is the thermal water of Laugarás Lagoon, hot pools in a lunar landscape.

• Last night in Reykjavik: then it is Reykjavik's nightlife, with live music and extravagant shows until the early hours.

Last morning of the trip, and all that is left is check-out and working out who is heading where from here.

• Check-out and goodbyes: we check out of the hotel in Reykjavik and say our goodbyes, with eight days of driving, waterfalls, glaciers and aurora hunts behind us.

• Until next time: then it is home, until your next WeRoad adventure, whenever and wherever in the world the group decides it is going to be!