Visiting Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach in Southeast Iceland

From volcanoes to lush canyons to glaciers, Iceland is a nature lover’s dream. During our summer visit to Iceland, we drove the Ring Road along the South Coast to visit Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon.

Located in Southeast Iceland, Jökulsárlón sits at the southern edge of Vatnajökull National Park. This glacial lake has grown for more than a century due to glacial melt from Breiðamerkurjökull glacier. Jökulsárlón is a popular stop along the Ring Road, along with nearby Diamond Beach, where chunks of ice (“diamonds”) from the lagoon wash ashore its black sand beach.

The area is a hub for outdoor adventure, offering boating, kayaking, snowmobiling, ice cave tours, and more. During our visit, we signed up for a kayaking excursion, which gave us the chance to experience the glacial lake and its icebergs up close.

If you’re a water and nature enthusiast, visiting the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is a must. Combined with our snorkeling adventure at Silfra fissure, some of our best memories from our time in Iceland were spent in its chilly waters.

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About Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Jökulsárlón is located in Southeast Iceland, on the southern edge of Vatnajökull, the country’s largest glacier. Fed by Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier, the lake started forming over one hundred years ago.

While a natural wonder – and one of Iceland’s most popular tourist destinations – it’s important to note that Jökulsárlón is a product of climate change.

The lake has continued to grow in size as the outlet glacier has continued to recede. In fact, Jökulsárlón has quadrupled in size in the past 50 years. Today, it is the deepest lake in Iceland, at 248 meters (814 feet) deep. Scientists estimate the lagoon will continue to increase in size over time, and eventually form a fjord.

The lagoon is filled with stunning icebergs, which break off of Breiðamerkurjökull glacier and slowly drift to the Atlantic Ocean over several years. The icebergs are of varying sizes, with some towering several stories high.

Jökulsárlón’s icebergs are an impressive mix of shades of white and blue. As heavy snow compresses an iceberg, air bubbles are squeezed out, creating dense ice. Due to light penetration and reflection, the icebergs take on a beautiful bright blue color (if you’re interested in learning more, NOAA has a great description of iceberg colors). Adding to their beauty, many icebergs have streaks of black – volcanic ash – from past volcanic activity in the area.

Large icebergs gradually break apart as they drift toward the ocean. Some of these ice chunks wash ashore at Diamond Beach, located just south of Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon along the Ring Road (Highway 1). The striking contrast between the beach’s black sand and the glistening ice chunks gives the beach its name.

Logistics: When to Visit, How to Get There, and Where to Stay & Eat

When to Visit

In our opinion, Jökulsárlón’s stunning landscape is worth visiting year-round.

A summer visit will likely provide the best weather (and hours of daylight), making it the ideal time of year for outdoor adventures within the lagoon or nearby glacier. Fall and spring bring shorter days and often less favorable weather, but that also means fewer crowds. And while winter might not seem like a great time to visit Jökulsárlón, the chance to see the northern lights over a glacier lagoon is more than enough to entice some travelers to make the trek to this Southeast Iceland locale.

If you’re interested in kayaking, most tours in Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon run from May to October.

How to Get There

Jökulsárlón is located in Southeast Iceland, about a 5-hour drive from Reykjavik. If you’re traveling along the Ring Road, Jökulsárlón is about two hours east of Vík, and about one hour west of Höfn.

As far as Ring Road attractions go, Jökulsárlón is one of the easiest to get to. Highway 1 passes right over the lagoon as it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

Where to Stay

Compared to Reykjavik and other parts of Iceland’s south coast, accommodations are limited near Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. That said, there are several lodging options in either Vík or Höfn, making a day trip or Ring Road stop at Jökulsárlón easy to do.

When we visited Jökulsárlón, we stayed in Hof, about 30 minutes west of the glacier lagoon. Just know that if you stay in the area between Vík or Höfn, you’ll want to grab some groceries, since restaurant options are limited in this area.

Where to Eat

Speaking of food, since Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is such a popular site for travelers, it’s pretty easy to grab a bite to eat right at Jökulsárlón. The parking lot often fills with food trucks, so you can pair your visit to the lagoon with a lunch break.

If you’re looking for coffee, Café Vatnajökull is about a 25-minute drive west of Jökulsárlón. We stopped in here during a full summer day of outdoor adventure, and a latte was the perfect pick-me-up for our day.

Our Experience at Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

When planning our trip to Iceland, I knew we had to experience a glacier in some way. But when I discovered the chance to kayak in Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, I knew it was a must. We’re always seeking out unique adventures when we travel, and this felt like the perfect one for us.

There are a number of companies providing kayak and other water activities on Jökulsárlón. After a bit of research, we chose to book a kayaking tour with Iceguide, a family-owned company based in Southeast Iceland. From our experience, Iceguide’s tour guides are well-trained, friendly, and extremely knowledgeable.

Kayaking Information: Duration, Difficulty, & More

Our kayaking tour lasted about one and a half hours, including an hour of fully guided kayaking on Jökulsárlón. We found this was plenty of time to explore the glacier lagoon.

This is an easy to moderate activity, depending on your experience level. If you are a seasoned kayaker, you’ll find this to be an easy excursion. Our guide was very attentive to group members’ varying ability levels.

Iceguides prioritizes group intimacy to maximize the experience for guests; on our kayaking tour, there were about ten people participating in the excursion.

As for how to dress, a warm base layer and jacket will serve you well. When we kayaked in late July, we wore long pants and shirts, plus a raincoat which served as a windbreaker.

You don’t need to pack much with you for this excursion, since you’ll only be out on the water for about an hour. We each brought our phones (stored safely in a pocket of our warm suits), and I wore a GoPro on my head to capture the entire experience.

Getting Ready to Kayak

Upon arriving for our tour, Iceguides provided us with a two-piece suit to keep us warm and dry on the lake, along with a life jacket for safety. Once suited up, our guide handed us waterproof boots, and we were ready to go.

We walked about five minutes down a private dirt road toward the lake, where kayaks were waiting. Iceguides offers both one-person and two-person sit-on-top kayaks, which provide good stability on the water. Since there were three of us, we needed one of each. I took a single kayak.

After a brief kayaking lesson and some helpful tips from our guide, we were ready to hit the water. One by one, our guide pushed us off the rocks and into the chilly lagoon.

Kayaking in Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Once in the water, our guide took us around the lagoon. Because Jökulsárlón is so big (about 11 square kilometers, or 7 square miles), we couldn’t possibly cover the entire area, but our guide made sure we saw a variety of locations. We paddled near – but not too close to – floating icebergs and enjoyed views of the glacier in the distance.

Our guide was born and raised in Southeast Iceland, making him deeply knowledgeable about the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. As we kayaked, he talked to us a lot about how much the glacial lake is changing. His family has witnessed the Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier recede over time; his father and grandfather remember when the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon was significantly smaller, emphasizing how quickly this landscape has changed.

Because this is an actively changing area, extreme caution is needed. You cannot enter the lagoon on your own – and for good reason.

Huge chunks of ice often break off icebergs as they float toward the ocean, making for dangerous conditions as they crash into the lagoon, creating large waves. In fact, when we kayaked, our guide told us this had happened just the day before. It’s a reminder of how active Jökulsárlón is, even if it looks like a fairly calm lake from the surface.

As we kayaked in the lagoon, we noticed small chunks of ice floating in the water. These are by-products of the icebergs moving and melting along the lagoon. At one point, our guide grabbed a chunk of ice and passed it around so everyone in our tour group could take a closer look.

Getting to hold a piece of ice from Iceland’s largest glacier was pretty unique! This ice will slowly float toward the ocean, with larger pieces making it to Diamond Beach, which you can read more about below.

Our kayaking tour continued as our guide took us closer to some of the larger icebergs in the lagoon. Here, he shared interesting insights on how icebergs get their varied white and blue coloring.

We also had our pictures taken in front of an iceberg. Postcard-worthy, I’d say!

After about an hour of kayaking around Jökulsárlón, we made our way back to the shore, and the tour came to an end. All in all, it was a wonderful way to experience one of Iceland’s most famous destinations.

Grabbing Lunch at Jökulsárlón

Our morning kayaking tour wrapped up just as the food trucks were opening for lunch. We browsed several options before settling on a couple of crepes and an order of fish and chips to share.

Maybe it was the appetite we’d worked up while kayaking, but this ended up being one of our most enjoyable lunches in Iceland. In fact, I’d say the best fish and chips we had in Iceland came from a food truck at Jökulsárlón!

Ending the Afternoon at Diamond Beach

Before we got on the Ring Road to head back to our rental cottage in Hof, we crossed Highway 1 to check out Diamond Beach. This black sand beach got its name from the chunks of ice that make their way here from the lagoon.

The ice here is typically just visiting. Eventually, the ocean’s waves carry the ice chunks out to sea.

In fact, when we visited, there wasn’t much ice to see–just some small pieces here and there. Luckily, we’d already seen our fair share of icebergs and smaller ice chunks while kayaking on the lagoon!

If you’re patient, you’ll likely eventually see some ice wash up on shore. Whatever you do, do not approach the water in hopes of grabbing some ice. The ocean is extremely dangerous here, and no chunk of ice is worth risking your life.

Visiting Diamond Beach after Jökulsárlón feels like coming full circle. You start by witnessing the Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier, then see how its meltwater has formed Jökulsárlón, a vast glacial lagoon filled with icebergs. Finally, at Diamond Beach, you stand before what was once part of the glacier, transformed from icecap to iceberg to small ice chunks scattered along the black sand.

Wrapping Up: Visiting Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach are truly unforgettable stops along Iceland’s Ring Road. From paddling among icebergs to standing on black sand, watching glacial remnants, this experience captures the raw beauty and ever-changing nature of Iceland’s landscapes.

Beyond their stunning visuals, sites like Jökulsárlón also tell a deeper story about how climate change is impacting places like Iceland. Whether you visit for outdoor adventure like we did, or just for some photos and reflection, Jökulsárlón and Diamond Beach offer a rare glimpse into the power of nature – and, judging from our experience, it’s one that will stay with you long after you’ve left Iceland’s shores.