Where it can take you
Where an Icepol vehicle can take you
Because Icepol rents everything from a nimble 2WD car to a 4x4 Pick-up Camper, the right vehicle unlocks the right kind of Iceland: the country's paved classics for the front-wheel-drive fleet, and the raw interior Highlands for the 4x4s.
The paved classics, made for a 2WD car or SUV
Every Icepol car, the 2WD SUVs and the smaller campervans handle Iceland's sealed, sign-posted touring routes with ease, and these routes hold most of the sights first-time visitors come for. The Ring Road (Route 1) loops the whole island on tarmac, linking Reykjavik with the waterfalls, glaciers and fishing towns of the east and north over a week or two. The Golden Circle packs Thingvellir National Park, the erupting Strokkur geyser and the Gullfoss waterfall into a single relaxed day out of the capital.
South of the Ring Road, the South Coast strings together Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss, the black-sand beach at Reynisfjara, and the glacier tongues around Vik, all reachable on paved road. To the west, the Snaefellsnes peninsula is often called Iceland in miniature, with its lava fields, Kirkjufell mountain and the glacier-capped volcano at its tip. Closer to the airport, the Reykjanes peninsula delivers steaming geothermal fields, coastal cliffs and recent lava, which makes it an easy first or last stop given Icepol's Keflavik Airport base. None of these routes asks anything of the driver beyond ordinary care, so they suit a budget SUV or a family campervan equally well.
The Highlands and F-roads, for the 4x4 fleet
Iceland's interior is a different country, and it is closed to 2WD vehicles by law. The mountain roads that reach it, the F-roads, carry gravel, fords and washboard surfaces, and they typically open only from around mid-June to September once the snow clears. This is where Icepol's 4x4 SUVs, the roof-tent 4x4s and the 4x4 Pick-up Camper come into their own, opening up places like the rhyolite landscapes of Landmannalaugar, the green valley of Thorsmork and the vast lava desert crossings that most visitors never see.
A roof-tent 4x4 is a particularly fitting way to travel this terrain: drive the rough tracks by day, then sleep up top under the midnight sun, self-contained and ready to move on at dawn. One honest caveat matters here. Some F-roads include unbridged river crossings, and these are always the driver's responsibility and are not covered by the insurance. Read the water, cross slowly, and turn back if a river is running high. Handled sensibly, the Highlands are the most rewarding driving in the country, and Icepol has the vehicles to reach them.
