Self-drive tour vs Self-planned trip
The Land of Fire and Ice is probably on every traveller’s bucketlist. When visiting Iceland, you want to have the best experience and see as much as possible in one trip. Iceland is not tiny, so you can not explore it all at once. The good part is that you can explore many places.
But how do you plan your trips? Do you like to plan your trip on your own or book a tour with a travel agency?
Which way is better? Let’s discuss the pros and cons of each form of planning the trip.
Self-drive pros
A self-drive tour is a package sold by travel agencies that usually includes a car rental, accommodation and travel itinerary.
-The first plus is the tour itself because of what it entails. You have a rented car, accommodation and itinerary all in one booking;
-There is an entire team behind your tour that is working to provide the best services for you;
-The itinerary is planned to the last detail by a team that knows every place that one can visit in Iceland;
-The team will arrange everything according to the distances as well as according to the weather or road conditions;
-The travel agency will book your accommodation in a convenient place within your itinerary, so you will not waste time finding or getting to your accommodation;
-Self-drive tours have more flexibility, and this means that in case of cancelling or delaying for different reasons (weather, accidents), the travel agency can deal with all these problems for you and give you the best option to continue your trip;
-Self-drive tours (usually) have premium insurance included for the rented car;
-There are self-drive tour packages with itineraries from 3 up to 17 days of travelling so you can find something suitable for your plans;
-The travel agencies know better the distances and the time you need to get from one point to another, and they will help you spend the time wisely;
-Travel agencies plan the itinerary on your self-drive tour following the time you have and what you want to see or do in Iceland;
-A self-drive tour gives you more flexibility to explore Iceland, and you can stay longer in a place if you like, or you can skip some of them if you want to see something else;
-Usually, travel agencies can customise a tour as you like. If you don’t like the itineraries available on the website, you can ask for personalisation and create your dream trip together with a travel specialist;
-The itinerary you get also contains details about places and other secret locations you can explore;
-While you are on your tour, you will get live updates on the weather, and the travel agency will have options to reschedule or modify your itinerary. (You can check vedur.is by yourself)
-You can get any information you need to know from your travel agency;
-It is cheaper to book a tour that includes everything (car, accommodation, itinerary).
These are only some of the pros of a self-drive tour. Let’s see the cons of a self-drive tour.
Self-drive cons
-You can not book a self-drive tour last minute;
-You have to follow the itinerary you receive to get to the accommodation;
-You can not take more people than the seats in the rented car;
-There are other costs that one may not take into consideration from the beginning;
-You need to possess a driving license that must be valid and the license class suitable for the vehicle you rent;
-You have to be aware of roads and weather conditions before starting the tour;
-You have to book a self-drive tour for at least three days;
-As the tour does not include meals, you should plan where you want to eat or buy some food in advance as in Iceland you can find the supermarkets only in some towns;
-You can not get your money back if you stop the tour;
-If you stop the tour and follow another itinerary in another direction, you have to find accommodation on your own;
-There is no availability to book a self-drive tour right in the high season;
-You can not book too many activities in one day;
These are just some of the cons we faced while on a self-drive tour. But let’s see what a self-planned trip is and the cons and pros.
Some travellers feel safer when planning the entire trip by themselves, or some just like to have everything planned on their schedule. Others want to book specific accommodations depending on the location or the design of the place.
There are different reasons people want to plan their trips by themselves, which is understandable. But let’s see the pros and cons of doing this.
Pros for a Self-planned trip
-You create the itinerary as you like;
-You book the accommodations you like;
-You choose the car you want to rent;
-You choose when and what activities you want to do;
-You have the flexibility to follow an itinerary or not;
-You can compare different rates for car rental or accommodations;
-You can stop following an itinerary at any time you like and do something else (an activity, for example);
Those are just some of the pros we experienced. And the following are the cons of planning a trip by yourself to Iceland.
Cons for a Self-planned trip
-You have to deal with all the inconveniences that might appear during your trip;
-You have to check the weather and road conditions every time you plan to drive;
-In case of an accident, you have to deal with the situation by yourself;
-In case of an accident, you have to deal with eventual modification of the itinerary and the accommodation bookings;
-In case of bad weather, you have to reschedule your itinerary and accommodation bookings;
-You might not find availability for accommodations or cars to rent;
-You might not be able to reschedule some activities if you can not show up at the established time;
-You might miss some places that are worth visiting if it is your first time visiting Iceland;
-You might calculate wrong the distances and time you need to get from one place to another and waste precious time driving or searching for a specific location;
-The weather in Iceland can be a difficult thing to deal with if you have never been here;
-You might need extra time to research things on-site to find a place or information about Iceland;
-It can be more expensive to book a car and accommodation separately.
In a nutshell, those are the aspects to consider when thinking about travelling to Iceland.
The decision is yours regarding how you want to travel within Iceland and what suits your wishes better.
Remember that Iceland is unique and different in many aspects, and you need to inform yourself better before coming here.
If you have decided already to let a travel agency deal with everything for you, check our website and tours. Make your trip memorable with us!
