Walking and Trekking in Iceland

Turns out there are lots of opportunities for walking, hiking, and trekking in Iceland. This Cicerone "Walking and Trekking Iceland" book has lots of information. The reader, depending on their experience on the ground in Iceland, may have to take an active part in figuring out what he or she can use.The guide divides Iceland into geographic areas, and apportions the text on that basis. The newcomer to Iceland may have to work with a larger scale map in one hand in order to understand where hikes are located in relation to roads and towns. The actual trail descriptions vary in their level of detail; being an alert traveler and asking questions of the locals is strongly implied.The book has a very informative introduction to Iceland that should be of interest to any visitor planning to operate outside Reykjavik. It includes a nice selection of color photographs that provide a sense of the terrain, some of which is quite spectacular, and potentially dangerous for the unwary. For those possessed of the physical resources for multi-day treks, this book may have exactly what you need. Otherwise, recommended as a decent starter planning resource.

I build my entire backpacking trip to Iceland based on this book and had wonderful trip with no surprises. Everyone going to backpacking or tracking in Iceland needs to read it.

Having just returned from Iceland, I think I first have to confess that I used this book very little. However, that isn't too say that I didn't do a fair amount of hiking. Indeed, in my 12 days on the island I hiked 8 of them for what probably averaged out to around 6-8 miles per day.So why didn't I use the book? Mainly because it inundates the reader/user with details that aren't especially useful or helpful and is geared towards those who are venturing to Iceland for very specific multiple day hiking trips.Breaking it down a little, the hikes generally provide rather colorful turn-by-turn-style directions that sound something like this (paraphrasing): "Hike for about a mile on the winding crushed volcanic stone path, passing two open fields usually occupied with sheep behind a wire fence. After the small barn the path will become steeper until you reach the first grove of shrubs, then turning left into a series of hills." At first glance this level of detail seems very impressive, but unless one is actually holding and reading the book while actually on the hike (or has a photographic memory), it's simply not helpful. Moreover, typically absent are points such as elevation gain per mile, how to access the trail head, how weather conditions affect the quality of the trail, appropriate pacing for sections of a hike, etc. Indeed, the author himself provides insight into his writing process and tells us that he writes his reviews more or less in real time by carrying an iPad with him in order to provide his every observation and make us feel as if we were there, but in reality he does so at the expense of the truly useful information mentioned above.The second issue I had with the book was the manner in which each hike/series of hikes was compartmentalized. For many areas of the country, the author has listed a handful of longer, multi-day backpacking trip broken into daily lengths. For example, one "hike" may be 55 miles long in total, broken into 8-ish mile portions over 7 days. Sometimes sections of these hikes can be done individually, but more often they are linear (i.e. you start one place and end up 50-something miles away in need of a ride), meaning that unless you intend to do the whole 50-ish mile path, it is very hard to use the information provided. Likewise, because of the focus on these long hikes, very few day hikes are included. Indeed, for a country as vast and replete with trails as Iceland, this 300+ page book provides maybe 40 total hikes, with large sections of the country skipped entirely as though no hiking opportunities (short or long) existed in the area at all.Add to these issues shortcomings such as poor overall organization and maps lacking useful levels of detail (or even recommendations on where to find well-scaled maps of the area) and one is left with a rather frustrating volume of hard to access trails and lackluster information about said trails.For me personally, I think the money is better spent on a subscription to something like AllTrails.com, which amazingly has almost every trail in the country marked, often with users who have recorded their own hikes in the area giving useful directions, advice, and even providing photos. Essentially, all one has to do is zoom in on an area of Iceland that looks interesting or search for hikes in the area and the website provides access to detailed topographic and/or satellite maps with well-marked paths and lengths of various loops/sections already marked in miles. In comparison, this is vastly more helpful and expansive in its options and access to Iceland's true bounty of hiking trails.Bottom line: unless you want a smattering of information on a collection of multi-day backpacking "hikes," your money and effort are better spent elsewhere.

We have not used the book yet (trip is August 2016) but I have a lot of hiking guide books and this one has great detail, good maps and is made of quality materials. Can't wait to use it!

Um... just ok. I will say we car camped around Iceland. Expecting to do the "walking" trails. Most of the trails we could do in a day were in the Rough Guide or Lonely Planet or park maps. I guess I was expecting "something everyone else wasn't on" or loops... So we really didn't need this at all. It might be good for multiday "backpacking" in Iceland.

This book is intended for people who travel around Iceland by bus (and the busses there are pretty nice). However, I drove a 4x4 around the country and found most of the hikes completely useless because they were one-way (from one town to another). It would have been nice if the author had provided turnaround points for those who always wanted to return to the starting point.

Detailed guide to leve the adventure!

Good book.

It describes walks that are many 10s of miles over many days. I was looking for something describing circular day walks. May be a good book for some but not for me.

I'm not sure of the purpose of this book as the descriptions and maps aren't really clear enough to be used for following a walk. In Iceland all the routes we tried from the book were already way marked with coloured posts so really the book was superfluous We found that the national park tourist boards had brochures you could buy and those were better because they showed all of the walks in the area whereas this book maybe described one or two.

A good basic guide of walks in various areas of Iceland, but as mentioned in other reviews the maps in the book are not really good enough to safely walk some of the routes. It's a good idea to get a detailed map of the area you are going to, which as far as I am aware are only really available in the book stores in Reykjavik. The thing is once you have decided where you are going and got the local map this guide book sort of becomes obsolete. With a detailed local area map there are lots more routes that are of interest including the ones in the guide book.

Used it to get around the sneffels peninsula, enjoyable but tough four days trekking self supported, a good cross of holding your hand with information and leaving out enough of it to be a real challenge to the body and mind. A great trip and as expected, purchase detailed map of the area you are visiting to cross reference with the book.

As expected good walking guide to Iceland