What are some places to visit while visiting Iceland?

Here's some must-sees:

* Reykjanesskagi

* Keflavíkurflugvöllur

* BSÍ

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Okay, the above were joke answers ;) Those are the literal must-sees on a trip to Reykjavík.

1) 9 days won't guarantee you the northern lights. But I'll give you a 50-50 odds if you're diligent about checking regularly and spend most of your time in a place that's not usually too cloudy. Could even get really lucky (10% odds) and end up getting a great show.

2) Wow, what a budget for a 9-day trip. Thanks for contributing to our economy like that ;) No need to recommend places to stay on the cheap, you're well set to eat at and stay anywhere except super-luxury places.

3) Definitely rent a car. I could suggest the bottom-end of the rental-market like cheapjeep or sadcars (I prefer the latter), but you have the budget for pretty much anywhere. Note that renting a 4x4 costs about double that of renting a small car.

4) Why definitely rent a car? Because bus service is not too common (average maybe once a day, sometimes not even that) to outside the capitol region except the main capitol-adjacent tourist spots, and there's not a rail line in the whole country.

5) Weather's probably going to be warmer than you're expecting except for in two circumstances: high altitude, and stargazing (northern lights). The former is obvious, and the latter because you're standing perfectly still in the middle of an exposed area not burning any calories. Note that while Reykjavík winters aren't super cool, they're fairly (though not extremely) high precipitation, and they're often very windy. The standard for Iceland is, "layers". If you want to avoid looking like a tourist, don't walk around downtown in a bunch of synthetics like a bright red windbreaker. Wool stuff and fur-lined stuff is popular, esp. black.

6) I really don't even know where to start in terms of recommending places to visit, there's so much. I do recommend spending a couple days in RKV, esp. Thu/Fri/Sat nights, where the party and concert scenes peak (12-6 AM, 3 AM peak, generally centered around the western end of Laugarvegur, most active party music venues Gamli Gaukurinn and Faktory). For more formal events, go to midi.is to see what's going on.

7) Outside of Reykjavík, I recommend searching Google Images for "Iceland Nature", and looking up where your favorite images are and going there ;) Basically, there's lots of detours you can take off the ring road, and do as many of them as you have time for. The driving time on the ring road is about 16 hours, so add to that food, sleep, detours, and actually seeing and doing stuff. Snæfellsnes has the popular-among-mystics Snæfell (also site of Journey to the Center of the Earth), a northern coast dotted with tons of islands, some pretty little towns, and the tallest structure in western Europe (a broadcasting antenna). Vestfirðir is the oldest place in Iceland, full of fjörd after varied fjörd. The roads aren't great (some close for winter altogether, leaving their towns classified as islands), but it's a beautiful memorable place, with landmarks like the largest bird cliff in Europe (látrabjarg) and the beautiful waterfall Dynjandi. The northerland between Vestfirðir and Akureyri has seals and some flatter countryside. Akureyri has the best skiing in Iceland. The area east of Akureyri is my favorite (Góðafoss, Mývatn, Hverfjall, Krafla, Húsavík, Ásbyrgi, Jökulsárgljúfur... look them up on Google Images). In the far northeast is Iceland's only true tundra. Between the north and the east is like the surface of the moon (they trained the Apollo astronauts there). In the east are towns like Egilsstaðir, bordering the forested milky lake Lagarfljot which is Iceland's equivalent of Loch Ness. In the southeast the road gets pinned between Vatnajökull and the ocean and there's some really pretty cliffs. Further south you get to Skaftafell and the famous Jökulsárlón, then the world's largest glacial sand volcanic flood deposit, Skeiðarársandur. Further inland northwest are Eldgjá, site of the world's deadliest volcanic eruption (killed six million people, even directly poisoned to death tens of thousands in the UK) and the famous and beauful geothermal hiking area, Landmannalaugar. Hard to get to in the winter, though. In the far south are some beautiful coastal areas near Vík, including some rocky outcrops like Reynisdrangar and a columnar basalt sea cave (this is the wettest part of Iceland). Just off the road to the north are