Golden Circle & South Coast. Private Day Tour

Highly recommend Top Iceland Tours! Sergei is knowledgeable, dependable, and knows all the best stops. I had the pleasure of having the Golden Circle and South Coast tours, enjoyed them so much I’m thinking of going back for the Ring Road tour!

We have traveled all over the world and I can say with confidence that Denis was the best guide we have ever had. His knowledge of the sites and land was excellent but his upbeat and outgoing personality is really what made our 3 tours a 5 star experience. My entire family of 5 loved him and loved the country. I would also add that Denis probably takes the best photos of anyone I know. He always knows the best places to stand and his use of the panoramic lens is often remarkable. I would highly recommend Top Iceland tours to everyone that visits Iceland.

We would recommend this tour specifically for families with kids trying to make the most of a short trip in Iceland, who require a lot of "hand holding". We felt our guide, while informative and kind, was ultimately not the right choice for us as independent, travel-savvy millennials. We assumed our guide would drive us around and explain Icelandic culture etc. in the car and then allow us to explore the individual sights on our own for a set period of time before returning to the car to move to the next destination. Instead, he'd stay with us at the sights, virtually on our hip and did not seem to like when we wanted to separate and explore in different directions at the sights. We felt like we were rushed and babied due to this helicopter hovering, and sometimes it even impeded our ability to take photos and chat privately as friends. The only time we really got to hang out as friends without feeling babysat was when we would go to the bathroom. However, there was an unexpected pleasant surprise stop on the tour - and that was when we visited the very interesting tomato greenhouse where we ate lunch. However, that lunch was not included in the cost of the tour, which surprised us, and we felt it was rude that he made a point of telling us that his specific lunch was free as a tour operator, but ours was not, when we hadn't even known we'd be stopping for a sit-down lunch there in the first place. The other thing that left us scratching our heads was the choice in guide. I believe this was one of the tours that required me to give a birth date at booking, so it made no sense that our selected guide be an older family man driving around two millennial women, while his son, who was about our age, was touring around a bigger family with older kids. The only reason we knew this is because we met up with them at one of the sights, and my friend and I were very surprised. Our guide specifically told us that he took his son's car for us, and his son swapped with him to drive the small touring bus for the family. It just seemed bizarre to not let your son drive his own car with two guests that were his own age. That choice probably would have made for a better experience for everyone. Again, we still think this might be an appropriate choice for families, just not for a millennial friend trip. We had younger, fun tour guides who allowed us to be independent and resonated with us much more for our other Icelandic activities, but this tour was a bit of a downer for us in comparison.