Our top pickMost booked
40 minNew Volcanic Area
★ 4.8 · 569 reviews
- 40 minutes, this new volcanic area
- Helicopter flight from Reykjavik
- Cheapest here
- Free cancellation
$528
Check availability→ 
Reykjavik helicopter tours
Reykjavik helicopter tours bring travellers close to volcanic craters and glacier landings. Compare 7 flights from $528 with free cancellation; the top pick, New Volcanic Area, rates 4.8 from 569 reviews. From above, the Reykjanes Peninsula opens into wide lava fields and steaming vents.
Flights run year-round · free cancellation up to 24 hours
From, per person
6 tours compared$528
Today's lowest price across all 7 flights
Average rating
6 rated flights48
787 verified reviews across 6 flights
Time in the air
Shortest to longest35–180min
Shortest: Fagradalsfjall Eruption
Longest: Landmannalaugar
Free cancellation
Reserve now, pay later
Verified reviews
Secure payment
Instant confirmation
Mobile voucher
Choose your flight
Every Reykjavik helicopter tour
Six tours leave the same corner of Reykjavik and go to six different places. Every price is per person, and every one of them can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before.
ShortestEruption site
35 minFagradalsfjall Eruption
★ 5.0 · 5 reviews
- 35 minutes
- Mobile voucher accepted
- Instant confirmation
- Free cancellation
$554
Check availability→ 
One landingGeothermal
1hHengill with Landing
★ 4.4 · 12 reviews
- One hour, above lava-covered fields
- Landing in Hengill’s geothermal area
- Named after the Hengill volcano
- Free cancellation
$578
Check availability→ 
Best all-rounderTwo landings
2hFire and Ice, 2 Landings
★ 4.8 · 155 reviews
- Two hours, landings on a glacier
- Landings at Hengill Geothermal Area
- Helicopter tour in Iceland
- Free cancellation
$910
Check availability→ 
Half dayTwo activities
5–6hATV & Helicopter
★ 4.8 · 39 reviews
- 5 to 6 hours, from the ground and the sky
- Quad bike and helicopter combo
- Longest tour here
- Free cancellation
$545
Check availability→ 
HighlandsThree landings
3hLandmannalaugar, 3 Landings
★ 4.8 · 7 reviews
- Three hours
- Þingvellir National Park and Geysir
- Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss
- Free cancellation
$1,635
Check availability→ Still deciding?
Which tour is yours?
These six are not longer and shorter versions of one flight. They go to different places and only two of them land. Pick what matters most and we will point at one.
See it before you pay for it
What you actually see up there
The skids lift off an apron in the middle of Reykjavik and inside four minutes the city is behind you. Then the ground turns black. Reykjanes is a peninsula of lava with almost nothing growing on it, and from 1,500 feet the flows read like poured metal that stopped mid-pour. The craters of Fagradalsfjall sit in the middle of it — a row of cones with a road of hardened lava running away from them. On a clear run you get Esja to the north, the Blue Lagoon steaming to the south-west, and Reykjavik itself laid out along the bay on the way home.
Side by side
No landing, one landing or two
The three tours most people choose between. They leave from the same place in the same aircraft. What changes is whether you get out of it, and how many times.
Swipe the table sideways →
| New Volcanic Area | TOP PICKFire and Ice | Hengill | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per person | $528 | $910 | $578 |
| Door to door | 40 min | 2 hrs | 1 hr |
| Landings | None | Two | One |
| Cost per minute | $13.20 | $7.58 | $9.63 |
| Volcanic craters | Yes, the main reason to book it | Yes, on the way out | From the air only |
| Glacier | No | Yes, with a landing | No |
| Geothermal field | No | Yes, with a landing | Yes, with a landing |
| Time on the ground | None | Roughly 20 min in total | Around 10 min |
| Rating | 4.8 · 569 | 4.8 · 155 | 4.4 · 12 |
| Best for | First flight, tightest budget | Most visitors, one trip only | Short on time, still want to land |
| Check dates | Book this one→ | Check dates |
TOP PICK
Fire and Ice
$910- Two hours door to door
- Glacier landing and geothermal landing
- Craters on the way out
- 4.8 · 155 reviews
New Volcanic Area
$528- Forty minutes, no landing
- Reykjanes lava fields and craters
- Cheapest seat on this page
- 4.8 · 569 reviews
Hengill
$578- One hour door to door
- Lands on a geothermal ridge
- The quickest way to stand on one
- 4.4 · 12 reviews
Cost per minute counts time in the air, not the ground stops. On the two tours that land, the ground time is most of what you are paying for.
Two-minute check
Which tour fits the day you have?
Three things decide this: how much of the day you can give it, whether you want to get out of the aircraft, and how many days you have left in Iceland if the weather closes in. Answer three questions and we will name one tour.
How much of the day can you give it?Door to door, including check-in and the safety brief
Do you want to land somewhere?Only three of the six put the skids down away from the airport
How many days are you in Iceland?Flights are weather-dependent and get rescheduled
Answer the three questions above
You will get one named tour, what it costs, and the one thing about your answers that is worth knowing before you pay.
What travellers say
787 reviews across six tours
Every rating and review count on this page is the operator’s live figure.
4.8
★★★★★
Based on 787
verified reviews
5 ★87%
4 ★9%
3 ★2%
2 ★1%
1 ★1%
All six Reykjavik helicopter tours, rated on GetYourGuide.
Read all 787→🚁
Helicopter, no landing
From $528 · 40 minutes
★★★★★
The benchmark everything else is measured against
Forty minutes gets you the whole Reykjanes system — the 2021–2023 flows, the Fagradalsfjall cones, and the older fields they poured over. Nothing on the ground shows you the shape of it, because the shape only exists from above.
🏔
Helicopter with landings
From $578 · 1–3 hours
★★★★★
The only way to stand somewhere you cannot drive to
Three of the six land: Hengill on a geothermal ridge, Fire and Ice on a glacier as well, Landmannalaugar three times on a route across the south. The extra money buys ground time, and on a still day the silence up there is the part people describe afterwards.
🚶
Hiking to the crater
Free · 7–9 km round trip, 3–5 hours
★★★★
Cheap, close, and completely at the mercy of the weather
Marked trails run to the Fagradalsfjall craters from the Sudurstrandarvegur car parks. You get scale and texture that no flight gives you. You also get wind, fog and a path that is sometimes closed on safety grounds — check before you drive out.
💧
The Blue Lagoon
From about $70 · 2–3 hours
★★★★
The lava field experience most people actually book
It sits in the middle of the same lava that the flights cross, and on the southern leg you fly right over it. As a way of understanding Reykjanes it is thin; as an afternoon it is hard to beat, and the two go together well.
🚗
Driving Reykjanes yourself
Free · a half day with a rental car
★★★★
The honest budget answer, and it gets you further than you think
Route 425 runs the length of the peninsula past Gunnuhver, Bridge Between Continents and the Reykjanesviti lighthouse. It costs nothing but fuel. What it cannot do is show you the craters as a system rather than a series of car parks.
✈
A fixed-wing sightseeing flight
From about $200 · 1 hour
★★★☆☆
Cheaper per hour, and much further from the ground
Small planes fly the same region for noticeably less. They also fly higher, faster and cannot hover, land or turn tightly over a crater. If the point is to see the volcanic ground closely, the aircraft type is the decision, not the price.
What it really costs
There is no cheaper door
These flights are operated out of Reykjavik by a small number of helicopter companies — GlacierHeli among them. The seat price is the same wherever you buy it. What changes is whether a seat is still free on the morning you want, and how easily you can move it when the weather turns.
Swipe sideways →
| Where you book | Price | Risk | Cancellation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online in advance | $528–$1,635 | None — your seat is held | Free up to 24 hours |
| Hotel desk in Reykjavik | Same price, no discount | Only what is unsold that day | Desk policy, usually stricter |
| Turning up at the airport | Same price | High — these aircraft seat four to six | None once boarded |
Costs the listing doesn't show you
- Getting to the departure point. Flights leave from Reykjavik Domestic Airport, a fifteen-minute walk or a short taxi from the centre. No transfer is included on any of these tours.
- The weather day you lose. Flights are cancelled and rescheduled routinely. If you have one free day, that day is the cost.
- Prices are set in euros. Everything on this page is converted for readability; you pay in the operator's currency and your card adds its own spread.
- Tips. Not expected in Iceland. Ignore anyone who suggests otherwise.
What is genuinely included
- Safety briefing and headsets with live pilot commentary
- Small aircraft — four to six seats, and a window each
- Landings where the tour says there are landings, weather allowing
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure
- Full refund or a new slot if the operator cancels for weather
The honest answer
Is a Reykjavik helicopter tour worth it?
Yes, for one specific reason. From the ground, a lava field is a black surface you walk across. From a thousand feet it is a river — you can see where it came from, which way it ran, what it went around and where it stopped. That reading of the landscape is the entire product, and no road on Reykjanes gives it to you.
What makes it worth it
- The lava flows only make sense as shapes from above
- The Fagradalsfjall craters sit in terrain with no road to them
- Three of the six tours land where you cannot drive or easily walk
- Small aircraft, few passengers, a window each
- Fifteen minutes from the centre of a capital city to open lava
Keep in mind
- This is expensive — $528 is the cheapest seat on this page
- Nobody can promise visible lava; eruptions start and stop on their own
- Weather cancels flights here more often than most destinations
- Low cloud can mean you fly the coast instead of the craters
- Iceland has cheaper fixed-wing sightseeing if closeness is not the point
How the two hours run
City centre to a glacier and back
Check in at Reykjavik Domestic Airport
Fifteen minutes on foot from the centre, or a short taxi. Arrive twenty minutes before the slot.
Safety briefing and weigh-in
Everyone is weighed — seats are assigned by weight so the aircraft balances.
Lift off over the bay
Four to six passengers, headsets on. The city is behind you inside four minutes.
The Reykjanes lava fields
Black flows in every direction, then the Fagradalsfjall cones with the hardened lava road running away from them.
First landing — glacier ice
Skids down, engine idling, and about ten minutes to stand on it.
Second landing — Hengill
Steam venting out of the ground beside you, close enough to feel the warmth.
Back on the apron
Dropped where you started, in the middle of the city.
Best time of day
The first slot of the morning
Iceland's wind usually builds through the day, and the first departure is the one least likely to be cancelled or cut short. In summer the light stays low and long into the evening, which makes the last slot the photographer's choice instead — but it is also the first to go when the forecast turns.
On the route
What you actually see
Lava, as a river
On foot it is a black surface. From a thousand feet you can see where it came from, what it went around, and where it stopped.
The Fagradalsfjall cones
The vents that fed the 2021 to 2023 flows. There is no road to them and the walk takes hours.
Hengill, steaming
Ground hot enough to vent. Two of the six tours put the skids down beside it.
Reykjavik on the way home
A capital of 140,000 people with open lava fifteen minutes away in one direction and a glacier in the other.
What it's like
Forty minutes over the Reykjanes Peninsula
The part nobody prepares you for is how quickly the city goes. Reykjavik Domestic Airport sits almost in the middle of town — you can walk to it from the cathedral — and about four minutes after the skids leave the apron there is nothing underneath you but black rock.
Inside the headset it is quiet and conversational. The rotors are loud on the ground, then the intercom opens and the pilot's voice arrives clean and close, naming things as they pass. Most of what he names is younger than you are.
Reykjanes is the reason this flight exists. It is a peninsula made almost entirely of lava, some of it centuries old and grey-green with moss, some of it from 2021, 2022 and 2023 and still raw black. From the ground those look like the same rough surface. From the air they are completely different animals: you can see the direction each flow ran, the older field it poured over, the exact line where it cooled and stopped.
The craters come about halfway out. Fagradalsfjall is a row of cones sitting in a bowl of hills with a hardened lava road running out of it towards the sea. The pilot will usually circle so both sides of the aircraft get the shot, and this is the point in the flight where people stop talking.
Whether there is anything glowing down there is not something anyone can promise you, and the operator says so in the listing. Eruptions here start and stop on their own schedule. What is guaranteed is the ground they left behind, which is remarkable enough on a grey day.
The way back runs up the coast with the Blue Lagoon steaming off to one side and Esja growing on the horizon, and then Reykjavik appears, small and low and colourful along the edge of the bay. You land where you started, in the middle of a capital city, about forty minutes after you left it.
While you're in Reykjavik
The other three things people book here
The flight takes between forty minutes and half a day. These are what travellers most often put around it.
Before you go
Plan your flight
Weather decides everything
Every one of these tours is weather-dependent, and the operators say so in writing. Wind, cloud base and visibility all have hard limits, and the pilot's call is final.
Book early in your trip
If a flight is cancelled you want somewhere to move it to. The single most common regret here is booking it for the last afternoon.
The first slot is the safest
Wind generally builds through the day. The earliest departure is the one least likely to be cancelled or shortened.
Low cloud changes the route
If the cloud base is down, the pilot may fly the coast instead of the crater field. You still fly; you see something else.
What to wear
The tours that land put you out on ice or open ground in Icelandic wind. A windproof layer and proper shoes, even in July.
Daylight in winter
In December the usable window is roughly 11:00 to 15:30. Slots are fewer and they go quickly.
Everyone gets weighed
Seats are assigned by weight so the aircraft balances. It takes seconds, and it is why you cannot pick your own seat.
Heavier passengers
Operators here set their own limits and sometimes charge for an extra seat. Ask when you book, not at the check-in desk.
Children
Minimum ages and lap-infant rules differ between operators and between tours. Confirm before paying rather than after.
Motion sickness
Thirty-five minutes to three hours, and helicopters are steadier than small planes. Mid-afternoon is the bumpiest air.
Nervous flyers
The pilot talks continuously through the headset, which most anxious passengers say is the thing that helped.
Photography
Take polarised sunglasses off before shooting through the window — they put rainbow banding across every frame.
How far ahead
These aircraft carry four to six people. In summer book a week out; in winter two or three days is usually enough.
Free cancellation
All six tours cancel free up to 24 hours before departure. After that the seat is charged.
If they cancel
A weather cancellation by the operator gets a full refund or a free reschedule. This happens often enough to plan around.
Reserve now, pay later
You can hold a seat without paying today, which is useful while the rest of an Iceland itinerary is still moving.
Mobile voucher
No printing needed. Save it offline before you leave the hotel wifi.
Prices are in euros
Operators price in euros or krona. Everything here is converted for comparison; your card will add its own spread.
Reykjavik Domestic Airport
Not Keflavik. It sits inside the city, about fifteen minutes on foot from the cathedral or a very short taxi.
No transfer included
None of these tours include hotel pickup. Budget for a taxi each way if you are not walking.
Find the right building
Operators work out of separate FBO buildings on the apron, not the passenger terminal. The voucher names yours.
Arrive twenty minutes early
Check-in, briefing and the weigh-in all happen before the slot time, not during it.
From Keflavik
The airport bus takes about 45 minutes into the city. Do not book a flight for the morning you land.
Landmannalaugar departures
The Landmannalaugar tour is longer because of the distance it covers, not because it hovers more. Read the meeting point carefully.
Best time
When to fly
These tours run all year. What changes is how likely you are to actually get in the air, and what the light does when you do.
Jun – Aug
The reliable window
Long daylight, the calmest air of the year and the highest chance your slot actually flies. Also when it sells out.
May & Sep
The value shoulder
Still long days, noticeably fewer people, and low sun for most of the flight. The best trade on this page.
Oct – Nov
Turning
Weather gets unsettled and cancellations climb. Snow starts to pick out the crater rims, which photographs well.
Dec – Mar
Short days, big odds
Four to five usable daylight hours and frequent cancellations — but snow on black lava is the best view of the year.
Worth knowing
Six things that aren't in the listing
01
Nobody can promise you lava. The operator states this in writing. Book for the ground the eruptions left, and treat anything glowing as a bonus.
02
Flights leave from Reykjavik Domestic Airport, not Keflavik. People get this wrong, and it is a 45-minute mistake.
03
Only three of the six land. The extra money on those tours buys ground time, not more time in the air.
04
Take polarised sunglasses off before shooting through the window, or every frame comes back with rainbow banding.
05
No transfer is included on any of these. Budget a taxi each way, or walk — it is genuinely close.
06
Book it for your first free morning, not your last afternoon. Cancellations here are normal, and you want a second chance.
Round out the trip
Booked alongside
Go deeper
More on flying in Iceland
Common questions
Reykjavik helicopter tours, answered
How much is a helicopter tour from Reykjavik?
The cheapest seat is $528 for the forty-minute New Volcanic Area flight, which does not land. Tours that land start at $578 for the one-hour Hengill trip and run to $910 for the two-hour Fire and Ice tour with a glacier landing. The three-hour Landmannalaugar tour with three landings is $1,635. Prices are per person and no transfer is included.
Will I see actual lava?
Nobody can promise that, and the operator says so in the listing. Eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula start and stop on their own schedule, and there may be no visible lava on the day you fly. What every flight does show you is the ground the recent eruptions left behind — the craters, the flow fields and the line where the lava stopped — which is the reason the tour exists.
Where do Reykjavik helicopter tours depart from?
From Reykjavik Domestic Airport, inside the city — not Keflavik International. It is roughly a fifteen-minute walk from the cathedral or a very short taxi. Operators work from separate buildings on the apron rather than the passenger terminal, and your voucher names the right one. None of these tours include hotel pickup.
Which Reykjavik helicopter tour is best?
For most visitors, the two-hour Fire and Ice tour, because it is the only one that lands on both a glacier and a geothermal field in the same trip and still covers the volcanic area on the way out. If you only want to see the craters and the budget matters, the forty-minute New Volcanic Area flight is the cheapest way up. Landmannalaugar is the outlier — three hours across the south of the country, three landings, and roughly three times the price.
What happens if the flight is cancelled for weather?
You get a full refund or a free reschedule. This happens more often in Iceland than in most destinations, which is why the flight belongs early in your trip rather than on the last afternoon — a cancellation on day one can be moved to day three, but a cancellation on your final day is just a refund.
How long is a helicopter tour from Reykjavik?
Between thirty-five minutes and six hours depending on the tour. The eruption-site flight is thirty-five minutes, the New Volcanic Area tour forty, Hengill about an hour door to door, Fire and Ice two hours, Landmannalaugar three, and the combined ATV and helicopter package fills five to six.
Do helicopter tours run in winter?
Yes, all year. Winter brings only four to five hours of usable daylight and cancellations become common, so slots are fewer and worth booking further ahead. In exchange, fresh snow on black lava is the most striking version of this landscape, and the low sun lasts all day rather than an hour.
Free · no account needed
Reykjavik in three days — the plan we'd follow
One PDF with a three-day schedule built around the thing nobody plans for: the weather day you lose. Same sources as this page.
- Three days planned so a cancelled flight still has somewhere to go
- What to book ahead, and how far ahead, month by month
- The real cost of a short Iceland trip, including what nobody lists
- Which parts of Reykjanes are worth driving to and which are not
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Why trust this page
How we put this together
Checked, not guessed
Every price, duration, rating and review count on this page was read off the live listing, and is re-checked each quarter.
How we pick
We list every helicopter tour sold out of Reykjavik, not a shortlist. Nobody pays to be featured here.
Written for one decision
This page exists to answer one question: which tour to book. If a section did not help with that, we cut it.
What we will not claim
We do not promise visible lava, and we say so wherever the subject comes up. Eruptions are not a scheduled attraction.
The answer
Two hours and two landings
Fire and Ice is the only tour that covers the volcanic area, lands on a glacier and lands on a geothermal field in one trip. If you fly once in Iceland, this is the one.
Check dates and availability→ Free cancellation up to 24 hours · Reserve now, pay later