The first all-women group I ever guided was 12 days of hiking, horseback riding, and kayaking with women from a different continent than mine. I laughed so hard I lost my voice by day 3. None of us had met before that trip, and most of us are still in touch more than a decade later.
That trip is the entire reason my company exists. I’ve spent 12 years since then guiding women through the Icelandic Highlands, and I’ve learned something in that time that surprises almost nobody once they’ve experienced it firsthand. Women move differently together, especially out here, away from phone signals and paved roads.
A girls trip to Iceland through the Highlands isn’t just scenery, even though the scenery is genuinely unreal. It’s a specific kind of chemistry I’ve watched happen again and again, between women who’d never met before their flight landed. I’ll walk you through exactly what that looks like, trail by trail.
What makes a girls trip to Iceland different
I think it comes down to how fast women get each other out here. Complete strangers, different countries, different lives, and within a day they’re finishing each other’s sentences. We talk about the pay gap, about being mothers or not, about what we actually want next.
Nature plays a part too. Up in the Highlands, dealing with wind, huts, and long uphill stretches, something happens between women that I don’t see the same way in a mixed group. There’s a kind of force to it, something primal about women and this landscape.
Why women choose an all-women group
A woman choosing a women-only tour has usually already decided how she wants to spend her time and energy. In almost every group I guide, at least 1 woman is going through some kind of chapter change. A big birthday, a partner who passed away, kids who’ve moved out.
Everyone’s doing it for herself, but there’s almost always someone mid-transition, and the group holds her without anyone having to ask.
How long is the Laugavegur Trail
I hiked the trail everyone starts with at 20, with 2 friends, a tent, and a few energy bars, because one of them said, “let’s just bring a tent, we’ll be fine.” My boots were from when I was 12, my sweater was my dad’s, and I had zero idea what I was doing.
The Laugavegur hiking trail runs 55 km (34 mi) through the Fjallabak Nature Reserve, which means “behind the mountains.” It starts near Landmannalaugar, “the pools of the people,” and ends in Þórsmörk, and it’s the backbone of nearly every girls trip to Iceland I run. Most people hike it over 3 to 4 days, and with 2 more days in Þórsmörk, the full tour runs 6 days total.
What the trail actually feels like
One of my favorite spots comes descending from a mountain called Jökultungur, where you look out over Swan Lake, known locally as Álftavatn. Once you reach the hut there, you’re roughly halfway. The terrain shifts constantly, from black volcanic desert to moss so green it looks painted on, to glacial rivers you cross on foot.
That contrast is most of why people plan a girls trip to Iceland instead of just adding Iceland to a bigger European itinerary.
Where are the Highlands in Iceland
Iceland Highlands hiking asks something different of you than a day hike near Reykjavík. The Highlands sit in the interior of the island, away from the coastal ring road most visitors drive, and they’re largely inaccessible outside summer. You leave paved roads and phone signal behind, both at once, and step into the place where I’m happiest.
Every girls trip to Iceland I guide includes 2 nights in Þórsmörk, which I call my second home. It has lush green valleys, glaciers close enough to see clearly, and 3 hut areas for every level of hiker. The summer nights there are something I look forward to every season.
Moss, and why we protect it
Iceland has 606 recorded species of moss, covering enormous stretches of the Highlands. If you tear it up by hand, it takes around 70 years to grow back, which is why I ask every woman on a girls trip to Iceland with me to respect it.
What does Thorsmork mean
Thorsmork Iceland, written Þórsmörk in Icelandic, means Thor’s forest, named for the Norse god. It sits between 3 glaciers and marks the southern end of the Laugavegur Trail, and I call it my second home. After days of black desert and exposed ridgeline, walking into its green valleys feels like the landscape softening on purpose.
It’s also where I met Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Iceland’s first elected female president and a role model to Icelandic women everywhere.
I was finishing my last Laugavegur hike with the company I worked for before starting my own. She was in the hut having coffee with her daughter, and I offered to take their photo. Her daughter asked what I was doing next, and I told her I wanted to build the exact kind of girls trip to Iceland I’d guided a few years earlier.
Vigdís took my arm and said, “You should do it. Start your own thing. Be your own boss.” When the president of Iceland tells you that, you listen.
How to transfer from Reykjavik to Thorsmork
If you’re not hiking in from Landmannalaugar, the standard way to reach Þórsmörk is by highland bus from Reykjavík, since the F-roads crossing glacial rivers require a specialized highland vehicle. On my tours, luggage travels separately in one of these modified 4x4s with oversized tires, while we hike with daypacks.
How to plan a multi-day trip through the Highlands
Iceland hut to hut hiking means you’re not carrying camping gear for 6 days straight. You walk with a daypack, sleep in a staffed hut or nearby tent, and wake up to do it again. A guide handles the routing, the river crossings, and the weather calls, which is what makes a guided girls trip to Iceland feel manageable rather than like an expedition.
What a typical day looks like
We usually hike 6 to 8 hours a day, covering 10 to 18 km (6 to 11 mi) depending on the section. Mountaineering experience isn’t required for a girls trip to Iceland like this one. What you do need is decent endurance, layers, and a willingness to keep walking when the weather changes on you, because it will.
The logistics nobody asks about until they’re already there
An Iceland highlands tour only runs during a short window, late June through early September, when the mountain roads open and the huts are staffed. Timing your girls trip to Iceland around this window matters more than almost anything else you’ll plan. July and August give you the most stable weather and the greenest valleys, which is why most groups book those months first.
June still feels wild and half-thawed, with snow lingering on higher sections. September brings sharper light and thinner crowds, with just enough chill to remind you summer is ending.
Outside that window, the Highlands are essentially closed. The F-roads flood, the huts shut down, and the interior becomes off-limits without serious winter equipment.
Don’t overthink whether you’re “fit enough”
I always tell women who aren’t sure they’re “hikers” the same thing: don’t overthink it. Iceland has waterfalls, geothermal valleys, volcanoes, and the midnight sun, and standing behind a waterfall counts as much as summiting a ridge. Nature does something good for you here whether you’re covering 18 km (11 mi) a day or 2.
Most of the women I guide aren’t athletes. They’re just willing to keep walking, layer up when it rains, and trust the process even when the trail gets hard.
The Fimmvörðuháls story I still get goosebumps telling
My very first all-women hiking trip was all Icelandic women: my sister, my partner, my friends, and a few locals who’d simply booked the tour. We hiked the Fimmvörðuháls Trail, a 25 km (16 mi) route from Skógafoss to Þórsmörk, in early June, which is not really the season for it. I told everyone it would be fine, believing people hiked it in early June all the time.
There was still a lot of snow on the pass, and the trail took far longer than expected. It took us 12 hours to reach the hut, and by the end we were soaked and half-frozen, though nobody complained.
The next day we read that search and rescue had pulled several hikers off that exact same trail. We were sitting in the hut with a barbecue and some beers when the news came through, and the whole group started cheering. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.
Why I still tell that story to every new group
That trip captures something true about hiking with women in this landscape, which is that we push through together in a way that surprises even us. Nobody in that group was an elite athlete, we were just stubborn, a little underprepared, and completely unwilling to turn back on each other.
Why the group takes care of you so fast
Iceland solo female travel is one of the most common reasons women end up on my tours in the first place, and it’s a big part of why a girls trip to Iceland doesn’t have to mean traveling with a friend already. You don’t need to know anyone before you land, and most women don’t.
I’ve watched strangers become close within 48 hours of meeting on the bus to Landmannalaugar.
Some women plan reunion trips together afterward. Others just check in when 1 of them is going through something hard, because that’s what the trip taught them to do.
There’s a particular relief on a solo woman’s face around day 2, once she realizes nobody is judging her pace or her gear. That relief is most of what I’m selling, if I’m honest.
The idea behind hiring only women guides
Women-only group travel is, for me, both a philosophy and a business model that clearly works, and it’s the reason my tours look different from a standard trip. I tell every guide I hire the same thing: bring me your ideas. One guide pitched an entire tour concept with a full itinerary, and I told her to run with it.
Another guide came to me because she’s a knitter, and now we run a tour that mixes hikes and waterfalls with Icelandic wool and craft traditions. Iceland is known for its wool sweaters, and that tour gives craft lovers a way into the country I hadn’t offered before.
Options beyond the Laugavegur
A women only Iceland tour doesn’t have to mean 6 days of hiking, and not every girls trip to Iceland I run looks the same. I built out sightseeing tours, a Ring Road loop with smaller day hikes woven in, and a wellness tour that mixes hiking with lagoons, yoga, and healthy meals for women who love the landscape but aren’t necessarily hikers. If I have an idea, I try it, and some ideas stick while others quietly disappear.
The wellness tour came from a simple observation: not every woman who loves Iceland wants 6 days on her feet. I’d rather build 5 different trips than force everyone into the same 1.
What I’m watching for this year
Female only travel groups have a lot going on this summer. We’re running a Greenland trip, and I’ve spent 2 years planning a solar eclipse tour, since Iceland gets its first total solar eclipse since the 1950s this August. It won’t happen here again for roughly 100 years, and the 6-day itinerary ends with the group watching totality from the Reykjanes Peninsula, which still feels a little unreal to plan around.
What being a Viking woman actually means to me
When I think about a Viking woman, I think back to the old settlement days, when women had more independence and voice than people usually assume. Some fought in battles, and all of them had a real say in their communities. I think we all carry some version of that strength, waiting to be found.
Looking back at the 20-year-old me, standing at the start of the Laugavegur Trail in my dad’s sweater and my mom’s hiking poles, gives me real pride. There was no plan, and I just stayed with it, even when it got hard, and it did get hard more than once. That version of me used to look up to every guide who seemed to have it figured out, and now I’m the one other women look up to.
I think about that most days on the trail. If you’re weighing whether a girls trip to Iceland is worth the flight, the gear, and the leap of trust it takes to hike with strangers, I’d tell you what I told myself at 20: don’t overthink it, just go. The women who show up unsure of themselves are, almost without exception, the ones who leave the Highlands walking taller.
I’ve watched it happen on the Laugavegur, in Þórsmörk, on the Fimmvörðuháls, and in every hut in between, enough times now that I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Something about this landscape, and about doing it alongside other women, gets past whatever doubt you walked in with. I still get emails from women I guided years ago, telling me they went home and made a change they’d been putting off, whether that meant leaving a job or starting something entirely new.
I can’t take credit for that, but the mountains probably had something to do with it. You’ll likely feel it too, the moment you’re standing on a ridge with a group of women who were strangers 3 days ago and now feel like family. That’s the whole reason I still do this, 12 years in, and it’s the reason I think you should come find out for yourself.
I’ve told you the stories. Now come find your own out there.
