Visiting Iceland During and After the Covid Pandemic
You’re here because you’re considering a trip to Iceland. You have an exciting, thrilling adventure ahead of you, but it’s perhaps not as carefree as travel used to be, before COVID-19. As tour operators who create joyful, exciting Iceland Day Tours, it is difficult for us to sometimes take a step back from the more inspirational tourism advice to discuss covid and its impact on travel. However, we want to do anything we can to support people planning to visit our unique island nation, so we decided to create a guide to all-things-covid, hopefully reassuring some readers while also offering enough information to help you plan ahead. If you have any follow-up questions for us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Reassurances About our Iceland Tours
Clean and Safe
Go to Joy Iceland is officially recognised as ‘Clean and safe’ by the Icelandic Tourist Board, according to new rigorous standards set out to ensure guests are kept as safe as possible. We are doing everything we can to ensure your safety.
Fair Cancellation and Rescheduling Policies
Things go wrong all the time and it’s not our guests’ fault. Plans change and sometimes travel is restricted. If you need to cancel, only the 10% confirmation fee from your booking is non-refundable, if you cancel 24 hours before departure. Cancellations received less than 24 hours prior to departure will be charged full price. And If we cancel your tour due to weather conditions or any other circumstances beyond our control you will always receive a full refund, this does not apply to customers that have joined the Northern lights tour.
Vaccination Laws When Visiting Iceland?
You’ll be glad to know that anyone with a valid international vaccine certificate for COVID-19 and a negative PCR or antigen (rapid) test that is no more than 72 hours old won’t need to spend any time in quarantine when they arrive in Iceland. The rules at the time of writing this page require travellers without a certificate to present a negative covid test. They will then have to quarantine for five days, after which, they will be tested again. If the test is negative, your quarantine ends here and you are free to enter Iceland.
This process, while still careful, feels like a great compromise when compared to many other countries who require a full 10-day quarantine, no matter what the circumstances. For more information about border control in Iceland during covid, check out Iceland’s Official Directorate of Health resource.
Take a Covid Test Before You Fly
It is highly recommended that you carry out an official covid test before you fly to Iceland. We stipulate that it needs to be official so that you can present your certificate to the border officials. If you do not get a test ahead of time, you will be required to take a test when you arrive and quarantine for five days. Then, as we said previously, you will then be tested again.
Takeaway: get tested ahead of time, ensure you have a certificate from your test to present when you arrive in Iceland!
If You’ve Had Covid Previously, You May be Exempt from Quarantine
There is more than one way to avoid quarantine when visiting Iceland. Another way is if you have had COVID-19 in the past with a test proving the presence of antibodies. We must advise that there are very specific stipulations here that you can read on the official resource from the Directorate of Health. If you have sufficient evidence of covid antibodies, you won’t have to quarantine, but we highly recommend that you also receive a vaccination to ensure an even easier, hassle-free border crossing.
The Future of Travel in a ‘Post-COVID World’
While COVID-19 in some form or another will likely linger throughout the world, the hope is that it will be like influenza, managed on a yearly basis with vaccinations. Hygiene standards will improve across all levels of the travel and tourism industry, and masks will likely be a common sight, even once they are no longer mandatory.
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