Snæfellsnes is a peninsula in West Iceland. Visit Iceland’s West Iceland page says it packs a glacier, black sand, fishing villages, and a national park into a relatively small area. The Ring Road does not go there. Route 1 runs inland through Borgarfjörður and leaves the peninsula to people who choose the detour.
The national park at the tip
Snæfellsjökull National Park was established in 2001. Visit Iceland says it covers about 170 square kilometers at the western tip of the peninsula, named for the stratovolcano and glacier Snæfellsjökull. The park runs from the coast up to the volcano at 1,446 meters, or 4,750 feet. The article says Snæfellsjökull is one of Iceland’s 32 active volcanic systems and last erupted about 1,800 years ago, with a small icecap on top. Landscapes it names: cliffs at Arnarstapi, including columnar basalt, black and golden beaches, bird cliffs, mossy lava, craters, and lava tubes, plus relics of medieval fishing. Jules Verne used the volcano in Journey to the Center of the Earth. That is a literary fact the tourism page states, not a hiking instruction.
The visitor center at Malarrif has an exhibition. Park rangers can talk through hikes. Visit Iceland says there is no admission fee for the park or the center. Hours were not in the article that was read, so they are not invented here.
The rest of the west, if the peninsula is not the whole day
The West Iceland page also describes the Silver Circle, a separate sightseeing route. It names Hraunfossar and Barnafoss, Deildartunguhver (which it calls Europe’s most powerful hot spring) and the Krauma baths, Reykholt and Snorri Sturluson’s homestead, the lava cave Víðgelmir, Langjökull (Iceland’s second-largest glacier, with a man-made ice tunnel), and the Húsafell canyon bath. Glymur, which it calls the highest waterfall in Iceland, is less than an hour from Reykjavík near Akrafjall and Hvalfjörður. These are West Iceland, not all on Snæfellsnes. Mixing them into one afternoon is how trips become a blur of parking lots.
Djúpalónssandur, on the peninsula, is one of the beaches Visit Iceland’s safety article groups with dangerous sneaker waves. The same care applies as at Reynisfjara: do not turn your back on the sea for a photograph.
West Iceland is close to the capital in hours, not in character. It is still a drive from KEF, after the capital area, in the opposite direction from the south coast. People who only have a day usually pick one of those, not both. The Westfjords are a further, harder region beyond this peninsula, which is why they have their own page.
Sources
- Visit Iceland, West Iceland
- Visit Iceland, Snæfellsjökull National Park
- Visit Iceland, The Ring Road
- Visit Iceland, Safe travel
- Visit Iceland, National parks