Tour Guide, Reykjavik, Iceland
| 3 mins read
You are here because you are considering a trip to Iceland. You have an exciting, thrilling adventure ahead of you, but it is 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 sometimes to 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 and offering enough information to help you plan.
Vaccination Laws When Visiting Iceland?
You will be glad to know that anyone with a valid international vaccine certificate for COVID-19 will not 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 that 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 Resources.
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 to 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 and ensure you have a certificate from your test to present when you arrive in Iceland!
If You Have 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 particular stipulations here to read on the official resource from the Directorate of Health. If you have sufficient evidence of covid antibodies, you will not be asked 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 every year 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.