Last update: March 2024
Let’s talk about how most companies arrange Iceland group tours. (By the way, we only work on Iceland tours!) They ask you a few basic questions: Number of people, how many days, and how fancy you want your accommodations to be.
Then they give you a giant number for the price of your Iceland group trip. This may thousands of dollars per day, or this many tens of thousands for the whole trip. That can be fine for some groups. But not every group is looking for that model.
The better model for Iceland Group Tours
Iceland Step by Step has a different model for group tours in Iceland, and we think it’s better. Here’s what truly makes us different:
- We serve as your travel advisor for your trip. You pay us a flat fee for advice and itinerary planning, not a commission of some mystery amount built into the one large number you see for the total price.
- We work to customize every aspect of your trip. Want to have your group stay in an Airbnb? Great- we’ll send you recommendations that are available for your exact dates. Want to just grab food at a grocery store for lunch before you head off for a hike? Great- we’ll add that to your itinerary.
- I (Eric) can join you as a tour guide for an additional fee, or not. (I can’t drive paying clients in Iceland, but I can arrange for a driver and a vehicle.) If you want a tour guide with you, you know exactly who you’ll get: me!
- We’ll help you build the best itinerary we can for your group. We don’t have a standard itinerary that we start from- we start from a video call with you. Do you want to travel at a slower pace? We can do that. Do you want to spend more time hiking, or visiting museums, or doing tastings at restaurants all around Iceland? We’ll make it happen.
- We work to minimize your cost for every piece of your trip. From a van to a guide to whale watching or glacier tours, you’ll know exactly what everything costs, and you can decide what’s worth spending money on and what isn’t. We don’t just steer you toward whatever option pays us the highest commission. (Most options we choose pay us no commission at all. That’s why you pay us a planning fee.)
- We send each group a goodie bag full of fun and useful things to have before your trip: Power adapters, tourist maps, travel guidebooks, safety information, and even a small amount of Icelandic currency!
- We are a full service travel agency. We can also book a group package on an Iceland cruise, along with custom pre- or post-cruise itineraries. Our custom itineraries for your time before or after the cruise can often save you thousands of dollars or more compared to what the cruise line will charge you. (I can get 10 people to or from the airport for what some cruise lines charge for 1 person.) We can book cruises with any cruise line, though we tend to steer clients toward smaller ship cruises offered by Iceland ProCruises, Windstar, and Hurtigruten.
The cost for our Iceland Group Tours
Here’s one important thing to know about working with us on your Iceland group tour: We can’t quote you an exact cost for the overall trip. Think of us as a wedding planner: We’ll plan everything that needs to be planned, and you’ll pay us a fee for it. Then you pay the actual cost of the wedding / trip.
We can give you some rough estimates of the total cost before you sign up, but those can change. For example, if our favorite driver / guide isn’t available, you may have to pay more.
You’ll pay everything directly. We can make bookings for you, but they all end up on your credit card. This is one of the reasons that the other group tours cost so much: They end up paying for a lot of things up front, and then you pay them back much closer to your trip, along with a hefty fee for letting you “borrow” that money. We keep costs much much lower by having you pay for everything, though I admit it is less convenient!
Our Iceland Group Tour planning fee
Our planning fee starts at $3,000. Here’s the fee based on the length of your trip and the number of people. All fees are payable in any currency. When you sign up, you lock in these prices, even if your trip is in 2025 or 2026.
Iceland planning fee for groups of 9-16 people:
- $3,000 US for a trip up to 7 days. (We don’t count your departure date, so a Saturday to Saturday trip counts as 7 days, not 8.)
- $300 for each additional day.
Iceland planning fee for groups of 17-24 people:
- $5,000 for a trip up to 7 days. (We don’t count your departure date, so a Saturday to Saturday trip counts as 7 days, not 8.)
- $500 for each additional day.
Groups of 25 or more people:
- Contact us for a quote. Prices start at $7,500.
Who’s Planning my Iceland Group Tour?
All of the planning is done by me: Eric. I’m a travel writer and father of 5 kids. In the summer of 2016 my wife and I took all 7 of us to Iceland for the summer. Since then, I’ve:
- Written two travel guide books about Iceland: Iceland With Kids (which I mentioned above) and 100 Tips for Visiting Iceland.
- Created a Driving in Iceland video course to teach tourists how to drive when visiting Iceland. The head of a major car rental company in Iceland said he was “blown away” and that it was the best driving instruction content he had ever seen.
- Written a children’s picture book about puffins in Iceland. Lundi the Lost Puffin recently won a Silver Medal at the Moonbeam Awards for best children’s picture eBook in 2020.
- Started a podcast called Iceland With Kids
- Become a certified Inspired by Iceland Specialist
- Earned a Gold Certification as a fee-based travel expert for Iceland
I focus exclusively on Iceland— I don’t offer tours or advice for any other destination!
How to get started on your Iceland Group Tour
Feel free to e-mail us, or fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch!
