Quietest times / Thingvellir
The quietest time to visit Thingvellir — measured
The road past Thingvellir is quietest before 09:00 and again after 20:00, carrying under a third of its 12:00 peak — about 6.5× less traffic than mid-afternoon.
Hour by hour
Average vehicles per hour on the Gjábakki road east out of Þingvellir, through the summer. Icelandic time throughout.
| Hour | Vehicles/hour |
|---|---|
| 06:00 | 7 |
| 07:00 | 21 |
| 08:00 | 47 |
| 09:00 | 104 |
| 10:00 | 189 |
| 11:00 | 290 |
| 12:00 | 304 |
| 13:00 | 292 |
| 14:00 | 283 |
| 15:00 | 263 |
| 16:00 | 232 |
| 17:00 | 201 |
| 18:00 | 158 |
| 19:00 | 108 |
| 20:00 | 71 |
| 21:00 | 49 |
| 22:00 | 31 |
How this was measured, and what it cannot tell you
Vegagerðin counts vehicles every ten minutes at Gjábakki, 5.2 km away, on the Gjábakki road east out of Þingvellir. This page averages 242 days of those counts by hour of day.
What it cannot tell you: how many people are there. A coach is one vehicle and fifty visitors, so a road that is quiet by traffic can still have a full viewing platform. The counter is on the road, not at the site, so it sees everyone driving past — including people going somewhere else entirely. And it describes a normal summer day, not tomorrow: weather and a cruise-ship arrival both beat any average.
Or skip the queue entirely
Step inside Thingvellir — a stop on the Golden Circle.