Best Budget Stays in Reykjahlid
Route 1 runs straight through Reykjahlid on Lake Myvatn's shore, and six of the village's stays hold their own on price without sacrificing the location that makes the area worth visiting, from shared-bathroom guesthouses inside the village to a farm resort with its own hot tub. Reykjahlid sits about 95 km from Akureyri, close enough to the geothermal Nature Baths, Dimmuborgir and Hverir that a budget stay here still delivers the full Myvatn experience without paying full hotel rates for a bed that's mostly used for sleeping between day trips. This guide compares the six on what each actually trades away for the lower price.
Budget & guesthouse · Reykjahlíð in numbers
Budget & guesthouseVogafjós Farm Resort
Budget & guesthouseEldá Guesthouse Rooms with private bathroom
Budget & guesthouseVogar Travel Service
Budget & guesthouseEldá Guesthouse
Budget & guesthouseVogahraun 4
Budget & guesthouseHlid Hostel
Shared rooms, unshared scenery
Eldá Guesthouse and Hlid Hostel both sit at the lower end of the price range with shared bathrooms, and both put guests within walking distance or a short drive of Lake Myvatn itself. Eldá Guesthouse is inside Reykjahlid village, a few minutes' walk from the shore, while Hlid Hostel is 500 metres from the lake with standalone timber cottages available for guests who want more privacy than a shared room without paying for a private bathroom. Both properties also give guests a shared kitchen, which cuts real cost off a multi-night stay compared to eating out at the village's limited restaurants every evening.
Vogar Travel Service and Vogahraun 4 both suit budget travellers doing a full Ring Road loop, with Vogar sitting a 3-minute drive from Route 1 itself, ideal for a one-night stopover, and Vogahraun offering ground-floor family rooms and a restaurant with vegetarian and gluten-free options at no extra premium. Both include free parking and a shared or communal kitchen, useful for keeping food costs down over a longer trip around the island, and neither requires a long detour off the main road to reach for a late check-in after a full day of driving elsewhere on the loop.
Eldá Guesthouse Rooms with private bathroom sits a step up from the shared-bathroom original, adding a private bathroom, tea and coffee maker and daily housekeeping for guests who want slightly more comfort without booking a full-service hotel. It still keeps the same village-adjacent location and stays notably cheaper than Fosshotel Mývatn or the Berjaya hotel, making it a reasonable middle ground for budget travellers who don't want to share a bathroom for the whole trip but also don't need a restaurant or bar on site every single evening of a longer stay.
Vogafjós Farm Resort might seem like an outlier on a budget list given its hot tub and farm restaurant, but it consistently prices below the area's full-service hotels while offering genuinely distinctive extras, a working cowshed breakfast and dark, aurora-friendly skies that neither of the pricier lakeside hotels can match. Travellers weighing a strict budget against a memorable stay often find Vogafjós the better value even if it isn't the single cheapest option on this list of six budget-qualifying properties scattered around the lake's northern and eastern shores near the village.
Reykjahlid's small scale works in a budget traveller's favour: even the guesthouses furthest from the village center are still only a few minutes' drive from the lake shore and the main sights, so saving money on the room rarely means losing real time on transfers. The village's mix of shared-bathroom guesthouses and self-catering budget stays reflects a place still built primarily around function rather than tourism polish.