Golden Circle · Iceland
Sólheimasandur Plane Wreck
In 1973 a US Navy Douglas C-117 iced up and came down on the black sand plain at Sólheimasandur. Everyone on board walked away. The fuselage was stripped and left where it lay, and it has been sitting on the sand ever since, on the flattest and emptiest stretch of the South Coast.
I walked it, out and back. Eight kilometres over flat sand with nothing to look at on the way, and the wind comes straight at you because there is nothing to stop it. If the walk is the point for you, do it. If it is not, take the shuttle or skip the whole thing — the wreck is a two out of five either way, and the walk does not make it better.
My rating
Scale 1–5. On Cost, 1 means free and 5 means pricey. On Crowd level, 1 means near-solitude and 5 means tour-bus central.
Two out of five. It is a stripped aluminium shell on a grey-black plain with nothing around it. That emptiness is the whole aesthetic, and whether it works for you depends entirely on whether you find a wreck interesting — the landscape itself gives you nothing.
It is 4 km from the car park to the wreck — each way, so 8 km in total, and 45 to 60 minutes per direction over flat black sand with no shade and no shelter. A shuttle runs roughly every 30 minutes, about 10:00 to 16:30. Checked August 2026.
Parking is 750 ISK through the Parka app. The shuttle is separate and costs somewhere around 3,200 to 3,400 ISK per adult — operators quote different figures, so check before you rely on it. The wreck itself is free. Checked August 2026.
It is one of the best known stops on the South Coast, so there are usually people at the fuselage and often a short wait if you want a photo without anyone in it. The walk does thin the numbers out compared with the roadside stops.
Before you go
Planning your own Ring Road trip?
Iceland Ring Road Campervan Guide
My full 14-day route — roughly 2,500 km, every campsite I used, what I actually spent, and the stops worth the detour. The plan I drove, in one PDF.
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