Campervanning around Iceland is a TOTAL bucket list experience, offering endless adventures across the country’s dramatic black sand beaches, impossibly green mountains, and endless waterfalls. But choosing a campervan company to rent from can be a daunting task—there are a LOT of options to choose from, each of which have some serious pros and cons.
After doing a TON of research, my husband, Justin, and I wound up choosing to rent from Happy Campers for our two week trip around the Ring Road of Iceland. After cooking, sleeping, and adventuring in our home-on-wheels all over this country, here’s our honest Happy Campers review, including the good, the bad, and the ugly about renting one of their campervans for your Iceland trip.
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About Happy Campers
Opening all the way back in 2009, Happy Campers was the first campervan rental company in Iceland. Accordingly, it’s one of the most popular campervan companies in the country, with over two THOUSAND 5 star reviews!
It’s a small family-run business—I loved that, every time I emailed them with a question about renting from them, an actual human would respond (with thoughtful, helpful responses!) within 24 hours.
Happy Campers currently has five different models. Between their models, they have a TON of different options, ranging from accommodating anywhere from two to five travelers to offering compact, two-wheel drive models and high-clearance four-wheel drive adventure mobiles with engine snorkels.
Based on our experience, I think Happy Campers would be a great fit for lots of different types of people, ranging from solo travelers to families to budget-minded visitors and adventure lovers.
Why we chose Happy Campers
I have always dreamed of exploring Iceland in a campervan. So when the stars aligned for us to actually go on the trip, I literally spent MONTHS researching different campervan companies in Iceland, including their campervan models, pricing, and available features.
There are lots of things that appealed to me about Happy Campers, like its glowing reviews and its commitment to ecofriendliness, but here are the main reasons that actually tipped the scales for us choosing them as our Iceland campervan rental:
1. Happy Campers offers rentals at an affordable pricepoint
Pricing of campervan rentals in Iceland are kind of all over the map (other than ALWAYS being pretty expensive!) and will vary based on when you’re visiting, the type of model you’re getting, and the available discounts.
But, for our particular trip, Happy Campers wound up being the best value, BY FAR, thanks to tons of different discounts that we benefited from, including savings for book early and for reserving a campervan rental for over seven AND fourteen days, as well as off-peak season pricing.
2. All Happy Camper vans have Webasto heaters.
We were visiting Iceland from late August through mid-September and wanted to have a heater in our campervan that we could use while we were sleeping.
Some of the vans with other companies that we considered didn’t have any heaters, while others only had electric heaters. These would require staying at campsites with electric hookups, which are more expensive and oftentimes, not as scenic.
We LOVED that Happy Campers have Webasto heaters, which simply run off the gasoline you already put in your car. We literally wound up using the heaters EVERY single night that we camped in Iceland and they kept us toasty warm!
Plus, it was AMAZING being able to camp wherever we wanted in campgrounds in Iceland (not just next to an electrical pole), with everything from Selfoss, one of the most stunning waterfalls in Iceland, to the waters of Hrútafjörður, serving as our backyard for the evening.
3. Happy Campers are well-designed
Justin and I live and travel full-time in our RV around the United States, so I had a unique perspective of what kinds of features are helpful in a campervan.
There are lots of things about how Happy Campers’ campervans are designed that appeal to me, including having a built-in kitchen that allows you to cook inside of your van (instead of, say, having to stand outside and cook in the cold and the rain); a hand-pumped sink, in even the smallest of vans; and a decent amount of storage, especially given the limited space.
Types of available campervans from Happy Camper
One of the things that’s awesome about Happy Camper is that there’s a wide range of models to fit different types of travelers and to fit different types of budgets.
Truth be told, we were DYING to rent a 4WD campervan that we could take on to the gnarly, unpaved F-roads of Iceland.
However, it wasn’t in our budget for this trip and we were able to find a small campervan that worked great and didn’t break the bank too much!
Let’s take a look at each of Happy Campers’ models.
Insider tip: Happy Campers’ pricing is dynamic, so the higher the demand for the date you’re looking at, the higher the price point. Accordingly, pricing for the dates you’re interested in may be more or less affordable than what’s listed in this article, depending on the demand for that particular time period—and you’ll almost always get better rates by booking early!
Happy 1
This is the model that we got, mostly due to its budget-friendliness. It definitely was cozy, especially with our luggage, but worked out great for our two week trip!
- Seats 2; sleeps 2
- Small layout, but has everything you need, including a built-in gas stove, sink with running water, convertible bed, and electric cooler
- Compact design makes parking easier and with decent fuel efficiency
- It’s the most budget-friendly Happy Camper option:
- Summer: Starting around €190/day
- Spring/fall: Starting around €95/day
- Winter: Starting around €80/day
Happy 2
- Seats 3; sleeps 3
- Roomier design than the Happy 1, with features like an indoor dining table (great if you’re a digital nomad!) and more storage for luggage
- Higher price point than the Happy 1:
- Summer: Starting around €305/day
- Spring/fall: Starting around €153/day
- Winter: Starting around €120/day
Happy 3
- Seats 5; sleeps 5
- The layout is ideal for a family or a group of friends, with a convertible table, two “bunk” beds, and plenty of storage (and even hooks to hang things!).
- This is one of Happy Campers’ only models that you can stand up in. As someone who lives in an RV full-time, I can’t undersell how awesome it is to be able to stand up in your home-on-wheels!
- This is a great option if you have a large group that can split the cost of a larger van:
- Summer: Starting around €450/day
- Spring/fall: Starting around €220/day
- Winter: Starting around €200/day
Happy 4×4
- Seats 3; sleeps 3
- The biggest advantage of this model is its four-wheel drive and is equipped with an engine snorkel, meaning you can take it on Iceland’s rugged F-roads to access the country’s stunning Highlands. Perfect for travelers who are interested in off-road adventures!
- Its minivan-esque body is not too intimidating to drive or park.
- Like all 4WD vehicles in Iceland, it comes with a high pricepoint:
- Summer: Starting around €490/day
- Spring/fall: Starting around €240/day
- Winter: Starting around €220/day
Happy 4 XL
- Seats 5; sleeps 5
- The best option if you’re traveling with a large group of friends or as a family AND looking to travel into the Highlands, with a convertible table; two stoves; and a “bunk bed”-like setup, plus 4WD and an engine snorkel.
- The Happy 4 XL is the largest of Happy Campers’ models and, while I don’t think the learning curve would be terribly steep, I’m guessing it’s the most challenging to drive and to park.
- This is Happy Campers’ most expensive model:
- Summer: Starting around €500/day
- Spring/fall: Starting around €280/day
- Winter: Starting around €260/day
Manual transmissions and EX models
If your eyes water at the price of these rentals (the cost of campervan rentals in Iceland is WILD, y’all!), there are a few more affordable rental options to consider.
For example, you can consider renting an EX model, which are older models that have been retired from the “normal” fleet. For an even steeper discount, some of the EX models have manual transmissions (all non-EX Happy Camper options have automatic transmission).
While the EX campers can date back to 2017, they can also save you some SERIOUS cash. For example, during the summertime, a Happy 1 EX can cost as little as €98/day—which saves you almost €100/day, as compared to the “normal” Happy 1.
The EX models are missing a few of the perks that come with a normal Happy Campers rental, like an unlimited WiFi hotspot (although you can rent this separately), but they generally come with all of the most important features we loved about our campervan, like included insurance, built-in heaters, and fuel discount card.
Insider tip: Manual transmissions are much more common in Europe than they are in the United States, so most campervan rentals in Iceland, especially on the budget side, are automatic transmissions. If you’re on a budget (or, like me, don’t know how the hell to drive a manual transmission!), I’d definitely recommend looking for a campervan rental sooner versus later to ensure you can find one that you know how to drive!
Our experience with Happy Campers
The campervan we rented from Happy Campers
We wound up renting the Happy 1, mostly due to its affordable price point and the fact that it offered everything we needed for our two week Iceland road trip.
If you’re interested, you can see a full tour in this video we made about our Iceland road trip.
Otherwise, here are the primary features of the campervan.
Kitchen
Our campervan came with a single burner stove, an electric cooler, and a hand-pumped sink.
We honestly got pretty unlucky with weather during our stay in Iceland, with lots of VERY rainy, cold days, and I was so glad that we could cook our meals from the comfort of our warm, toasty campervan.
I do wish our electric cooler was a tad bigger, but given the size of the Happy 1 and the impressive amount of storage available for shelf-stable food, I was generally really pleased with our kitchen set-up.
Sleeping
The living space of our van had a couch that easily converts from a couch to a bed.
Generally, the mattress was pretty comfortable to sleep on, but Justin and I were pretty squished on the width of the bed. It was totally fine for two weeks, but this wasn’t a solution that I’d be comfortable with on a longer term basis.
I definitely think the bed would be more than wide enough for a solo traveler, but if you or your traveling partner are on the taller or bigger side, you might want to consider upgrading to one of the larger models, like a Happy 2 or Happy 3, so you have a bit more breathing room while you’re sleeping.
Storage
The Happy 1 comes with a decent amount of storage space to hide away shelf-stable foods, including storage cubes under the kitchen area and open space above the cooler.
For luggage, there’s a space under the couch that you can store items. We each had two large backpacks that were too chunky to squeeze under there, so we had to always shuffle our backpacks from the back to the front, when we got to a campsite. Again, I don’t think I’d want to put up with this if I was living full-time in our van, but it worked out just fine for a few weeks.
If you’re a storage queen (or king!), you may want to consider getting one of the larger models, which will have more room for your luggage, plus hooks, drawers, and pouches to more easily store your gear.
Other features
As mentioned above, we picked Happy Campers, in part, due to its Webasto heaters, which work without being plugged into electrical hookups. Before our trip, we wondered if we were being silly, by prioritizing the heaters and whether we’d even wind up using them.
But we used the heater literally every night of our trip, getting to camp wherever we wanted in some of the stunning campgrounds we stayed at. If you’re camping during a chillier part of the year (i.e., basically anytime outside of July through early August), I’d definitely recommend getting a campervan with a non-electic heater.
While it wasn’t perfect, we also liked having a battery to charge our electronics at night and even power our laptops to do some work while we were on the road. Again, our campervan’s power setup wouldn’t have been sufficient for fulltime living, but worked out pretty great as a basecamp to explore Iceland for a few weeks.
Rental process
Renting from Happy Campers was super easy, with quick customer support throughout our experience.
Booking a rental through their website is easy and straightforward, with clear language about what discounts are available to you. And, whenever we had any questions about our campervan rental, we quickly received email responses from Happy Campers’ customer support.
As full-time travelers and people who run their own business, our schedule is always fluctuating, so I really loved that there is a free cancellation, all the way up to 24 hours before your booking (which is pretty wild!).
Happy Campers conveniently offers a free shuttle from the Keflavik International Airport for folks who arrive in Iceland and immediately pick up their campervan.
We had kind of an unusual situation where we first went on a Greenland cruise out of Reykjavik Harbor and then went on our Iceland road trip, so we had to get ourselves to the Happy Campers’ office. In a perfect world, Happy Campers would offer a shuttle from Reykjavik to their office, but I imagine we are very much the exception, not the rule—so it’s kind of unfair of me to complain about this one at all!
Their office itself is super comfortable, with free coffee, a comfy place to wait, and, my personal favorite, a free zone where we could pick up groceries that other campers donated after their trip. We wound up totally scoring, picking up a HUGE container of hummus, vegan cheese, coffee, cereals, and other odds and ends that had to save us a ton of money in groceries.
There also is an area where you can pick up extra supplies for your trip—some of the gear is free, like extra blankets or cookware, but other things you may have to pay for, like an inverter to charge your laptop or a grill to use outside.
The attendant gave us a quick walk-through of our van and was happy to answer any questions we had about it, but otherwise, we effortlessly picked up our rental and were on our way.
Insurance
Each Happy Camper rentals comes with:
- A collision damage waiver that covers damage to your campervan rental (with a €3,000 deductible)
- Third party liability insurance, which covers any damage you cause to someone else’s vehicle or someone else while you’re driving your rental
They also offer additional levels of protection, which can just cover the most basic type of damage (like cracked windshields) to a €0 deductible if the wind rips off the door of your car.
We wound up asking the attendant what kind of insurance she’d recommend, based on the damages that she sees in returned rentals. She recommended the “standard” insurance package, which covers damage caused by gravel, scratches, dents, and sand/ash, which added an extra €25/day to our rental.
In hindsight, given that we primarily drove on paved roads, I’m not sure we even needed that—it’s pretty sweet that your base Happy Campers’ rental price includes full third party liability insurance and a collision damage waiver (just with a pretty high deductible).
Pssst.. my thoughts on whether supplemental insurance is worth it would shift, depending on whether you’re planning on driving on unpaved roads and if you’re visiting during a season when the weather is more unpredictable (i.e., pretty much any season other than summer). Also, if you can’t afford a €3,000 deductible if you happen to get into an accident, you can’t afford to not have insurance.
On-the-road support
To be honest, we didn’t have any mechanical issues at all during our road trip (which is an awesome thing!), so I can’t really speak to the support while you’re out on the road.
However, all Happy Campers rentals (but for the EX models) come with an unlimited WiFi hotspot, which is SO handy in the event that something goes wrong on the road, and even handier, given the unbelievable cell service in Iceland. So, in the event you need to reach out to Happy Campers’ customer service, you should be covered in most areas of the country.
Plus, Happy Campers’ newest add-on is roadside protection (for €20/day), which covers towing, rescue, lockouts, wrong-fuel recovery, jump-starts, and flat-tire assistance, without any kind of service charge, anywhere in the country. If you’re accident-prone or just risk-averse, this might be a smart add-on to get yourself peace of mind.
Things that we loved about Happy Campers
Truthfully, we had a near perfect experience with Happy Campers—I have to think pretty hard to think of aspects of our experience that I didn’t like about it.
But here are some of my favorite aspects:
Rental process
It’s very obvious that Happy Campers has been doing this a long time and have worked out all the kinks with their rental process. The pick-up and drop-off process is seriously so smooth and organized, from choosing any extra gear you need and providing us with a guidebook about campervanning in Iceland to their shuttle dropping us off right at the International Departures hall of Keflavik, when our trip was over.
I was a bit anxious about renting our first campervan in another country, but after stopping in Happy Campers’ office, they seemed like SUCH pros at helping people rent out campervans that I felt MUCH more prepared and confident for our road trip around Iceland.
Included features
In a similar vein, some of the items that were included in our rental were SO helpful, including a free unlimited Wifi hotspot (that worked pretty much everywhere in Iceland) and a fuel card, which saves you 3 kr per liter.
We also loved that everything that we could possibly need was included when we picked up our campervan, from fuel canisters for our stove (apparently, most campervan rentals don’t come with these) to wine bottle openers.
I had read that having camping chairs was helpful for cooking in your camper, so I actually packed two of our small backpacking chairs. However, Happy Campers told us we were welcome to even borrow camp chairs if we wanted—they literally have everything you could possibly need right at their pickup location.
Kitchen
I’ve said it above and I’ll say it again—it was SO nice being able to sit in our campervan and cook every evening, instead of having to set up a table outside of our van (in the cold or the rain) and use a cookstove there (which we saw many, MANY campers do at Icelandic campgrounds).
We were also impressed by the kitchen implements that Happy Campers provided, down to a sponge and dish soap for our dirty dishes.
Ease of driving
Even though we live in an RV full-time, neither of us have driven around a campervan before and were a little bit nervous about maneuvering it on Iceland’s curvy and windy roads.
However, the Happy 1’s compact size made it super easy to both drive and park (including in the busiest of parking lots along our Golden Circle itinerary!). I also appreciated that our particular Happy 1 model used gasoline, which tended to be a tiny bit cheaper than diesel in Iceland during our visit.
Things that could have been better about Happy Campers
I generally really loved our experience with our Happy Campers campervan, but, like anything else, there are some things that could have been better.
Curtains
The RV that we live in in the United States has pull-down black blinds that make our trailer pitch black when we’re sleeping.
The curtains on the Happy Campers van, on the other hand, do an okay job with covering the windows to give yourself a bit more privacy, but they do very little to actually block out light. This is especially a problem during the summers in Iceland, when the Midnight Sun makes the days incredibly long (and allows your campervan to be bright for approximately 20 hours a day!).
I’m a really light sleeper, so bringing along a decent sleep mask definitely helped—but it would be even better if Happy Campers campervans had thicker, more black out-esque curtains.
Storage
This isn’t a complaint about all Happy Campers vans and, rather, the fact that we went with the smallest (and cheapest) model.
But there really wasn’t much storage space—we basically had to leave everything in our big backpacks and schlep them to the front or the back of our campervan, depending on where we needed space at the time.
This wasn’t a huge deal, but one of the things that I love so much about RVing is that it feels like you have a home-on-wheels—you simply unpack one time and then, you’re at home, regardless of where your campervan might be at the time. But our campervan DEFINITELY didn’t feel like that.
So, if you have more room in your budget, I’d definitely suggest opting for one of the slightly bigger models for a bit more storage (and a lot less shuffling around!).
No bathrooms
From researching TONS of campervans in Iceland, this seems to largely be the case, but Happy Campers campervans don’t have bathrooms or showers.
You are required to stay at campgrounds in Iceland (wild camping is prohibited), with all campgrounds having toilets and the vast majority of them offering showers. But, of course, if you wake up having to pee in the middle of the night, it would be much more convenient to just go in your campervan, instead of having to walk across a cold, wet field at 2 AM to find the bathhouse.
It’s worth mentioning that you can opt to rent a portable toilet from Happy Campers (for €10/day), but, given how limited our space was as it is, there’s no way we were ALSO going to cram a portable toilet in there!
Battery life
We wished that the campervans had slightly bigger batteries. We had to work on our laptops for a few hours here and there and the campervan’s battery would die pretty quickly if we plugged in our laptops.
We could easily remedy this by turning the car on and charging its battery with the car’s alternator. However, gas is expensive in Iceland (not to mention that this just felt unnecessarily wasteful), so having bigger batteries or some solar panels would have helped.
If you’re just plugging in your phone and camera each night to recharge them, this really shouldn’t be much of an issue, but, if you plan on working on the road at all, just be aware that you may occasionally have to just leave your campervan running for a bit.
Our Happy Campers Review in a Nutshell
Ultimately, we had a near flawless experience with our Happy Campers rental.
Although we certainly have some small nitpicks about the Happy 1 model itself, it served as an incredibly comfortable basecamp for our adventure around Iceland.
Plus, between Happy Campers’ incredible customer service and multi-decades long experience renting out campervans, we felt like we were always in good hands and just a phone call away from help, if anything did go wrong during our trip.
We would absolutely recommend Happy Campers to travelers considering exploring Iceland by campervan, whether you’re traveling as a family or are budget-minded.
How to Save Money on Campervans in Iceland
Speaking of being budget-minded, my favorite thing about Happy Campers is how many discounts you can use, which usually stack with one another.
Here are a few type of discounts they have available:
Early bird discount
If you book more than 90 days in advance, you’ll get 10% off your rental.
Long rental discounts
If you book for more than a week, you get 5% off and, if you book more than two weeks, you get an additional 10% off.
By being our reader
Yes, you read that right—you get a discount, just by being our reader! Use our promo code “JUSTINANDJESS” at checkout to get an extra 5% off your Happy Campers rental!
Off-season discounts
Happy Campers frequently offers 15% discounts for trips booked from mid-September through mid-May, in addition to the rentals being priced lower in general.
Unlike the other discounts I just noted, this typically will not be applied automatically and requires a promo code to be entered at checkout, which you can typically find on a banner at the top of the Happy Campers page. It also doesn’t stack with other coupon codes.
Traveling with friends
If you’re traveling with a group that’s planning on renting more than one campervan, you can email Happy Campers to get a 5-10% discount.
Returning customers
If you’ve already rented from Happy Campers, you can email them and receive a discount code.
There you have it–our honest and unbiased Happy Campers review, with everything you need to know before renting a campervan from them before your trip. Do you have any questions about our experience with Happy Campers or cameprvanning around Iceland? Let us know in the comments below!
