Hvannagil, sometimes nicknamed the Golden Valley, is a beautiful canyon in the area of the Jökulsá í Lóni river. Its wide floor, which is almost dry in the summer months, and the colorful rhyolite cliff walls give you the feeling as if you were in an adventure movie. The ground is often gravelly, so the river sometimes disappears completely and reappears elsewhere after a few hundred meters.

You can walk through the canyon to a viewpoint and then return to your car via the Raftagil canyon, making a circular route. It is not strenuous, all the climbs are gradual, and such a route will take you about 3 hours.

If there are still any beautiful and almost undiscovered places in Iceland, then Hvannagil is definitely one of them! You can reach Hvannagil canyon via the local road with any car, there is no need for a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Learn more about Iceland’s beautiful spots [here](https://icelandthebeautiful.com/en/).

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Text & Photos by RubΣn

A guy with extensive knowledge of Iceland, a secret formula for nice weather and a map to places you didn’t know existed.

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