A track curving across black volcanic sand toward dark moss-streaked hills under low cloud
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Iceland by campervan: safety and healthcare

Campervan safety in Iceland: vehicle security, healthcare, emergency contacts and practical prevention. What to know before you go.

Published 18 September 2026Last checked 19 September 2026

Safety and health

Safety and health

Crime is not the problem here and weather is. Theft from vehicles is rare, violence against travellers is rarer, and ordinary care is enough: nothing visible through the windows, doors locked in a city. What hurts people in Iceland is wind, water and cold, in that order, and all three arrive faster than visitors expect.

Low cloud over a black sand beach below dark cliffs, surf breaking along the shore
Park with the door into the wind, hold it, open one at a time

What works

  • Read the forecast as a plan, not as weather. vedur.is gives wind in metres per second and publishes lowland and highland maxima separately. umferdin.is gives the road.
  • At 25 to 30 m/s, stop. ICE-SAR's campervan guidance treats that as the point to change plans. At 35 m/s it says do not drive at all.

Health, hazards and numbers

  • 112 is the emergency number for everything. Because 2G and 3G started shutting down in April 2026, safetravel.is publishes +354 599 0112 as a backup if 112 will not connect or the call drops.
  • 1777 is Vegagerðin's 24 hour road condition line.

The south coast black beaches kill people. ICE-SAR keeps a standing safety page for them because waves there run far further up the sand than they look as if they will, and the undertow is fast. The same goes for glacier margins, where Sólheimajökull has its own warning page. Neither hazard is signposted the way a European visitor expects, and both are metres from a busy car park.

Sheep, and occasionally reindeer in the east, are loose on unfenced roads through the summer. A collision at 90 km/h is a serious accident, and the animal is somebody's property as well.