Every time the economy starts to contract and money gets tighter, people turn to Frommer's. We've had a reputation for solid advice for inexpensive travel ever since we started publishing guidebooks with Europe on 5 Dollars a Day in 1957.
So we know a trick or two when it comes to making a dream vacation more affordable.
And this trick is one of the oldest in the book—or, more accurately, this trick is from some of our oldest books. And it's still true.
Ever since the earliest days of mainstream intercontinental travel, the flag carrier of Iceland has offered Americans and Canadians a valuable discount if they use that airline to travel to Europe.
Frommer's Iceland
Comprehensive and completely up-to-date, Frommer’s Iceland takes you from world-famous waterfalls to hopping nightclubs and everywhere in between. Frommer’s expert Katie Featherstone, is an Iceland specialist, knows every inch of the country and is not afraid to tell the truth. With her reliable, st...
Get the bookFrommer's Iceland
Comprehensive and completely up-to-date, Frommer’s Iceland takes you from world-famous waterfalls to hopping nightclubs and everywhere in between. Frommer’s expert Katie Featherstone, is an Iceland specialist, knows every inch of the country and is not afraid to tell the truth. With her reliable, st...
Icelandair Stopover's history
The background of how this perk evolved involves quirks of military and aviation history, but here's the gist: When airplanes required more frequent refueling, stopping on the way to Europe was common. So why not convince people to stop in Iceland, located north of Scotland, on the way?
By offering customers a chance to leave the airport for free when they changed planes, Iceland turned its airline from a minor, one-destination concern into a business that could entice travelers to choose it for journeys to and from mainland Europe. By creating a budget travel pathway to Iceland, the airline turned a sparsely populated island nation into a beloved destination unto itself.
Many a backpacker in the 1960s used Iceland's airline as a way to stretch their dollar on European odysseys.
Try leaving the airport when you change planes in Europe on most other carriers, and you'll get charged twice for two sets of tickets. Icelandair's free stopover deal basically buys you a multicity flight routing that costs nothing extra. And you'll get to see Iceland without having to shell out twice for separate flights.
Frommer's has been telling readers about this deal since our earliest days, when it was offered by Icelandair's ancestor, Icelandic Airlines (called Loftleiðir in Iceland).
"The maverick of the air carriers, tiny Icelandic Airlines, charges less than the other airlines for the Atlantic hop, but flies only DC6Bs on a route via Reykjavik, Iceland, that requires about 16 hours, New York to London. Still, if you can get on an Icelandic flight (they have only a few a week), you'll save ..." —Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, 1961 edition
Flights go a lot more frequently today, and they take a lot less time—about 5.5 hours from New York to Iceland, then another 3 from there to London. But the system didn't go away, and Icelandair's fares remained a notch lower than flights on bigger carriers.
Our founder Arthur Frommer was still touting this perk after the turn of the present century. He didn't get kickbacks when he told people in 2009 about the discount (and we still don't today). The deal was already famous as a budget travel tactic.
"Can a trip to Iceland be enjoyed on a budget? It's difficult, unless you buy one of the promotional air-and-land packages offered by Icelandair and designed to put you aboard their planes to Europe. Many people, in fact, break up a trip to Europe by flying on Icelandair and enjoying a several-night stopover in Reykjavik en route to a European capital. You stay at the charming but rather worn old Loftleidir Hotel, the only hotel in Reykjavik with its own mineral water swimming pool. On your first day you tour Reykjavik. Your second day you journey to stunning waterfalls and lava fields. The third day, you stop en route to the airport at Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon for its geothermic hot springs." —Ask Arthur Frommer, 2009
How Icelandair's free stopover works
Today, the stopover deal offers more freedom than it used to. The Loftleidir Hotel, mentioned by Arthur Frommer, was built by the airline in 1964 to give visitors a place to stay in the then-marginal tourist destination. Today, the hotel is called the Reykjavík Natura, but you don't necessarily have to stay there on your stopover.
You also aren't restricted to a 3-day stay in the country, as Arthur Frommer suggested 17 years ago. In 2026, you can actually stay a week in Iceland without being charged a penny more for your airfare.
Using Icelandair, you can get to Europe for a little less than on many other carriers, and you can use your change of planes to see what's now one of the most popular European destinations for North Americans.
The full list of Icelandair's destinations in Europe can be found here. It includes pretty much every major city in Western Europe, including London, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Rome, Barcelona, Zurich, and many others.
From North America, Icelandair flies from Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland (Oregon), Raleigh-Durham, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C.
This autumn, the list of Icelandair's European cities will expand to include Tromsø, Norway (known for the Northern Lights, pictured above), and Gdańsk, Poland.
Gdańsk flights on Icelandair start Sept. 18, 2026. Tromsø flights start Oct. 23, 2026.
For more information on the Icelandair Stopover, as well as how to book one (it's easy—you just have to add the option when you're booking your flights), check out the official web page at www.icelandair.com/flights/stopover/.