Hotel Rangá

Hotel Rangá is a luxury hotel located in South Iceland about 90 minutes from Reykjavík. Situated along the East Rangá River, the hotel is innovative, rustic, sustainable, and at times quirky and classy, but its attention to detail sets it apart from a typical lodge. Its 52 rooms showcase the unique volcanic landscape—its volcanoes, rivers, and night sky—among high standards of service only found at a luxury hotel.

The hotel's accommodations range from Standard and Deluxe rooms to Junior and Master Suites that are each uniquely themed and demonstrate the hotel's willingness to create a one-of-a-kind guest experience. Each of the hotel's 52 rooms has unique original art, while the suites each have furnishings that are completely individual and different from each other. Suites are themed after different continents. Master Suites have stand-alone jacuzzi tubs, and the Icelandic Suite contains a push-button hardwood floor that allows guests to rotate the orientation of the suite's antique and dining furniture.

All rooms have views of either the East Rangá River or the volcanic Mt. Hekla. Several hot tubs are placed within a quick walk of river-facing rooms and are filled with geothermal springwater. Inside the hotel, game rooms and lounges have pool, chess, and board and card games for guests.

The hotel has two bars and spacious lounge areas, with a fine-dining restaurant with window views of the East Rangá River. The restaurant uses predominantly local and seasonal ingredients in its menu.

Hotel Rangá's location away from any light pollution makes it ideal, under cooperating conditions, for the Northern Lights. To this end, the hotel offers a wake-up call that guests can opt into by pushing a button on their room phone. At night, the hotel dims its outdoor lights, increasing visibility of stars and the aurora borealis. And the hotel features an observatory a short walk from the main building with a roll-back roof and high-powered astronomical telescopes, which guests are welcome to look through during starry and Northern Lights nights.

In addition to their own amenities, the hotel is eager to help guests coordinate local activities such as hiking and biking tours, snowmobile, diving, and fishing expeditions, trips to local geothermal baths and hot springs, and mountain, glacier, and volcano tours. The hotel will also coordinate weddings and special occasions.

The hotel's attention to detail is remarkable. Upon checking in, hotel desk staff invite guests to stop by the bar at any point in the evening for a complimentary drink. Each room contains bathrobes, slippers, and a postcard picturing the hotel beneath the Northern Lights that the hotel will mail anywhere in the world returned to the front desk. Automated phone call notify guests if the Northern Lights become visible, and the hotel has knowledgeable astronomers in the observatory who will help with the telescopes and eagerly offer their knowledge of the night sky. During the 13 days of Christmas, guests will find a small gift bag and note left on their doors, ostensibly by one of the Yule Lads, an Icelandic Christmas tradition. It is these small details that set the Hotel Rangá apart from other hotels.

The amount of detail and thought that go into the planning, building, and furnishing of the suites allow the hotel's personality to show through in a way that made us appreciate their work. The Hotel Rangá's literature boasts of numerous awards and accolades the hotel has earned, and following our stay it was easy to see why. More information can be found at hotelranga.is.