Suitcases, Backpacks and Child Seats: Choosing the Right Rental Car in Iceland

A rental car can technically seat five people and still be a terrible choice for five people. The problem usually isn’t the seats but everything coming with you.

Four adults might also mean four large suitcases, several backpacks, hiking boots, waterproof jackets, camera equipment, and whatever everyone wants within reach during the drive. Add a child seat or stroller to a family trip, and the available space disappears even faster.

That’s especially worth thinking about in Iceland, where many visitors aren’t simply driving from the airport to a hotel. You may be living out of your rental car for a week or more as you travel around the country.

Before you book a rental car, look beyond the passenger number on the vehicle listing. Think about who is traveling, what everyone is bringing, and how much of it needs to fit in the car every day.

Start With the People and the Bags

When you’re comparing rental cars, passenger capacity is an obvious place to start. If there are four people traveling, you need at least four seats, but don’t stop there.

Ring Rental lists both passenger and luggage capacity for vehicles in our fleet, and those two numbers can tell very different stories.

Take the Hyundai i20, for example. It accommodates up to five passengers but is listed for three bags. For two travelers with a couple of suitcases, that may be plenty of room. Put five adults and five large suitcases into the same equation, and you’ll want to look at something bigger.

The Nissan X-Trail also seats five but is listed for five bags. The Citroën SpaceTourer goes considerably further, with room for up to nine passengers and ten bags.

Think about the whole group before you choose the car: people, suitcases, backpacks, and anything else that has to come along.

How Much Luggage Are You Actually Bringing?

“Two bags” can mean almost anything.

Two carry-ons for a long weekend are very different from two large checked suitcases packed for ten days in Iceland. Think about the size of the bags rather than just counting them. Iceland trips also have a habit of producing extra stuff.

You may be carrying hiking boots, waterproof clothing, food for the drive, camera equipment, or a daypack that wasn’t included when you mentally counted your luggage. In winter, coats and other cold-weather gear take up room too.

And remember that you’ll probably want some things accessible during the day. If every available space in the car has been packed tightly with luggage, getting a rain jacket or camera bag at the next stop becomes a much bigger production than it needs to be.

For a longer road trip, a little unused space can be surprisingly useful. 

Suitcases and Backpacks Don’t Pack the Same Way

Think of the shape of your luggage too.

Hard-shell suitcases are easy to stack when the dimensions work, but they don’t give you much flexibility when they don’t. A large hiking backpack can sometimes be squeezed into an awkward space more, although a fully loaded trekking pack may be much bigger than the word “backpack” suggests.

Then there’s the gear attached to it. Hiking poles, boots, tripods, and other outdoor equipment may not fit neatly inside your luggage at all.

If you’re traveling with a lot of outdoor or photography gear, don’t assume the stated number of bags tells you everything you need to know. Take a look at the vehicle itself and give yourself some breathing room.

Child Seats Change the Space You Have

Traveling with children adds another calculation. Ring Rental offers child chairs and booster seats as extras with vehicles in our fleet. A child seat doesn’t take up luggage space, but it does affect how much usable room you have inside the car.

Take that into consideration if you’re trying to put three people across the back seat, for example. The vehicle may technically have three rear seats, but a child seat can make the remaining space tighter for the adults or older children sitting beside it.

Then there’s everything else that comes with younger travelers. A stroller can take up a large part of the luggage area. Add suitcases, a diaper bag, coats, snacks and whatever needs to stay handy during the drive, and a car that looked like it had plenty of space while you were booking can get crowded quickly.

For families, it makes sense to choose the vehicle after you’ve considered the child seat and stroller, not before.

What Size Ring Rental Car Makes Sense?

There isn’t one vehicle size that works for everyone, so it helps to work backwards from what you’re actually bringing.

One or Two Travelers With Light Luggage

If there are one or two of you traveling with a few bags, you probably don’t need to pay for space you won’t use. Ring’s Hyundai i20 category seats up to five and is listed for three bags. For a couple with modest luggage sticking mainly to standard roads, that may be more than enough.

Two Travelers With Larger Bags or Outdoor Gear

Two people can fill a car surprisingly quickly when hiking packs, photography equipment, or other outdoor gear are involved. Going up a vehicle size gives you more flexibility without necessarily putting you in a very large SUV. Ring’s Opel Crossland X, for example, is listed for five passengers and four bags.

If your itinerary also requires a 4x4, that becomes another consideration. Ring’s Dacia Duster 4WD seats five and is listed for four bags, while also being approved for Highland F-roads.

Three or Four Adults With Suitcases

This is where looking only at the number of seats can get you into trouble.

Four adults may technically fit in almost any five-passenger car in the fleet, but four adults plus four checked suitcases and several smaller bags are another matter.

Ring’s Nissan X-Trail is listed for five passengers and five bags, as is the Toyota RAV4. That extra luggage capacity can make a noticeable difference when several adults are spending hours in the car together.

You also have to live with whatever you pack. A bag wedged between two people in the back seat might seem perfectly manageable on the drive from Keflavík. Several days into a road trip, it may feel considerably less clever.

Families With Child Seats and a Stroller

Start by counting the child seats you’ll need, then think about the stroller and luggage.

A family of four with two children may only need four seats, but two child seats change the usable rear-seat space. If a stroller is coming too, pay attention to luggage capacity.

A larger five-passenger vehicle may make more sense than a compact car even though both technically have enough seats.

If you’re unsure whether your particular combination of child seats, stroller and luggage will fit, contact Ring before booking. It’s much easier to sort that out before you arrive at Keflavík with everything sitting beside you.

Larger Groups

For groups traveling together, splitting everyone between two cars isn’t the only option.

Ring’s Citroën SpaceTourer accommodates up to nine passengers and is listed for ten bags. For a larger family or group, having everyone and the luggage in one vehicle may be simpler than coordinating two cars throughout the trip.

Of course, nine people also means nine people’s belongings. If everyone is bringing large checked luggage, tell us what you’re traveling with rather than assuming the passenger number guarantees everything will fit.

Think About How Long You’ll Be in the Car

The right amount of space also depends on the trip. If you’re renting a car for a day or two and traveling with light luggage, you may be perfectly happy in a smaller vehicle.

A seven or ten-day road trip is different. You’ll be getting in and out of the car, moving bags at accommodations, reaching for coats and snacks and accumulating the occasional grocery bag along the way.

This doesn’t mean you automatically need an SUV for a longer Iceland trip. It does mean that squeezing four people and all their luggage into the smallest possible vehicle may save money at booking and become annoying somewhere around Day 3.

Space Isn’t the Only Reason to Choose a Different Vehicle

Once you’ve worked out how much room you need, look at your itinerary. If you’re staying on the Ring Road and other standard roads in good conditions, you don’t automatically need a 4x4 simply because you’re visiting Iceland.

If your plans include Highland F-roads, you’ll need a vehicle approved for them. Ring identifies F-road-approved vehicles in our fleet, like options such as the Dacia Duster 4WD and Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross AWD.

That means your final choice has to satisfy both questions: Will our people and luggage fit comfortably, and is this vehicle suitable for the roads we plan to drive?

Don’t choose a 4x4 solely because you need more luggage room, and don’t choose a larger car solely because it looks more capable. Start with what the trip actually requires.

Don’t Pay for Space You Don’t Need

It’s easy to assume that bigger is safer when you’re booking a car from another country. Sometimes going up a size makes sense, but sometimes it means paying for a vehicle you didn’t need in the first place.

A couple traveling with two small bags probably doesn’t need a large SUV just to have somewhere to put them. A family of four arriving with several suitcases, a child seat and a stroller has a very different problem.

The goal is to choose the smallest vehicle that comfortably fits the people and belongings you’re actually bringing, while still being suitable for your itinerary.

Take a look at the passenger and luggage capacities in the Ring Rental fleet before you book. If the numbers leave you wondering whether everything will fit, ask us. Tell us how many people are traveling and what you’re bringing, and we can help you choose a vehicle that makes sense.

Because once you leave the Ring Rental office, you should be thinking about where you’re going next, not where you’re going to put the fourth suitcase.