Kid-Approved Meal Ideas for Camping in Iceland

Author: Dan Brewer

Last Updated:

One of the biggest challenges about camping in Iceland with kids is what to feed them. Camper vans are great for cooking your own meals, but you often have just 1-2 single burner stoves and a small fridge. We spent three weeks camping in Iceland with kids and we learned a lot about how to feed our kids in a camper van.

Based on what we ate during our family camping trip, here are some kid-approved meal ideas for camping in Iceland.

Breakfast burritos were one of our favorite, and healthiest, kid-friendly meal ideas for our family camping trip to ICeland.

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Breakfast Ideas for Camping in Iceland

At home, our kids eat cereal almost every morning. Thankfully, you can find a wide variety of cereal at grocery stores in Iceland. We bought two kinds of cereal during our family camping trip to Iceland: Cheerios and Special K.

We were able to buy long shelf life milk at Costco in Reykjavik, which only needed to be refrigerated once opened. (It was much harder to find long-shelf life milk around the Ring Road though, so stock up while you can). To add a little more nutrition to the cereal, we’d slice a banana on top.

In addition to cereal, we would boil some water on our camping stove and make instant oatmeal. We bought a 60 pack of oatmeal at Costco in Reykjavik. To add flavor to our plain oatmeal, we’d add a spoonful of peanut butter and Nutella, add some mixed nuts and banana slices on top.

Celine Brewer eats breakfast with her kids in a scenic location while camping with her kids in Iceland.
Does family breakfast get much better than this?

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Stocking up on non-perishables at Costco in Reykjavik was one of the ways we saved money in Iceland. See the rest of our tips on traveling to Iceland on a budget.

Lunch Ideas for Camping in Iceland

Our very first lunch on our family trip to Iceland was at Costco, where they have a pretty similar menu to the North American Costco locations. We got a couple of hot dogs, a giant slice of pepperoni pizza and a Mexican wrap. This was likely our cheapest meal during our entire three week camping trip to Iceland!

an 8-year old boy eats a large slice of pizza at the Costco in Reykjavik, prior to beginning a family camping trip around Iceland.

While outside of Reykjavik, we kept our lunches as simple, filling and nutritious as possible. A typical lunch during our family camping trip in Iceland looked like:

A peanut butter and/or Nutella sandwich on whole wheat bread, an apple and a granola bar. Sometimes we’d top off with baby carrots or a snackable fruit such as blueberries.

About halfway through our trip, some family members got tired of peanut butter sandwiches, so they started making tomato, cheese and butter sandwiches.

a typical kid-friendly lunch on our family camping trip around Iceland.
A typical lunch on our camping trip.

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Finding kid-approved meals for camping in Iceland is just the beginning. Find out everything you need to know about camping in Iceland with kids.

Dinner Ideas for Camping in Iceland

Without having the luxury of a well-stocked fridge and pantry at home, there’s a lot at stake when cooking for kids while camping in Iceland – if they don’t like their dinner, they will go to bed hungry. We needed to cook healthy, filling meals we knew they would eat every single time. And we had to do it with the two little camping stoves we had at our disposal.

We had 4 meals that we cycled through during our entire three week camping trip to Iceland.

1. Tacos

Our kids love Mexican food, so one of our favorite camping meals in Iceland was soft shell tacos. We’d fill the tacos with ground beef cooked with taco seasoning, shredded cheddar cheese, canned corn and salsa.

Soft-shell tacos as one of our go-to camping meals for kids in Iceland.

2. Pasta

We bought a 6 pack of assorted dry pasta from Costco, so pasta became a part of our cooking meal rotation. We’d often buy shredded white cheese to put on top, and would serve sweet peppers or baby carrots in the side.

For protein, we’d chop up and fry a package of Icelandic hot dogs and mix them into the pasta. Don’t knock it until you try it – Iceland is famous for its tasty hot dogs!

When the kids started getting tired of the same old tomato pasta sauce (yup – we bought a six pack at Costco), we started making their pasta with butter. We’d simply fill their bowls with plain pasta first and add butter to just their bowls. Then we’d add the tomato sauce to the remaining cooked pasta in the pot.

Pasta was another easy, kid-friendly meal to make in a campervan in Iceland.

3. Breakfast Burritos (for dinner!)

Another of our favourite Iceland camping meals was another Mexican inspired dish – breakfast burritos. I love how healthy and filling this dish is, and our kids just devour them.

We’d buy a pack of tortillas and fill it with scrambled eggs, cheese, corn and salsa. Our kids would go to bed happy and full every night with breakfast burritos in their tummies.

Dan and Celine Brewer, of the FamilyCanTravel.com blog, eat a meal with their kids while on a 3-week camping trip around Iceland.

4A. Beans and Wieners

The final meal in our family Iceland camping meals rotation was beans and wieners. We’d simply buy a pack of delicious Iceland hot dogs and add them to three cans of baked beans. Again, a filling, and kind of nutritious meal which they gobble up every time.

Beans and wieners was one of our favorite kid-friendly meal ideas while camping in Iceland.

4B. Instant Pasta Bowls

Our daughter didn’t like the beans and wieners, so we’d buy her a package of ready made carbonara pasta, which to be honest was delicious! We’d give her a portion of the hot dogs on the side.

5. Dining Out

Due to the shocking cost, we didn’t eat out much in Iceland. But, we did celebrate a birthday during our family camping trip to Iceland, so we went out for pizza in Husavik. Perhaps it was because it was just something new and different, but the pizza was amazing!!

Snacks

Our family camping trip to Iceland was a very active trip with lots of hiking and other outdoor activities. To fill in the spaces in between meals, here are the snacks we enjoyed during our family trip to Iceland:

  • Made Good granola bars
  • Naked bars
  • Fruit and nut bars
  • Baby carrots
  • Sweet peppers
  • Cucumbers
  • Hi Chews
  • Doritos
  • Skyr (a traditional Icelandic dairy product, similar to greek yogurt)

As you might guess, most of these snacks were bought on Day 1 of our Iceland camping trip during our stop at Costco.

We loved Skyr yogurt during our 3-week camping trip to Iceland.

And there you have it – there’s our kid-approved meal ideas for camping in Iceland. Bon Appetit!

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If you are still planning your family camping trip to Iceland, don’t miss my Top 10 kid-friendly campgrounds in Iceland!

Need a Family-Friendly Campervan in Iceland?

If you spend some time browsing our Iceland posts, you’ll see that our 3-week family camping trip in Iceland was unforgettable. Having the complete freedom of a family-friendly campervan was a huge reason for the success of our Iceland camping trip.

If you are looking for a kid-friendly campervan in Iceland, we recommend you check out the Go BIG Automatic Campervan from GoCampers.is! With plenty of space, comfy beds, and an easy-to-drive automatic transmission, it gave us total freedom to explore Iceland’s stunning landscapes without the expense or hassles of staying in hotels.

The Family Can Travel kids have fun in their  Go BIG Automatic Campervan from GoCampers.is during a 3-week family camping trip around Iceland.

With two levels for sleeping, the Go BIG Automatic Campervan comfortably sleeps up to 4. With all the fresh air and exercise we got on our family camping trip, we had some of the best sleeps of our life in this campervan – I’m not joking!

Restaurant meals in Iceland are incredibly expensive, so with the included fridge and cooking gear, we were able to save a ton of money cooking our own meals. Plus, unlike tent campers, we were grateful to be able to eat indoors on the days the weather wasn’t perfect.

If you’re dreaming of the perfect family-friendly Iceland campervan, book your Go Campers van today!

a GoCampers campervan parked at the Asbyrgi campground in North Iceland.

Get 5% off Your Rental!

If you make your reservation with Go Campers using our link and use the code “familycantravel” at checkout, you’ll get 5% off your rental!

Dan Brewer, co-owner of the Family Can Travel website, visits a food market in Tokyo, Japan with his son.
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Dan Brewer is an intrepid family travel blogger with a passion for exploring the world's most captivating destinations. With 58 countries under his belt and a sense of wanderlust that knows no bounds, he has made it his life's mission to share his travel experiences and insights with fellow families who love to travel.

When Dan isn't traveling with his wife and kids, he's either out enjoying the Canadian Rockies he calls home or working on one of his three travel sites (Family Can Travel, Travel Banff Canada and Ultimate Sports Road Trip).