Our Journey

Dec

2022

Westman Islands – Full Guide + Top Things to Do [our experience]

We wrote this detailed guide to Westman islands, including top things to do in Westman islands, to help you with our practical, in-depth experience, unlike other often very shallow blogs out there. We include detailed info about what to see in Westman Islands, a ferry to Heimaey island, the need to have a car, the best hikes, our favorite spots, puffins and many more.

Contents

Map of Westman Islands
How to get to Westman islands?
How much time do you need on the Westman Islands?
Do you need a car on the Westman islands?
Can you walk around Vestmannaeyjar?
When to visit Westman islands
- Westman islands in Summer
- Westman islands in Winter
Should I visit Westman islands if …?
Parking, Accommodation, and Food
How to see puffins on the Westman Islands
How to see the best of the Westman Islands in 1 day – our itinerary
Are Westman islands worth it for a day?
Top things to do on the Westman islands – our experience
Guided tours to Westman islands
Best guided tours on Westman islands

Map of Westman Islands

Below you may find the handy map of Heimaey, the biggest of all Westman islands. Heimaey map depicts all interesting spots on the Westman Islands and should help you orientate much better. Here is also the detailed map of Vestmannaeyjar town.

Local map of the Westman islands (click to enlarge)

Westman Islands, or in Icelandic Vestmannaeyjar, is an amazingly picturesque group of islands very close to and well accessible from the touristy south coast of Iceland. Are Westman islands worth visiting? The answer depends, but most of the time it’s definitely yes.

What are the top places in the Westman islands? And how much time should you devote to a visit to Vestmannaeyjar? We answer all of these questions in our new guide to the Westman islands below. We also include a lot of our own experience with visiting the islands.

The main, the most diverse, and the most visited Westman island with all the infrastructure is called Heimaey. In the entire text below, we will be referring to Heimaey only, if not stated otherwise.

Vestmannaeyjar Heimaey town

How to get to Westman islands?

First and foremost, the only way to get to Westman islands is by ferry, a private boat, or by plane. Undoubtedly the most comfortable and also the most widely used option is by taking a ferry. Alternatively, you may book a boat tour to or around Westman islands, see below. There’s also a small airport for small airplanes, though this option is usually not used much, because it’s definitely the most expensive one and also not that flexible.

A detailed guide on How to choose the best Car for Iceland.

Westman Islands Ferry

The most used, most flexible, most affordable, and in our opinion also the best option to visit Westman islands is by taking a ferry. You can check all the current information about the ferry on the official Icelandic website of the Westman islands ferry company called Herjólfur.

Ferry heading from Landeyjahöfn to Vestmannaeyjar

Westman Islands ferry schedule

In summer AND when the weather is fine, the ferry departs from the closest possible harbor, the harbor in Landeyjahöfn. How long is the ferry? The sailing time is about 40 minutes and in summer there are 7 different time slots available each day. In case the weather is NOT favorable, the ferry has to take the longer route and it departs from Þorlákshöfn instead and just twice a day. The journey from Þorlákshöfn to the Westman islands takes about 3 hours and can be very bumpy.

Landeyjahöfn ferry schedule:

Departures from Landeyjahöfn daily at 8:15, 10:45, 13:15, 15:45, 18:15, 20:45 and 23:15
Departures from Vestmannaeyjar daily at 7:00, 9:30, 12:00, 14:30, 17:00, 19:30 and 22:00

Þorlákshöfn ferry schedule:

Departures from Þorlákshöfn at 10:45 and 20:45
Departures from Vestmannaeyjar at 7:00 and 17:00

Westman islands ferry. Source: https://herjolfur.is/

How to book a ferry to the Westman islands?

Book only and only via the official Icelandic ferry company called Herjólfur. Although this name is not very user-friendly, this is the ONLY OFFICIAL ferry website! All the other websites (for example www.visitwestmanislands.com) are just re-sellers or other tour operators. This means they will take a commission to book on Herjólfur on your behalf. We always book directly with Herjólfur, because booking with someone else is an unnecessary complication.

To book a ferry, simply visit www.herjolfur.is and make a booking for the desired time. There’s a full refund policy up to 24 hours before the departure for all payments made by a debit/credit card. You’re gonna pay 500ISK (about 4 USD) for each change/cancellation. If your sail is canceled, you will be offered an alternative time. If there’s a chance a ferry may be full, you will be put on a waiting list – see below.

Ferry to Westman islands, passenger deck

How far in advance should you buy a ferry ticket to the Westman islands?

To have a 100% certainty to get a spot (especially if you take your car), of course, you need to book in advance. Is there a chance you will get a spot even if you don’t book in advance? Yes, most of the time you can get the spot, even in summer. What we’ve done and what we also suggest is booking a few days in advance. This way you can book only on a day with nice weather and you have a high chance to get the spot as well.

The alternative with even bigger certainty, just a little bit more work, is booking further in advance and then rescheduling a few days before your trip. Yes, it will cost you a few dollars but it will leave you full peace of mind.

The ferry is usually fully booked on Icelandic summer holidays and also during summer festivities and festivals. Check those carefully, because if you plan to visit Westman islands on these dates, you really need to book very far in advance (months). You can find the list of all events happening on the Westman Islands here.

Moreover, if you are visiting without a car, the chances for a free slot are very high most of the time. Because there are naturally much more spots available for pedestrians compared to cars.

Heimaey harbor, Vestmannaeyjar

We wanted to visit Westman islands with our car in July, i.e. in full season, but only on a nice day (see weather section below). In Facebook groups, everybody was scaring people out that they should book the ferry months in advance. We didn’t follow this advice. Instead, I checked every day the availability on www.herjolfur.is for our planned days of visit and what I observed was that the availability was always there even for all the time slots. Hence, I booked the ferry just 3 days in advance, to be sure about the nice weather.

I recommend you the same strategy as we conducted above. Just beware of the Icelandic holidays and festivals. And, secondly, I don’t recommend booking totally last minute (like on the same day). This is a bit too late in my opinion.

We actually even had a pretty good “last minute” booking and rescheduling experience with the ferry. We booked a ferry from Landeyjahöfn for 20th July for 2 people and also for 1 normal car for 8:30 in the morning and back from Westman islands at 22:00. Finally, we finished our day quite soon, around 16:00, so we decided to try our luck and catch a ferry back at 17:00. I asked at the ticket office at 16:30 and they told me that they need to first put us on the waiting list to see whether there’s any spot left. The ferry had first boarded everyone else and in the end, they shouted our names to indicate there was still some space. This way we got back 5 hours earlier, even at the last minute without re-booking in advance.

The famous Elephant rock on the western coast of Vestmannaeyjar

How often does the ferry to Westman Islands get Canceled?

Cancellations happen only when the weather or seas are too harsh to sail. This almost never happens in summer, i.e. between June and September. From October until May cancellations happen from time to time, usually during weather alerts, i.e. on average around twice a month.

The ferry is only very rarely canceled completely, instead, it sails from the bigger harbor called Þorlákshöfn instead. The sail in this case, however, takes a very long time, usually around 3 hours. It Is also often pretty unpleasant due to huge waves. If the ferry gets canceled last minute, you will be always offered an alternative time slot, just bear in mind your trip schedule will change in this case. But hey, that’s Iceland, get used to it!

Eldfell volcano hike is one of the easiest and most beautiful ones

How much time do you need on the Westman Islands?

You can easily see the best spots of the Westman Islands in 1 day. The main Heimaey island is pretty small and if you have a car, 1 day is more than enough to explore it. If you enjoy traveling slowly, you can go for 2 days, but not more.

So how should you decide? We managed to see everything we wanted in under 7 hours, including the two most beautiful hikes of the Westman islands. We had a car, which helped a lot with cutting down the transportation times. To sum up – for us – 1 day was more than enough. If you have nice weather. And if you have a car.

Tips on the most beautiful places in Icelandic Highlands.

If you really want to take it slowly and/or you simply have to arrive late, and/or the weather is not that nice, in that case, I recommend you go for 2 days, but not more. Heimaey is not that big and, unless you just want to sit and chill, you will not have much to do there after some time.

Heimaklettur hike is our favorite hike of the Westman islands

Do you need a car on the Westman islands?

You don’t need a car, but we recommend you bring one. A car will make your visit to the Westman islands much more comfortable and flexible. Why? Well, yes, everything is within “walking distance” on Westman islands. BUT. This walking distance sometimes means walking 40-60 minutes just on an ordinary road for cars. And that’s not very pleasant. We’ve actually met several walking-only visitors who tried to hitchhike with us, unfortunately, our car was totally packed up with stuff.

Not to mention if the weather worsens. Trust me, you don’t want to stay outside in bad weather on the Westman islands 😉 That being said, if you have a lot of time and you really need to save money, then yes, you can definitely visit Westman islands also without a car. However, if you are either short on time or if you prefer more comfort, I totally recommend rather bringing a car, the cost of doing so is not that horrible.

The western coast of Heimaey, popular puffin watching area

Can you walk around Vestmannaeyjar?

Yes, everything on the main Heimaey island is within a walking distance. Just bear in mind weather may often be uncomfortable for walking. Secondly, if you plan to see puffins in the southern part of the island, the walk there from the harbor is a pretty long one and takes around 40-60 minutes. Thirdly, there are no pedestrian roads, so you will need to walk on normal roads for cars.

When to visit Westman islands

Long story short, in good weather 🙂 I know this is easier to be said than done, but it is especially true for Vestmannaeyjar. In our opinion visiting the islands in foggy weather is simply not worth it. Westman islands are all about amazingly beautiful views and you will get none of these in a fog or mist. The same applies to heavy rain or heavy wind.

heimaklettur hiking trail westman islands

Sun shining in July during the Heimaklettur hike

Westman islands are sometimes called the windiest place in Europe. For some reason. Weather can get pretty ugly here from time to time, especially the wind. That being said, do what you can to try and pick a nice day for a visit – we wrote a guide on that. Now, what is a nice day? Well, ideally no heavy rain, no heavy wind, and no fog. Light rain is OK, the medium wind is OK, and a light fog is OK.

Westman islands in Summer

Logically, summer is the most popular time to visit Vestmannaeyjar. Seas are calm, the weather is at its best and naturally also the number of visitors skyrockets. We carefully waited for a day with blue skies in July to visit Westman islands and we didn’t regret it, not even for a second. Crowds were bearable and nice weather was more than just worth waiting for it.

Judge yourself from our pictures taken just by our phones. To conclude – we totally recommend a visit in summer, i.e. from June to September. An alternative to visiting islands in the main season is a near-summer shoulder season when the old snow has already melted and the new one hasn’t arrived yet. This period usually lasts during a warm April or May, and October.

Eldfell hiking trail is best enjoyed in summer

When visiting Heimaey, definitely consider also a puffin-watching season! Puffins typically arrive at Westman islands in late April, or in May and leave in the second half of August, when they begin to migrate south for the winter.

Westman islands in Winter

It’s definitely possible to visit Westman islands also in winter. The ferry runs all year long. One of the things you will be rewarded with in winter is you will probably be there alone with locals only. Very few visitors come to Vestmannaeyjar in winter. Why? It’s much harder to catch a day with nice weather, plus islands may be covered with snow. And Westman islands are at their most beautiful in lush green colors.

Westman islands in winter

Moreover, you will often need to take a much longer ferry ride from Þorlákshöfn, due to harsh weather or rough seas, which may cost you not only time but probably also several unpleasant moments of sea sickness. Is it then worth it to visit Westman islands in winter? We recommend a winter visit only if you have a lot of time and if you can be flexible and reschedule your trip based on nice weather. We think Vestmannaeyjar is much nicer in summer, with melted snow.

Should I visit Westman islands if …?

I have 7 days to do the ring road

Personally, I would visit Westman islands only if I had enough time for a time-flexible, stress-free visit in nice weather. 7 days for the ring road doesn’t sound like enough time at all. Therefore, the answer is no, I would not visit Vestmannaeyjar in this case.

I have 14 days in Iceland

Well in this case it depends on what your priorities are. Is it a ring road at a relaxed pace? Do you want to do a lot of highlands? All of these are definitely manageable also along a visit to Westman islands, but you need to set your priorities. If you are able to wait for nice weather to visit the islands and this will not ruin your plan, then definitely go for Westman islands.

Chilling at the peak of Heimaklettur on a beautiful July day

I stay just 4 days in Reykjavik

If you stay in Reykjavik only, this probably means you will be taking some day trips only and probably by tour companies only. So, a better question would be – should I book a day tour to Westman islands (10% discount code: EPICICELAND24)? My answer would be – on a nice day, why not? It would be an amazingly beautiful, but long day.

I will be in Iceland for a month

Totally go also for the Westman islands. Totally worth it. And wait for nice weather, please 🙂

Many useful discounts on Icelandic car rentals and Guided tours.

Parking, Accommodation, and Food

All of the above, parking, food, and accommodation are easy to get on Heimaey. Just with accommodation be sure to book enough in advance.

Where to park on Westman islands?

Parking is free at Westman islands and there are enough car parks. Just adhere to basic parking rules. For example, don’t block the roads, someone’s private property, or anything similar. You can park for free also at Landeyjahöfn harbor when waiting for a ferry and also at Heimaey island harbor.

Views from Eldfell volcano, the most popular Westmann islands hike

Where to stay?

There are several cozy accommodation options. We recommend you take a look yourself and pick the one you like.

Should you book accommodation on Westman islands in advance? Totally. With lodgings, we recommend booking them several months in advance, when coming in summer. Hotels and guesthouses (excluding dorm rooms) tend to get fully booked. Dorm rooms are usually available even last minute.

Where to eat?

There are several restaurants, don’t worry, you will definitely find something which suits your taste buds. Just look at Google Maps. We dined at a gas station, which is the cheapest option. Food definitely isn’t our priority when coming to Iceland 🙂

How to see puffins on the Westman Islands

Heimaey is home to the largest puffin colony in the world, with over a million puffins nesting on the island each year. That’s why many visitors come to the Westman islands specifically to see the puffins. Your chances of seeing puffins at Vestmannaeyjar from May until August along the southwestern coast will be pretty high.

Vestmannaeyjar puffins, Stórhöfði puffin lookout

To see the puffins, you can also take a boat tour from the town of Vestmannaeyjar on Heimaey. These tours depart from the harbor and take you to several locations around the islands where you can observe the puffins in their natural habitat nesting and hunting near the cliffs.

Are Westman islands the best place in Iceland to see puffins?

There are many great spots to observe puffins in Iceland. Vestmannaeyjar is just one of many. Other popular puffin-watching spots include Dyrhólaey in the south, Borgarfjörður eystri in the east, Grimsey island in the north, Látrabjarg cliffs in Westfjords or Lóndrangar cliffs on Snæfellsnes. Westman islands are not superior to any of these spots, so just pick the place which suits you.

Where to see puffins on the Westman Islands?

The puffins can be observed at several locations on the island, including Stórhöfði, a rocky headland on the southern coast of Heimaey, or the entire western coast all the way up to the famous Elephant rock in the northwest.

The best spot to see puffins on Vestmannaeyjar is in our opinion the puffin lookout located right before the final ascent to Stórhöfði. The easiest way to get to the puffin lookout at Stórhöfði is by car or by minibus tour.

Stórhöfði puffin lookout

When to see puffins on the Westman Islands?

The highest chances of observing puffins are from the second half of May until the end of July. Puffins typically come back to the Westman islands in late April, or in early May and leave in the second half of August, when they begin to migrate south for the winter.

Is there any specific time of the day when puffins are the most active? Puffins are most active early in the morning and late in the evening, as they spend much of the day out at sea feeding. Late afternoons are also favorable because the puffins are more likely to return to their nests or leave to go to sea. That being said, there are almost always some puffins during the main season, throughout the day. The specific time of the day is just about their quantity and their specific behavior rather than seeing them at all.

How to see the best of the Westman Islands in 1 day – our itinerary

Arrive by a morning ferry from Landeyjahöfn at 8:55 or 11:20
Take a car to have maximum flexibility
Hike the Eldfell volcano from the western car park
Go see puffins at the Stórhöfði lookout
Visit Elephant rock via the golf course
Hike the steep Heimaklettur hill
Pay a short visit to the Urðaviti Lighthouse
Bonus places: Herjólfsdalur hike, Beluga whale sanctuary, Eldheimar museum, Vikin black beach, Guided boat tours
Take a ferry back to Landeyjahöfn in the evening

Are Westman islands worth it for a day?

Westman islands are definitely worth a 1-day visit. In fact, 1 day is more than enough to see the best of Vestmannaeyjar, when the weather is favorable. Heimaey island is pretty small and with the help of a car, you can easily see everything in one day. We don’t recommend a visit in bad weather, including huge fog, strong rain, or very strong winds. In that case, either reschedule your trip or book for more days to wait for a clear day.

Heimaklettur hike steep trailhead (click to enlarge)

Top things to do on the Westman islands – our experience

We wanted to visit Westman islands sometime between 19th and 23rd July, waiting for nice weather. We had accommodation within a 2-hour drive from Landeyjahöfn. I finally made a booking for a ferry 3 days in advance and booked for 2 people plus a car. Roundtrip at 8:15 from Landeyjahöfn and back at 22:00. This should have been more than enough and it actually even was. We returned earlier, already seeing everything we wanted (including the 2 most beautiful hikes) in roughly 7 hours, at a relatively quick pace.

What are the best hikes on the Westman islands?

There are basically only 4 main hikes which you may all easily complete even in one day. Our favorite hikes were an easy hike to the Eldfell volcano and a technically difficult hike to Heimaklettur with amazingly beautiful views over the islands.

Views from the Heimaklettur hike on the Westman islands

The number one activity we more than just recommend in Westman islands is hiking. There are several amazingly beautiful hikes, each one a bit different and you should totally do at least two of them. These hikes were an absolute highlight of our trip to Vestmannaeyjar. Here is the list of all Westman islands’ hiking trails.

Hike to Heimaklettur

If I had to pick one most amazing and beautiful place on Westman islands, it would be Heimaklettur. The hike to Heimaklettur starts as a bit scary ascent with ladders, ropes, and chains, but soon turns into one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. If you are fit enough and have nice weather, then go and hike Heimaklettur in the Westman islands!

Heimaklettur hiking trail map (click to enlarge)

We started our hike with a very steep ascent, which soon leads into two series of steep ladders and follows by ropes and chains to help you climb off the ladders. This part is definitely not for anyone afraid of heights and/or someone not physically fit and/or not to be done in stronger rain or wind. Otherwise, this hike was a truly unforgettable adventure. We brought our hiking poles with us but then regretted it because they only slowed us down when climbing all these ladders.

After finishing the steepest section, the part with the ladders, chains, and ropes ends and the trail continues as a typical Icelandic hiking trail of medium difficulty. After a few tens of minutes of ascending the marked trail leading via grass fields, you will soon reach one of the most spectacular views Westman islands have to offer. It took us less than 1 hour of quick hiking to reach the top.

Heimaklettur hiking trail – ropes, chains and ladders

From the top of Heimaklettur, you will be rewarded with the best views of Westman islands available out there. The views stretch to all sides and you really do feel like a master of the universe when standing here and admiring the surroundings. It’s an amazing place for a picnic as well.

Heimaklettur hiking trail

Hike to Eldfell volcano

A hike to Eldfell is the easiest and most touristy hike on the Westman islands. Eldfell volcano also offers the best “price-to-value” views, because it only takes a few minutes to reach the top and the views are spectacular on a nice day. There are a few small car parks next to Eldfell – several in the northern direction and one main car park in the west. The main western car park is located next to the shortest hiking trail. The northern car parks are located a bit farther, but it’s probably only some 10 additional minutes of hiking.

Eldfell volcano hiking trail

Hiking Eldfell is a must if you are visiting Vestmannaeyjar. The view from the summit of the volcano is the most famous and photographed view of the Westman islands. And you’ll quickly understand why, once you get there. It’s totally worth seeing it, even though you most probably won’t be alone there. We took a western trail to Eldfell from the western car park and it took us around 10 to 15 minutes to get to the top. A very easy walk for virtually anyone. We met several guys with either jeans or shorts or sandals along the way.

Eldfell volcano hiking map (click to enlarge)

The peak of Eldfell offers magnificent photo opportunities in all directions. Even if you share this hike with other tourists, you are almost guaranteed to take a picture without them, there are more than enough spots for that. Once again – judge for yourself from some of our pictures taken by our phones.

Hike to Herjólfsdalur

Right next to the popular Elephant rock there lies a hidden and not much-known hike called Herjólfsdalur. It starts from the side of the golf course and leads steeply up the nearby hills. We haven’t done the hike to Herjólfsdalur ourselves, because we rather opted for hiking the nearby Heimaklettur. However, given the altitude of Herjólfsdalur hills, great views will be guaranteed once you get to the top on a nice day. See also the map of a hike to Herjólfsdalur below:

Herjolfsdalur hiking trail, sometimes called also Dalfjall hike (click to enlarge)

Hike to Stórhöfði

Stórhöfði hiking trail

Stórhöfði is the southernmost area of Westman islands, visited primarily due to the presence of puffins. Except for puffins, there are also easy hiking trails at Stórhöfði offering sea views and views of the neighboring smaller islands with cute and lonely houses. Stórhöfði hikes lead via grass fields and are fairly easy. Views are less spectacular compared to Eldfell or Heimaklettur, though, simply because there’s no ascent anywhere.

Stórhöfði hiking trails map (click to enlarge)

Puffins of Westman islands

Many visitors come to Westman islands because there’s one of the largest puffin colonies in Europe residing in Westman islands. Puffins are present in Westman islands usually from May until August/September.

There are two main puffin lookouts in Vestmannaeyjar. The first one is located in Stórhöfði. There’s a little car park right in front of it and the wooden shelter has been built there as an observatory. The second series of viewpoints is along the western coast of Heimaey all the way from Stórhöfði to Elephant rock, on the coast.

Westman islands puffins at Stórhöfði

Elephant rock

Halldórsskora in Icelandic, or Elephant rock in English, is a popular photo spot on the westernmost part of Westman islands. As the name suggests, Elephant rock is an interestingly shaped rock in a way that resembles a head of an elephant. You can observe elephant rock either from the west coast or arrive close to it by a walking path leading via a golf course. Please take care and don’t get hit by a golf ball. This is surprisingly a pretty popular golf course.

Elephant rock as seen from the car

Black beach Vikin

Only a few hundred meters north of Stórhöfði, there’s a cute little black sand beach. There’s also a picnic table and Vikin black beach makes it a nice little spot for a short pause. Not overwhelming, though.

Black sand beach Vikin

Urðaviti Lighthouse

Another place worth visiting for someone who would like to tick off visiting all the sightseeing spots in Westman islands. We didn’t spend much time visiting Urðaviti lighthouse, though. I think there are many more interesting lighthouses all over Iceland.

Eldheimar museum

For those interested in museums or simply if the weather worsens, there’s a most popular museum of Westman islands called Eldheimar. Not our cup of tea, though. Here is the website of the museum.

Beluga whale sanctuary

The Sea Life Trust Beluga Whale Sanctuary is a famous aquarium located on Vestmannaeyjar. Once again, it makes for a nice stop during bad weather, when visiting for more days, or with children. We wouldn’t come here specifically to see the aquarium, though. There are more interesting aquariums around the world than the Beluga whale sanctuary. Here is the website of the Beluga whale sanctuary.

Suðurey island, one of the small Westman islands

Smaller islands of Vestmannaeyjar

Heimaey is not the only island of Westman, despite being the biggest and the most versatile. There are several smaller islands nearby and many of them are actually settled! You will generally find just one lonely house located in the flattest area of these islands. And yes, it’s possible to get to these houses! But only by boat (or helicopter). One of these tiny Westman islands actually even offers accommodation, with somewhat scary reviews. If you wonder how people get up to these houses when getting off their boat, the answer is there are usually either some hidden stairs or a path leading to these houses.

Westman islands summer festival

There’s a huge festival taking place every summer on the Westman islands. It’s called Þjóðhátíð and of course, you can visit it too. You can find all the necessary info about the festival here.

Just bear in mind, cars are banned from the festival. Secondly, we highly recommend not coming for hiking or any peaceful sightseeing during the festival. Heimaey is just totally full at that time. This is one of the biggest Icelandic festivals, often with tens of thousands of visitors.

Westman islands summer festival, source: https://www.dalurinn.is/en

Guided tours to Westman islands

There are several guided group tours that will take you to Westman islands from Reykjavik, operated by several tour providers. And then, we can take you on our Epic Private Tour of the Westman Islands! Fully tailored to you, no other tourists and any departure point! So your options are:

A small group tour to Westman islands from Reykjavik
An Epic Iceland private tour to Westman islands

There are two main advantages of taking a guided tour to Westman islands. Firstly, as with any other tour, you simply don’t have to take care of anything. The guide will take care of it. Secondly, you don’t have to rent a car, the guide will pick you up from your hotel in Reykjavik.

Best guided tours on Westman islands

So, you’re already on Heimaey, and you don’t only want to explore the island on your own? Well, there are plenty of great tour choices. We picked a few of our favorites below.

Combo hiking + puffin watching boat tour

Seeing islands from the boat is definitely an adventure. A Westman Islands boat tour will also give you an entirely different perspective of the islands. Some spots are definitely nicer for a photo shoot from the perspective of a boat. Some are even accessible exclusively by boat. These are the three boat tours we think are the best:

Coming without a car and want to see most of Heimaey in 1 day? Our ultimately favorite tour for those without a car on Westman islands is a 2-hour bus tour of the main Heimaey island.

What about an ATV volcano tour on the Westman islands? Our favorite is this Vestmannaeyjar ATV tour.

Don’t have enough time for a guided tour? No worries, in our opinion, you will not miss out much by not taking a boat tour. Instead, when going on your own, you will gain a lot of flexibility and you may have all the places for yourself, not sharing them with your tour group. But that’s just us, someone else may prefer the comfort of a tour.

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Nov

2020

Day 12 – Best of South Westfjords in 1 day

According to the weather forecast, the last full day of our journey was supposed to be without rain only before 3 pm. Thus, we adjusted our plans accordingly. We woke up at 6 am and tried to see everything important before the rain comes. And we made it.

Road 60 – Vestfjarðavegur – towards Dynjandi

7:30-8:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

road 60 between thingeyri and flokalundur

Road 60 (Vestfjarðavegur) between Þingeyri and Flókalundur

Road 60 is a beautiful fjord road. It firstly crosses the mountainous landscapes and then leads along the coastline. It’s a kind of semi-paved road with occasional potholes, so definitely not the best, but not an F-road as well. It’s doable by 2wd car, you’ll just have to drive carefully and more slowly than Google times suggest.

Road 60, or Vestfjarðavegur in Westfjords towards Dynjandi waterfall

Views along the road are amazing and unique, though. The road is definitely worth taking.

Dynjandi waterfall

8:00-8:30

Distance from car park: 10 minutes 
Time spent at: 30-45 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little to medium
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

See that car in the distance? That was our car and this was a parking place

Probably the most beautiful waterfall in Westfjords (and one of the best in Iceland as well) – that’s Dynjandi waterfall. The huge car park and the entire infrastructure around the waterfall suggest that Dynjandi is apparently a very touristy place during normal times. Not during Covid-19 times, though. When we reached the parking lot at 8 am, we were the only car parking there. Just us and the beautiful Dynjandi.

OK for those of you who don’t have a zoom. Dynjandi parking

I had read before, that the hiking trail towards Dynjandi takes about 45 minutes to complete. That’s not true. It takes only some 10-15 minutes of light hiking to arrive at the base of the waterfall. Maybe there’s a trail continuing even further to the upper part of the waterfall (which takes 45 minutes to complete), I don’t remember any though.

Dynjandi waterfall trail

There are several smaller waterfalls below Dynjandi and you will meet them along your trail towards Dynjandi. The actual Dynjandi definitely belongs to the top Icelandic waterfalls we’ve seen. Its unique shape makes it more than just memorable.

Road 63 – Bíldudalsvegur, and road 62 – Barðastrandarvegur, towards Látrabjarg

8:30-9:30

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

crossroads bildudalsvegur vestfjardavegur

Crossroads of the roads 60 and 63 or Bíldudalsvegur and Vestfjarðavegur

Our biggest (and most distant) stop of the day was a visit of Látrabjarg cliffs. Although Google had suggested the southern road 60 to be the fastest, we chose the northern way – via 63 and 62. We didn’t want to go twice via the same roads (as would be the case with road 60) and we also wanted to take a look at Reykjafjarðarlaug hot pool.

Road 63 Bíldudalsvegur

We didn’t take many pictures of these roads. As far as I remember, they were (similar to the road 60) combination of normal paved roads and semi-paved gravel roads with some potholes. And again – a combination of mountain roads and coastal fjord roads. That means – absolutely OK with any 4wd car and also fine with 2wd, you will just need to drive carefully and more slowly compared to Google Maps’ estimates.

Reykjafjarðarlaug Hot Pool

9:30

Reykjafjarðarlaug hot pool

We wanted to reach Latrabjarg as soon as possible because the weather was still nice and we wanted to make it there while it still was. That’s why we made just a quick stop at Reykjafjardarlaug hot pot. There are actually 2 places for bathing in here.

First one is the man-made artificial pool with regulated water temperature. The second one is the actual source of the hot water itself – a wild hot spring with varying temperature (usually much hotter). This hot spring lies nearby.

Road 612 a.k.a. Örlygshafnarvegur to Látrabjarg

10:30-11:30

Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

We had already realized that the more difficult the name of the road in Iceland is to pronounce, the shittier the actual road will be. Orlygshafnarvegur was in line with this newly found rule of ours. Road 612 starts neatly but gets rougher and rougher with each additional kilometre.

Breiðavík beach

The last part of Örlygshafnarvegur is a rough, narrow gravel road with many potholes, leading across the mountainous area and sometimes even next to the coastal edge simultaneously. It’s definitely doable by any 4wd car (not sure how it looks in rough weather, though). We also met several 2wd cars, but they were struggling at least. Sure, in good weather you can make the last part even with 2wd, it will just take you much longer than in 4wd and you will be probably blocking many 4wds waiting behind you.

Nevertheless, the “rough part” of 612 is not very long, so if you are patient enough, feel free to take it even in 2wd. Views along the road are breath-taking. You will pass a shipwreck, a plane wreck, a car scrap yard, some small settlements and, most importantly, the picturesque Breiðavík beach. Is Orlygshafnarvegur dangerous? No, just don’t look down too much when driving near the edge of the mountain 🙂

Látrabjarg

11:30-12:30

Distance from car park: 2-15 minutes 
Time spent at: 20-60 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

First puffins spotted during our journey! At Latrabjarg

I had not studied about Latrabjarg much beforehand, just saw a beautiful picture of a cliff and decided to go there based on that one picture. Once we arrived there, we, however, realized why so many people take their time to reach the place.

Látrabjarg cliffs

Not only is Latrabjarg the westernmost place in entire Europe, it is also the place with one of the most unique floras and faunas. Secondly, the actual Latrabjarg cliff is more than just magnificent. It’s huge and admirable. And as a bonus, guess who is here? Puffins! During our entire 12-day trip Latrabjarg was the first and the last place where we saw puffins. Later on, I read that Latrabjarg is a place where “it’s guaranteed to see puffins”. It seems to be so!

Last puffins spotted during our journey. At Latrabjarg

We spent some time observing strange puffin flights and their landing, often, right next to us. Truly once in a lifetime experience. You may hike along the edge of the cliff as long as you want. We did so for some 15 minutes and then turned back. Although Latrabjarg was the place where we saw the biggest number of cars parked in Westfjords, it still didn’t seem to be crowded because of the size of the entire area.

To conclude – Latrabjarg is definitely worth making a detour.

Plane wreck, Hnjótur museum, boat wreck

13:00-14:00

Distance from car park: 0 minutes 
Time spent at: 30-90 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Plane wreck in front of the Hnjótur museum

Hnjótur museum

As I had already written, we had passed several interesting places along the Örlygshafnarvegur, which we had skipped before. On our return journey, we came back to them.

I’m not really into museums but my girlfriend is. So that she’s happy, we made at least one museum stop – for Hnjotur museum. It’s basically a museum displaying the historical life of people in this area. My girlfriend found it very interesting (I stayed chilling with coffee outside). After the visit, she told me stories about how Icelanders used to hunt puffin eggs by climbing down the cliffs or how they had rescued castaways from ship accidents many years ago. So, if you’re into this kind of stuff, feel free to go for it.

Plane wreck

Plane wreck in front of the Hnjótur museum

In front of the museum, there’s a nice plane wreck. I guess not much different from the one near Reynisfjara beach (Sólheimasandurplane wreck). Just this one is less touristy.

Shipwreck Garðar BA 64

Garðar BA 64 shipwreck road 612 Orlygshafnarvegur

Garðar BA 64 shipwreck next to the road 612 Örlygshafnarvegur

A few minutes of the drive back via 612, there’s also a huge shipwreck. Second interesting boat wreck in Westfjords after the one in Djupavik. It’s a short stop along the road, so why not take it?

Rauðisandur beach

14:40-15:00

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-30 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Rauðisandur beach

Just a 15-minute detour south from road 612 leads a hillside Rauðasandsvegur, or road 614, towards the biggest Icelandic beach – Rauðisandur beach. It’s a mountainous zig-zag drive on the pothole-full gravel road. It’s definitely a challenge in 2wd car, but without any problems in 4wd car (at least in good weather).

Saurbæjarkirkja next to Rauðisandur beach

We had heard a lot about Rauðisandur beach, with several people flagging it to be one of the most beautiful beaches they’ve ever seen. Well, if you haven’t seen many beaches in your life so far, then yes, Raudisandur beach is very nice. For us – beach lovers – we were not that overwhelmed. Yes, the beach is nice, yes, the beach is big, but other than that there’s nothing really special about Raudisandur beach. Personally, I liked the smaller Breidavik beach more. Maybe it’s nicer with sunny weather? We had a cloudy one.

Where to leave your car?

There’s a small car park in front of the picturesque Saurbæjarkirkja, or the little black church. Alternatively, you may continue further down the road in the direction of the church and leave your car there. The further you go, the less touristy it will probably be.

Road 62 – south – Barðastrandarvegur towards Flókalundur

15:50-16:30

Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

The southern part of Bardastrandarvegur, a.k.a. 62, is most of the time a good quality paved road. It firstly leads via hillside land towards the beach Barðastrandarsandur. Then it continues along the coast, making it a nice coastal drive in case of good weather. As far as I remember there are also some semi-paved passages but the road was generally OK and one of the better ones.

Hellulaug hot spring

16:30-17:15

Distance from car park: 2-3 minutes 
Time spent at: 15-45 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

How to get to Hellulaug and what to expect

Hellulaug is easily accessible by car from the main road 60. Just be sure to finally turn on Hellulaugavegur and end up here, because there’s one other (wrong) spot on Google maps. You will leave your car at a small, gravel parking lot. From there you have to descent about 1 minute to reach the pool itself.

Hellulaug is situated right in the heart of the fjord and it’s a man-made hotpot (water is being brought there by a pump). There’s no changing room, nor any shelter, but the hot spring is free of charge.

Hellulaug bathing experience

At the time of our visit, it had already started to rain. We changed our clothes inside our car and virtually ran in the rain towards the pool. There were two local girls (this time without cocaine) already bathing there (didn’t seem to leave any time soon). Well, if it rains, since there’s no shelter, some of your things will probably get wet, unless you cover them with something. We didn’t mind, though, because this was probably the last stop of our trip.

Hellulaug hot spring

The entire bathing experience was very nice. The water was pleasantly hot, but not too hot (some 34-36°C). It felt really comfortable to soak in the pool, while the rain poured down. Additionally, view from the hot spring is very nice, because of its location in the fjord. So you’re basically sitting in the hot spring looking at the fjord.

Two local girls left a pool after a while and a married local couple arrived to replace them. They taught us how to pronounce some Icelandic words and pointed out that we’ve seen probably much more of Iceland in 12 days than they’ve seen in their entire life.

Road 60 – south – Vestfjarðarvegur towards Kinnarstaðir

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

This part of Vestfjardarvegur is very versatile. Some parts are very well paved, some parts are semi-paved, some of them lead zig-zag through a mountainous area and some of them are a beautiful coastal drive. It rained persistently, while we drove on road 60, so we didn’t make any stops, nor photos. Nevertheless, we enjoyed (or at least I enjoyed :)) the drive anyway.

It should be doable also by 2wd car in the summer, just for some rougher parts (or in case of rougher weather) it’s an advantage to have a 4wd.

SjávarSmiðan

19:15

The closest campsites in the southeast part of Westfjords were two camping spots in Reykhólar. One of them had really bad reviews on Google maps so we opted for the second one called Sjavarsmidan. This campsite was supposed to be nice and have seaweed hot springs included in the entrance.

We arrived there after 7 pm and were the only guests of the campsite. There was literally no one, not even a camp manager. Seaweed baths were closed. There was a phone number on a door sticker. I called and the manager of the campsite replied that the campsite is opened, and if we want to camp we can and he would come to collect an entrance fee.

Well, it seemed a bit strange to be alone in the entire campsite. Moreover, the rain kept pouring and there was no kitchen area, so we didn’t have a place to prepare our dinner. Because of the above-mentioned reasons, we decided to continue to the next campsite with some good reviews in the direction of Reykjavik.

Búðardalur camping Dalakot

20:30-

We arrived at the campsite Budardalur at half-past 8 and the campsite was already almost full. The weather forecast for the night looked ugly with some heavy rain and strong wind. Hence, we didn’t want to park our car at the open camping space and found a spot in the leeward. That meant, that we were surrounded by a kitchen area, trees and another campervan. With the experience of already getting our tent wet once, we were much more careful this time.

Day 13

We slept hard during our last night and luckily the wind and rain were bearable. What followed was the most unpleasant part of our journey. We had to pack everything up, drive 3 hours towards Keflavik, return the car and flight back in the Covid times being very unpleasant ones for flying.

Nevertheless, the entire trip was more than just worth every while of planning and every euro spent.

Videos

Oct

2020

Day 11 – Best of North Westfjords in 1 day

Exactly according to the forecast, we woke up to nicer weather this time. It changed a bit later on during the day, but the morning seemed to be really nice.

As compensation for not bathing in Drangsnes pools, I decided to go for Krossneslaug hot spring. It was supposed to be a long detour, but I liked the idea of a remote coastal road leading to the pool at the end of the world (or at least the end of Iceland). I calculated that we should have enough time to make it, so we headed out!

Contents

643 – Strandavegur – towards Krossneslaug
Krossneslaug
- How to get to Krossneslaug and what to expect
- Krossneslaug bathing experience
Djupavik
The long road from Djupavik towards Gjörvidalslaug
Gjörvidalslaug (really hidden?) hot spring
Hörgshliðarlaug
- How to get to Horgshlidarlaug and what to expect
- Hörgshliðarlaug bathing experience
Road 61 – Djúpvegur – towards Ísafjörður
Seal lookout
Ísafjörður, Tjöruhúsið
Bolafjall
Þingeyri camping
Videos

643 – Strandavegur – towards Krossneslaug

8:00-10:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, hopefully
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Overview of Strandavegur, a.k.a. road 643

Road 643 heading towards Krossneslaug could easily be classified as an Icelandic F-road. It doesn’t contain any river crossings but it contains almost everything else an F-road may contain. Potholes, gravel, narrow passages, steep parts, driving on the edge of the cliffs, … When I had googled about the road, one review stated that it’s the most dangerous road the guy had ever driven. Well, I don’t agree with that, it’s not necessarily dangerous, but it may be a bit scary at some parts.

Landscapes along Strandavegur (643)

Road 643 is definitely doable by any SUV and definitely was by our Dacia Duster. Officially you’re allowed to drive the road even with a normal 2wd car. However, Strandavegur is the only “normal” road in Iceland, where I don’t recommend using a 2wd car. There are just too many potholes for it. Yes, you can do it also with 2wd, but take a lot of additional time. We’ve done it in about 2 hours (one way) and I would say with 2wd it’s additional 1-2 hours.

Beautiful views along Strandavegur, road 643

643, on the other hand, belongs to one of the most breath-taking coastal roads I’ve ever driven. So, it’s definitely worth taking. There are numerous spots where you just have an urge to stop, soak up the atmosphere and take photos to remember it. It’s also almost deserted, we met a single-digit number of cars during our drive.

Road 643 a.k.a. Strandavegur near Árneshreppur

One of the highlights of the road was a moment when my girlfriend spotted a seal sunbathing on the rock in the sea. We stopped the soonest we could, got out of the car and observed a seal family enjoying their day under sunbeams. It was a once in a lifetime experience to spot wild seals out of the blue.

Surprise! Our first seals spotted on 643

Krossneslaug

10:00-11:00

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 30-60 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Krossneslaug

Krossneslaug is the hot spring at the end of the world. Or at least at the end of Icelandic roads.

How to get to Krossneslaug and what to expect

Google Maps mark Krossneslaug quite precisely. They just don’t show that the “car park” (or better said the place next to the road where you may leave your car) is tens of meters above the pool. That means, you have to leave your car up, next to the road and you have to walk down the path to Krossneslaug itself. Only the owner of the pool has an access to reach the pool by car.

You can descent to Krossneslaug via this road or via stairs on the other side. Leave your car at the top

Krossneslaug is a paid (6-7Eur/person), man-made, hot water pool, utilising nearby hot spring water. It has a long history (1954) and 2 pools available for bathing. The bigger, rectangular pool with a water temperature of around 34°C and a smaller, more modern hot tub with a temperature of around 38°C. It is well maintained by the owner of the place, who also resides there usually from June until August each year. The entrance fee includes a changing room, toilets and showers, of course.

Krossneslaug bathing experience

Bathing in Krossneslaug is again a once in a lifetime experience. It definitely belongs to Top 3 of our Icelandic hot springs. When we arrived, there was no one else in the pool, only the owner performing maintenance of the place.

Views from Krossneslaug

Once in the pool, you will again feel like being in some kind of fairy tale. Just you, hot pool and view of the endless sea. The smaller, hotter bathtub even has a windshield (I guess for cases of severe weather?).

Before our departure, I asked the owner whether it does make economical sense to maintain such a pool at the end of the world. He just smiled and replied that from June till 1st half of August usually hundreds of people come per day. Even during Covid times, just their structure changed to more locals. OK, that surprised me, I guess it makes sense then.

Djupavik

12:00

Distance from car park: 2-3 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-30 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Djupavik

We made a short stop in Djupavik on our way back. It’s a little, once used to be thriving, village. There’s an old can factory (they even hold guided tours in there, we didn’t go, though) and there’s a boat wreck nearby. We walked for a while around the area, ate something from our food stock and continued in the direction of Drangsnes.

Boat wreck in Djupavik

The long road from Djupavik towards Gjörvidalslaug

12:30-14:45

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Our next target was a long drive towards Isafjordur, where we wanted to have dinner, and then camp at Thingeyri campsite, i.e. on a halfway towards the southeast end of Westfjords.

Semi-paved road 643 with many potholes

Thus, we had to go back via road 643, making a few additional stops, like the one for seeing a shipwreck. Next, the road 61 follows, which firstly crosses the inland and then starts copying a fjord. This is where the road begins to be interesting.

Gjörvidalslaug (really hidden?) hot spring

14:45

We wanted to make our first stop at another hot spring. This time it was supposed to be Gjorvidalslaug “hidden hot spring”. Nevertheless, even after 15 minutes of driving and walking around the spot marked by Google Maps, we were not able to find any hot spring.

Well, at least the hot spring remained true to its name “hidden”. Never mind, we’ve already been to a few amazing ones.

Hörgshliðarlaug

15:30-16:00

Distance from car park: 2 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-30 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Hörgshliðarlaug hot spring in the heart of fjord

How to get to Horgshlidarlaug and what to expect

Not only tough to pronounce, but also tough to find, that’s Horgshlidarlaug. At the time of our visit, the road 633 was closed, so we had to use northern part of the road 61 and make a detour south (left) right before crossing the Mjóifjörður fjord.

Once we arrived at the point indicated on Google Maps, there were just a few rural settlements with old houses next to them and we didn’t see any hot pot. At one of the settlements, we spotted an old bath-tub, with the big sign “PRIVATE PROPERTY”. Hmm, maybe this is Hörgshliðarlaug? I stepped out of the car and headed towards the bath-tub. On a halfway there a local guy stopped me with a huge smile on his face. I asked whether this is Horgshlidarlaug and he just casually replied that this is his house and the hot spring is another 2 kilometres down the road. I guess we were not the first, nor the last tourists sneaking around his courtyard.

The actual hot spring Hörgshliðarlaug is 2 kilometres south from the spot indicated by Google Maps

Nevertheless, the guy was right (of course). So, in case it will not be corrected yet on Google Maps (and you couldn’t see any hot spring), just continue 2 kilometres south down the road. You will definitely see it on your right (when coming from the north) or on the left (when coming from the south). There’s no real car park, you have to stop next to the road (but there’s a wider part of the road near hot spring).

Hörgshliðarlaug bathing experience

Horgshlidarlaug is a dirty, old, full of seaweed hot spring with some Icelandic atmosphere. It lies right in the heart of the fjord, so you will be able to watch the fjord while soaking in the hot pot. If you are lucky enough, there may even be seals around (we haven’t seen any though).

Horgshlidarlaug hotpot and a changing room

There’s an old shelter next to the hot spring, which serves as a changing room. If you are into “sauna style” bathing, you may even alternate between bathing in the hot spring and bathing in the ice-cold sea. Water in the hot spring is very pleasant though, having some 36°C (according to my professional, read as „guessed“, assessment).

At the time of our visit, there were 2 groups of tourists already bathing in the hot spring. Hence, we waited 10 minutes, and afterwards, the hot spring became empty. Hörgshliðarlaug is definitely an original and picturesque place, nevertheless, we liked Hrunalaug, Krossneslaug or Gudrunarlaug more.

Road 61 – Djúpvegur – towards Ísafjörður

16:20-17:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Djúpvegur is a well-paved road. The entire drive is coastal and copies the shape of fjords several times. It’s definitely safe to drive in summer and you’ll get some very nice views as a bonus. We drove it in rain without any problems. A nice road for a beautiful road trip. As far as I remember no gravel (or only short) or any mountainous passages.

Seal lookout

17:00-17:30

Distance from car park: 10-15 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-15 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: medium to advanced 
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Seal lookout next to the road 61

About 1 hour of driving away from Hörgshliðarlaug towards Ísafjörður via Djúpvegur we noticed an unusually large number of cars (read: more than 2) parking at one place next to the road. I slowed down and my girlfriend spotted a sign reading “seal viewpoint”. Well, how can they be so sure there will be seals? Oh yes, they know why they are sure. Because seals are here probably the majority of the time 🙂

Once we got out of the car and examined the place, we saw several people walking towards the bulk of huge stones located right next to the sea. Thus, we followed their steps, jumped across the safety fence and walked towards stones in the sea. Soon we realized, gazing in the distance, there’s actually a horde of seals chilling on the stones. We wanted to come closer to take a look at them (but not too close to scary them).

If you want to approach the seals, you have to jump through these very slippery blocks

Here came the difficult part. The only way to reach the seals was to get across the chain of slippery boulders covered with seaweed. That didn’t discourage us of course. Hence, for the next 10 minutes, we were jumping from boulder to boulder each one more and more slippery than the previous one, almost falling every other jump. Definitely do take care at the seal lookout – you can easily break any part of your body by slipping on the slimy boulders.

When we reached roughly a 15-20-meter distance from the seals we stopped to not bother them. Next, we just quietly enjoyed watching the group of wild seals in their natural habitat. Very cute experience. Please, just don’t get too close and don’t disturb the seals.

Ísafjörður, Tjöruhúsið

18:30-19:30

We finally reached Isafjordur at half-past 6. I planned to feast on the most delicious dinner of our trip here. In a restaurant with probably best reviews out of all Icelandic ones. Its name is Tjöruhúsið and it’s famous thanks to its fresh fish buffet.

Although I had read that it’s better to do a reservation beforehand, I didn’t do so. I thought that it can’t be full during Covid-19 times, right? Hell, I was wrong. It was full. So we had to turn back and “feasted” on the fast-food again. So, yes, if you want to go there definitely make a reservation. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to even try.

Bolafjall

20:00

As the last stop for the day I had planned to drive to the viewpoint on top of the Bolafjall mountain. Bolafjall should have been the northernmost point of our Icelandic journey. It was also supposed to have magnificent views over the nearby fjords and gigantic cliffs at its sides:

Bolafjall in a sunny weather

Weather was rainy and foggy at the time we were leaving Isafjordur. There’s, however, a big tunnel in between Isafjordur and Bolungarvik (the village closest to Bolafjall), so I hoped for a weather change after crossing the tunnel. Well, we crossed the tunnel and weather remained to be the same shitty, foggy one. Maybe on the mountain itself, it will be better? I still hoped.

This is how Bolafjall approximately looked like at the time of our visit in August.

Well, no. We drove to the summit of Bolafjall, but the mountain was entirely covered with fog and we couldn’t see a thing. Not to mention, the final road towards the top of the Bolafjall was really steep and full of sharp twists. My girlfriend was scared to death because of the combination of mist, steepness and turns, so I drove really slowly. Useless 50 minutes detour. Well, not everything has to go smoothly right?

Þingeyri camping

21:10-

Road 60 towards Thingeyri leads across the mountainous area, but is well paved and should be accessible most of the time. We reached the Þingeyri campsite quite late, after 9 pm. The campground lies right next to the picturesque fjord (and the local swimming pool from the other side). Reception is to be found at the swimming pool entrance.

Picturesque sunset at Thingeyri campsite

Þingeyri had one of the most beautiful campsites we’ve been to. Especially the dining area was really modern and nice, although a bit small. Thanks to arriving late, we were lucky enough to spot the sunset. And not just an ordinary one. Sunset at Þingeyri campsite was the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. Look at it yourself – the picture was taken with a cell phone without any filters. Truly breath-taking, fairy-tale-like place.

Videos

Oct

2020

Day 10 – South Snaefellsnes to Westfjords

On day 10 of our journey, we had planned to make a few stops around Snaefellsness peninsula and then head towards Westfjords from the northern part, starting in Drangsnes.

The westermost road on Snaefellsnes peninsula – Útnesvegur in Snæfellsjökull national park

We adjusted our plans according to the weather. The next day was supposed to be without rain in the northern part of Westfjords and the day after that was again supposed to be clear in the southern part of Westfjords.

Contents

Saxhóll crater
Londrangar cliffs
Stóri Kambur horse riding
Lýsuhólslaug hot spring
- How to get to Lysuholslaug and what to expect
- Lýsuhólslaug bathing experience
Guðrúnarlaug hot spring
- How to get to Gudrunarlaug and what to expect
- Guðrúnarlaug bathing experience
Drangsnes (closed) hot springs
Drangsnes camping
Skipped places

Saxhóll crater

8:30-8:50

Distance from car park: 0 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Saxhóll crater in the distance

Our first stop was Saxhóll crater, mostly because we had it right on our way towards the south part of Snæfellsnes. It’s a nice little crater, which you may ascent to the top thanks to the artificially built staircase. Compared to other sites in Iceland it’s not that interesting, but it’s still a nice and easy place to see.

Saxhóll crater – staircase

Londrangar cliffs

9:10-9:30

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 5-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

This is how Londrangar cliffs are supposed to look like on a beautiful day. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/comments/afac1w/londrangar_sn%C3%A6fellsnes_peninsula_iceland/

At one of the southernmost points of Snafellsness lie Londrangar cliffs. There’s a car park pretty near the actual viewpoint for the cliffs. So, it’s a quick stop which you should take when driving around the area.

Weather on day 10 of our journey was very unstable, with some parts of Snæfellsnes being cloudy, some clear and some really foggy. Londrangar cliffs belonged to the last category, that’s why we even didn’t take any pictures. We were able to observe only their silhouette, but I admit, they seemed to be really picturesque when the weather is nice.

Stóri Kambur horse riding

10:00-11:00

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 1 to 1,5 hour 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little to medium 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Icelandic horses – what is this all about?

Icelandic horses are smaller compared to “regular horses”, so it’s a bit easier to ride them. Icelandic horses, or in other words, Icelandic ponies are quite different from all other horse species around the world. More specifically, it is a unique breed of horse, exclusive solely to Iceland.

Icelandic ponies in Landmannalaugar

There’s even a law which states that it’s not allowed to breed any other type of horses in here. And once the Icelandic horse leaves the island, he’s even not allowed to come back. So – it’s some kind of a secluded, exclusive VIP horse club, here in Iceland.

What horse-riding tour we chose and why?

The only “paid tour” we opted for in Iceland was a horse-riding tour. Why? Well, my girlfriend is really into horse-riding and she longed for trying it also here in Iceland.

I tried to combine our horse-riding tour with seeing some nice landscapes as well. That’s why I chose the Stóri Kambur horse-riding tour. They offered a tour which leads along the Snæfellsnes beach, which sounded really nice. And, for a reasonable price of 50eur/person for the 1-hour lasting tour.

Stóri Kambur horse riding on the Snaefellsnes beach

I booked the tour just the day before, in the afternoon, by phone, found on their website. However, that was during Covid-19 times. Maybe during normal times, you would need to book more in advance.

Our horse-riding experience

We can now assess our horse-riding experience from the point of view of a non-rider (me) and a slightly experienced rider (my girlfriend). The entire tour was really chill, and the better-suited name for it would be “horse-walking”. There were just 2 of us (me and my girlfriend) and two German students rode with us as guides employed by Stóri Kambur.

For me as a non-rider, this walking pace was just right, I definitely didn’t feel like going faster. For my girlfriend, it was probably too slow, but she was fine with that. Bear in mind, that if you go as one group, you can’t go at a different pace, otherwise, the horses could get confused. So then, it’s better to go either in separated groups (if you want to go at a different pace) or get used to the same pace for the entire group.

Horse riding on a Snaefellsnes beach

The scenery around and the atmosphere was stunning, however. The guides rode our horses via lake (yes, the horses were walking through lake) and finally we reached the beach right next to the sea waves. We rode on the beach for a while, made some pictures and then turned back. We were the only living creatures in that area. Very nice experience. Although we got wet (from the lake), cold (from the wind), dirty (from the mud) and stinky (from the horses), it was definitely worth it.

Lýsuhólslaug hot spring

12:00-13:15

Distance from car park: 0 minutes 
Time spent at: 0,5 to 2 hours 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Lýsuhólslaug hot spring

After finishing our horse-riding tour, we felt really cold. If only there was some hot spring nearby. Oh wait, you are in Iceland, let’s Google the nearest hot spring! And yes, luckily, the nearest hot spring was supposed to be a 15-minute drive by car away.

How to get to Lysuholslaug and what to expect

Don’t get fooled by Google that you have to walk to this hot spring. You don’t have to. There’s a road leading right next to the hot spring area. It’s just not marked on the Google Maps (see below).

Lýsuhólslaug hot spring as indicated on Google Maps. The road to it does exist, though.

This hot spring is the man-made one, man-maintained and paid (6-7Eur/person). This time we didn’t mind paying a few Euros for it and even sharing it with other visitors, because we really felt like going for the hot spring. It goes without saying that you may use entire infrastructure around, i.e. changing rooms, toilets and showers.

Lýsuhólslaug bathing experience

There are 2 small hot tubes and 1 bigger pool. All of them are the so-called “sea-weed baths”. That means, they look to be dirty, because of the sea-weeds everywhere. The ground and walls of the pool are also slippery, because of sea-weeds.

The big pool has the water of temperature around 32°C (according to my professional assessment, i.e. read “just guessing”). Water in the small hot tubes is much hotter, around 36-38°C in the first of them and around 39-41°C in the hottest one. It’s definitely not recommended to stay in the hottest one for too long.

Road 55 – Heydalsvegur

Bathing in Lysuholslaug is definitely a very pleasant activity when the weather sucks. We really enjoyed it, despite the place not being anywhere near as picturesque as Hrunalaug or some other “wilder” hot springs. So, it depends on your preference, weather (and who knows what else), whether it’s worth making a detour for you. For us it definitely was.

Other than us, there was just one other couple using the pools at the time of our visit. We guess the main reason was, once again, Covid pandemic, rather than the place being unpopular.

Guðrúnarlaug hot spring

16:00-16:40

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 30-60 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

The neighbourhood of the Guðrúnarlaug hot spring

As we had planned, next we headed towards Westfjords. On a halfway there, we made a detour to another cool hot spring – Gudrunarlaug.

How to get to Gudrunarlaug and what to expect

Guðrúnarlaug is definitely a bit more touristy compared to, for example, Lýsuhólslaug. The reason for that is its proximity to ring road and to Westfjords, i.e., it’s quite easily accessible. The same is true when it comes to access to the actual hot tube – it’s a 2-minute walk from the car park, which sits right next to it. Google Maps are also quite precise about the location of Gudrunarlaug, so feel free to orientate according to them.

Guðrúnarlaug is located next to the small rural campsite (we didn’t see anyone camping at the time of our visit, during Covid-19 times) and something which looked like a school. There’s an authentic wooden shelter (similar to the one next to Hrunalaug) serving as a changing room, right next to the pool. Hot spring is free to use, I don’t remember a donation box next to it, but there may have been one.

Guðrúnarlaug bathing experience

When we arrived at the parking lot, we saw just one couple bathing in the hot spring. We were already spoiled by travelling during Covid pandemic, in the sense that we had been alone at every other place we had visited. So, we decided to wait a bit once the couple finishes its bathing, which took about 5 minutes.

Shelter for changing clothes and Gudrunarlaug hot spring

Yep, once again, we were alone in Icelandic hot spring, in August at 4 pm. The rain had already been pouring when we got out of our car. We really enjoyed Gudrunarlaug bathing, even despite (or thanks to?) rain getting heavier. The place with its surroundings is pretty cool and the water is pleasantly hot (some 36-38°C). Definitely worth visiting. It was one of the best hot springs we’ve bathed in.

Drangsnes (closed) hot springs

18:15

Next, we aimed for Drangsnes. I had already realized a few days ago, thanks to a comment on Google maps, that they had closed Drangsnes hot tubes starting 1st of August. I.e. 10 days before our planned visit. Due to Covid. That was a pity because we were looking forward to trying them. Nevertheless, we already had 2 hot spring stops on that day, so we didn’t regret much not having the third one.

We made a short stop in front of the pools, just to confirm that they are closed. Next, we headed towards Drangsnes campsite, because I had planned a road trip to Krossneslaug for the following day.

Drangsnes camping

18:30-

Drangsnes campsite was the closest camping to Krossneslaug hot spring pool. It sits virtually on the edge of the fjord. Everything around is really picturesque. It takes a 3-minute walk from the campsite to reach the actual fjord and you have a view over fjord directly from the camping area. This was one of the most beautiful campsites we’ve camped in during our journey. Mostly, due to its short distance to the fjord.

Drangsnes campsite next to the beautiful fjord

The camping facilities were OK as well, with 2 kitchen areas and showers. Weather in here seemed to be milder than anywhere else because the fjord seemed to soften the wind and rain.

Skipped places

Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge

We decided to skip Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge in Snaefellsness, although we had it on our list of places to see. Weather was very foggy and unstable at the time of us going nearby and we didn’t find the place so attractive to devote it a longer time slot (which it required because it’s a longer hike). On top of that, in our home country, we’ve already explored many gorges, so we don’t get so excited about them unless they are special somehow.

Oct

2020

Day 9 – towards Snaefellsnes and hot springs

We decided to finally get some longer sleep after 8 intense days in Iceland, so we woke up a bit late on day number 9. We’d also seen the weather forecast for the day beforehand and it was not very favourable. The rain was supposed to be our company in all of its forms throughout the day – light, normal and heavy. And the weather forecast was right. Weather-wise, this was the worst day of our trip.

We’ve still managed to see some cool places though. You may visit many nice places, even if it rains (check our “weather index”!), and yes, even outside, i.e. not only museums.

Contents

Hrunalaug hot spring
- How to get to Hrunalaug and how it works
- Meeting a naked Icelandic teenager possibly under drugs
Long drive towards Snaefellsness peninsula
Landbrotalaug hot springs
Road 54 – north or south?
Kirkjufellsfoss, Kirkjufell
Hellissandur camping
Skipped places

Hrunalaug hot spring

9:15-10:15

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 20-60 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, definitely
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Amazing scenery around Hrunalaug hot spring

Without any overwhelming expectations, we headed out for our first stop for the day – “Hruni” or Hrunalaug hot spring. Weather was rainy as promised by forecast, which is an ideal time to soak up in a hot pot, right? This even lowered our expectations about the place, because we had thought that probably more people think like us and the little pool may get crowded. Usually, that’s right, but not during Covid times, we realized.

I could confidently nominate Hruni hot spring for winning the award of most authentic Icelandic hot spring. It is, without doubt, the best hot spring we’ve ever been to. Thanks to many aspects. Firstly, it’s a place secluded from anything else with no buildings or roads around it. Secondly, the landscape surrounding it is truly peaceful and picturesque. Thirdly, the hot pot itself looks like to be from some kind of fairy-tale. And, importantly, the water (in the main one) is pleasantly hot with some 38°C according to my professional (read amateur) assessment.

How to get to Hrunalaug and how it works

Well, use Google maps. They were quite precise about the location. There’s actually a car park (see attached picture) near the hot spring. From the “car park”, it’s about 3 minutes of walk. You shouldn’t get lost, as far as I can remember there’s even a sign pointing towards hot spring. Once you arrive at the hot pot itself, you will realize there’s also a covered shelter for changing clothes! A very authentic one 🙂 The entire place is maintained by locals and works on a basis of free donation. There’s a donation box next to the hot spring.

Hrunalaug “car park”

There are actually several pools, some of them smaller, some of them bigger. All pools do contain heated water, but each one has a different temperature. The hottest one is also the smallest and is the one right next to the shelter. It’s ideal for 2 people, and if you are OK with some squeezing even for 4.

Once we got in, we really got carried away by the surrounding atmosphere. Just a slowly pouring rain, few sheep, endless grass and besides that just silence. Everything was tranquil, only until the new guest arrived at the hot spring.

Meeting a naked Icelandic teenager possibly under drugs

If you are not into stories, skip this paragraph. For us, it’s the one definitely worth sharing. We were bathing alone in the small hot spring when we saw somebody coming. Another visitor, nothing special right? The guy whose age was quite hard to guess entered a shelter for changing clothes. T-shirt with a big skull and some chains around his waist, not looking very friendly at the first glance. He immediately approached us and asked: “do you have cocaine?”. Well, this question didn’t help us much to cope with the image of the guy. “No”, I naturally replied. Another question followed: “do you want cocaine?”. Same reply from my side.

At that moment, I started to be really careful about our clothes in the shelter and the guy’s movements. “Do you mind if I bath with you naked?” Even by asking this question, he didn’t make us very comfortable. “I mean with my penis out, is that OK for you?”, he added. Not any better. After quickly considering any risks associated with my negative answer I replied: “we prefer not, we can go away if you want to bath here naked”. Now I was curious about his reaction. “And if I bath naked in the hot spring next to you?” That seemed reasonable, why not. “Yes, you can bath anywhere else” I replied. And, so he did – got naked and jumped to the hot spring next to us.

I started to think, that maybe it would be a good idea to use a golden rule, which works anywhere around the world with anyone, – no matter what do you think about the person, try to be a friend with him. So, while (let’s call him HR) HR had been undressing, we exchanged a few basic questions about our names, where are we from and our age. We realized he was actually only 17 (looked much older) and he was a local. Once we told him we are 30, he followed by “oh I just fucked a 30 years old woman a few hours ago”. HR definitely had his unique style of getting people around him uncomfortable and he seemed to enjoy it.

The main and the hottest hot spring in Hrunalaug

Then he started talking about how he hates Iceland because of huge taxes and the country being totally boring. So, to be on the same level as him we complained about our country being boring too, that’s why we decided to travel. He continued by telling us that the only thing you can do in Iceland is taking cocaine and that he had a lot of cocaine a few hours ago and again asked whether we are sure we don’t want any. We assured him again with the negative answer. The golden rule seemed to pay off because he soon called us “very nice people”. Then he told us that Icelanders love to drive completely drunk or under drugs and that he drove here under drugs too. I don’t know whether this is only slightly true or not, but since that moment I definitely started to be more careful while driving.

“What do you do for a living?”, he asked as next. My girlfriend replied she’s a lawyer – “oh I need a lawyer! I have like 13 cases going against me”. Oh really? We wouldn’t tell, we thought for ourselves. “Did you know that it’s illegal in Iceland to beat a police officer? Complete non-sense!”. We gave him a strange look at this one. “No, I’m kidding, I know I shouldn’t do it. But still, it sucks”. Then he actually gave us some recommendations about the nice places to see, mostly in Westfjords, which seemed to be his favourite part of Iceland. “There’s this beautiful house in Selárdalur” he told us. “It’s usually locked, but if you have a screwdriver you can get in. Just go inside, take a look and don’t steal anything. It’s OK.“

After a while, a woman with a child approached the hot spring, so we said hello to them. They entered a shelter and started to change their clothes. We decided to leave at that moment. We’d already been there for almost an hour. We told HR about our departure, “wait, before you go, what about having a threesome?” We gave him a strange look again, “no, I was just kidding. But anyway, if you would like to, tell me.” We thanked him for his proposal and left the hot spring.

The woman with the child, apparently already having heard part of our conversation, better opted for a hot spring located few metres away. They seemed to be quite scared of HR. Just before we left, HR asked us “do you think they are afraid of me?”, we smiled and replied: “yes I think they are afraid”. “Oh great!”, he replied and jumped to their hot spring immediately (naked of course).

We don’t have any idea what followed, because we left the place, but HR didn’t seem to be dangerous, so we felt fine about leaving. He just definitely had some dry sense of humour. And the entire experience was, without doubt, the most memorable experience we’ve ever had with an Icelander.

Long drive towards Snaefellsness peninsula

10:15-14:45

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, totally safe
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Meanwhile, the rain got stronger. One of the best ways to spend your Icelandic time when it rains heavily is transfers. You may still drive, even when the weather sucks and by doing that you may save time for seeing other distant places during better weather. I had already planned to make a 1-day trip around Snæfellsnes, so we headed that way. And it was a long drive, especially in the rain.

We took a southern route via roads 30, ring road 1 and road 54. Length and duration of this southern route should be about the same as the northern route of roads 359, 35, 37, 365 and 36. We chose the southern one, because of the better infrastructure (we wanted to have a hot lunch and do some shopping along the way). All of the roads we drove on were high-quality paved roads, so nothing to point out about them.

Landbrotalaug hot springs

14:45-15:10

Distance from car park: 5-10 minutes 
Time spent at: 5 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, definitely
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Closed Landbrotalaug hot spring (in 2023), resembling a mud hole

The rain was not getting any better, so we decided to make our first non-shopping and non-eating stop as far as at the border of Snaefellsnes peninsula. When it rains, it’s very enjoyable to jump into hot spring, so why not go for another one? The closest (and accessible by car) one on our list of the coolest hot pots was Landbrotalaug hot spring. When we first arrived at the place marked on Google maps in 2023, we realized that the hot spring was closed (then Google correctly marks it as closed, as of 2025 it should be open again).

I later read that they closed it because of over-tourism and gradual devastation of the place. At the time of our visit, we didn’t know why it was closed though. Because of closure, we just examined the place and took some pictures. Well, the place looks a bit like a mud hole, so definitely not such beautiful scenery as with hot springs in Landmannalaugar or Hrunalaug.

Nevertheless, if it wasn’t forbidden I would take a bath anyway. On top of that, there was no place to leave your clothes and it rained quite heavily. I didn’t want to have everything wet while being at the hot spring, so I decided to turn back, get into the car and leave. Never mind, maybe next time. Some other tourists coming after us didn’t seem to care much about the “it’s forbidden to enter” sign and they took a bath anyway. I don’t regret not taking it though.

Road 54 – north or south?

15:15-18:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, safe
Interesting index: 3 – nice (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

For our next stop, we were planning to see Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss. As I already mentioned, this was our worst day of the trip when it came to weather. The rain was still intense, even in the afternoon, around entire Snaefellsnes and the forecast for later hours looked pretty much the same. We also knew we needed at least 2 entire days for our planned Westfjords trip. Thus, we decided to do at least a road trip around Snaefellsnes and see it mostly from inside our car.

Google Maps advised that the quickest way from Landbrotalaug to Kirkjufell is road 54 in the south. We, however, decided to take road 54 in the north. The reason was, that we had enough time and the road seemed to be more interesting in terms of surrounding landscapes. Well, we didn’t see much of it, because of the cloudy and foggy weather. The little pieces we saw, however, seemed to be really picturesque, so we are planning to come back one day during better weather.

Kirkjufellsfoss, Kirkjufell

18:00-18:10

Distance from car park: 10/0 minutes
Time spent at: 10-20 minutes each
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Kirkjufell on a rainy, foggy summer day

Legendary Kirkjufell is a really picturesque mountain. We saw only its silhouette, though, thanks to rain and fog. Kirkjufellsfoss is situated a few minutes of walking from Kirkjufell. We decided to skip seeing it, because of already having seen many beautiful waterfalls and because of unpleasant weather.

Hellissandur camping

19:45-

For the next day, we were planning horse riding on the beach and a long drive towards Drangsnes in Westfjords. On the other hand, we haven’t seen much of the Snaefellsness yet, because of the rain and fog. Hence, I decided to adjust our plans, so that we can see at least some of the Snaefellsness peninsula the next day in better weather. That’s why we decided to camp in Hellissandur.

Hellissandur campsite on a foggy, rainy evening

Hellissandur camping is the westernmost campsite in Snaefellsness peninsula, slightly more to the north. That means we were still able to drive a big part of Snaefellssness the next day, via Útnesvegur in Snæfellsjökull National Park and southern part of the road 54.

Útnesvegur road near Hellissandur

Apart from having a convenient location, Hellissandur campsite is a nice little campsite located literally in the middle of the lava field. So, it’s a pretty cool place to stay at. Facilities in the camping are simple with a small kitchen and, luckily, also showers. Nevertheless, during Covid-19 times this was just enough for us. Its proximity to the sea is a nice bonus as well.

Skipped places

Grundarfoss

We decided to skip Grundarfoss for the same reason as Kirkjufellsfoss – the bad weather and already having seen several magnificent waterfalls.

There are also some beautiful Virtual Reality tours of Snaefellsnes to help you find more beautiful places and to have an idea of how Snaefellsnes looks like from a bird’s eye view!

Oct

2020

Day 8 – Across central Highlands: Hveravellir and Kerlingarfjöll

Visiting the orange mountains of Kerlingarfjöll was one of our most otherwordly experiences in Iceland. We totally recommend this trip to any enthusiast of remote Icelandic highlands!

If you plan to visit this amazing place be sure to read our detailed guide to the top places in Kerlingarfjöll and best hiking trails.

Contents

Kerlingarfjoll – from the south or the north?
- What we chose and why
F35 towards Hveravellir
Hveravellir
F347 towards Kerlingarfjöll Mountain Resort
F347 towards Kerlingarfjoll main area – Hveradalir
Kerlingarfjöll
- Kerlingarfjoll hiking options
  - The most popular hiking option
Hveradalir hike
- Hot springs
Gullfoss
Strokkur
Flúðir camping
Skipped places
Videos

Kerlingarfjoll – from the south or the north?

Well, it all depends on what your other plans are. Technically, from the south of F35, it’s a shorter route. But again, it doesn’t matter much which way you choose to start from – north or south. What matters more is, what you plan to do before and after your Kerlingarfjöll trip.

What we chose and why

For us, Kerlingarfjöll trip was day 8 of our Icelandic journey. We were doing the trip around entire Iceland with many detours. On day 7 we explored the area around Krafla and Hverir. That means, we already came from the north.

Our plan for the day was to drive the long F35 from north to south with several stops. The first highlight should have been Hveravellir hot spring area. The biggest highlight was, naturally, supposed to be Kerlingarfjöll. Finally, we wanted to finish our day on the south end of F35 in any campsite nearby. And if we had enough time, to see Gullfoss and Strokkur as well.

Just to add, the night before this trip we camped at Varmahlíð campsite. So, this was our starting point.

Ring road no. 1 between Varmahlíð and Svínavatn

F35 towards Hveravellir

9:00-11:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes (not pleasant but should be ok to drive)
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

North end of the F35 road, also called Kjalvegur

F35 is a long gravel road connecting north and south Iceland. Somewhere around the halfway through it lies the detour towards Hveravellir area and a bit further towards south lies a detour towards Kerlingarfjöll. There are better parts of F35 and there are worse parts of F35. Better parts mean you may drive quite fast (me around 100km/h). Worse parts mean a lot of potholes and turns, i.e. you have to drive slowly. Importantly, there are no river crossings on F35, only very small ponds doable even by 2wd car.

Having already seen roads like breath-taking F208 south of Landmannalaugar, out of this world F235 towards Langisjór or moon-like F905 and F910 near Askja, F35 was just an ordinary gravel road with nothing special to observe around. Bear in mind – it’s still Iceland folks – so surroundings will be nice anyway, just not that amazing compared to the best ones.

F35, aka Kjalvegur, near Hveravellir

We’ve also met probably the biggest number of cars on this F-road (read as “tourists”). This may be a bit annoying because some of them are too slow, some of them are too fast and, you know, Icelandic F-roads are not ideal for overtaking cars.

Hveravellir

11:00-12:30

Distance from car park: 2 minutes (hot spring)
Time spent at: 1 hour 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

I guess my expectations for Hveravellir were too big. When planning our trip, I had read that there are “several hot springs in the Hveravellir area”. Moreover, seeing pictures like this had instantly made me a Hveravellir enthusiast. Well, the reality was a bit different.

Hveravellir hiking trail. Pretty dull landscapes compared to other ones in Iceland

Once you leave F35 towards Hveravellir, it’s just a short, easy drive and you will soon find a parking lot in front of a small restaurant. Almost next to the parking lot lies a nice, public, free hot spring.

Since it is so close to the car park, there’s a high chance someone will be inside most of the time. Nevertheless, the hot spring is big enough and water is pleasantly hot, with some 38°C (according to my professional assessment). On the other hand, air temperature felt really cold, something like 7-8°C even in the middle of august. So again – be prepared for that – you are in the middle of Iceland, in highlands.

As there were already several people bathing in the hot spring even during Covid-19 times, we decided to be more adventurous. There were supposed to be “several hot springs” so let’s go find the other ones, we told ourselves. Hopefully with no people inside. We took one of the two hiking trails, which were fairly easy ones because they were just straight paths leading through grass fields. We were able to see quite far in the distance because there were no hills, but we were not able to observe any steam or hot spring. Thus, we continued to walk for 5 minutes, for 10 minutes, for 20 minutes and… still nothing!

Sheep around Hveravellir trail

We don’t have anything against walking, but the entire area was pretty uneventful, with nothing interesting to observe. We said hello to several sheep along the way, but even those didn’t know where the other hot springs were. Finally, we reached a small hill, where I was able to climb up and observe the surroundings. As far as my eye could see there was no hot spring.

So, we turned back and chose a slightly different way back on one of the crossroads along the trail. We arrived back via the 2nd hiking trail and still no hot spring anywhere. Well, the hot spring picture I had seen on the internet looked incredibly beautiful, so I still felt determined at least to find out where it is. Hence, I tried my last option – went into the restaurant and asked the personnel. The guy at the desk replied “You can bath only in this hot spring, next to the car park. There may be also some other hot springs further away, but you shouldn’t bath there.” Ok, my enthusiasm ended at this point and we bathed at least in this first and only one.

Again, don’t get me wrong, it’s Iceland, so everything is beautiful (Hveravellir as well). We just had different expectations and were not that impressed at the end of the day.

F347 towards Kerlingarfjöll Mountain Resort

12:30-14:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes (not pleasant but should be ok to drive)
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

The beginning of F347 between F35 and Kerlingarfjoll

Weather was so-so, cloudy with occasional little rain, and the visibility seemed to be so-so as well. We just hoped for good visibility in Kerlingarfjöll, please not like the one on Sveinstindur. F347 also doesn’t have any river crossings and is pretty similar to F35. The closer you approach Kerlingarfjöll Mountain Resort, the more the road starts getting more mountainous and more interesting.

F347 near Kerlingarfjöll mountain resort

Once you reach the mountain resort, the entire scenery gets really picturesque. There’s a map of the area next to the resort (this map). Also, if you plan to sleep in one of the mountain huts or just in the only campsite in here, mountain resort reception is the place to go and ask for details, like key codes of the huts.

f347 near kerlingarfjoll mountain resort

F347 near Kerlingarfjöll mountain resort

Oh, and one little note. In the first version of our Icelandic itinerary, we had planned to camp here, in Kerlingarfjoll. You can definitely do that. Just bear in mind, that on the 8th August, 3 pm in the afternoon (i.e. probably one of the warmest times possible) the temperature climbed to tropical 5°C. And the strong wind didn’t help it at all, making everything feel even some 5°C colder. Now doing the math that nights are additional 5°C-7°C colder compared to daytime temperatures, you’re going to be freezing for sure.

This is one of the coldest places in Iceland available for camping, so be prepared for that mentally, physically and with all your equipment. Given that my girlfriend had already been freezing during the past (much warmer) nights I decided to change our plans and not to camp here (and I’m satisfied with this decision).

Kerlingarfjöll mountain resort campsite

Now coming back to the crux of the trip. As always, we wanted to see the best of Kerlingarfjöll and do it in a reasonable amount of time. I.e. we were not looking for a day-long hike, but rather for something like a few hours long trip. That’s why we decided to continue as close as possible to the epicentre of the area by car. That meant, to continue driving the steepest part of F347 to the end of the road, or, Hveradalir area.

F347 towards Kerlingarfjoll main area – Hveradalir

14:20-14:40

Worth visiting even with bad weather: no (the ascent may be really dangerous)
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

F347 road next to Hveradalir hot spring area in Kerlingarfjoll

This part of the road is the most challenging one and probably the steepest we drove on in Iceland. Again, there are no river crossings, just the road is really bumpy and towards the end quite steep. However, in good weather (read – no snow, no heavy rain) it’s definitely doable by any medium-sized SUV and better, like our Dacia Duster. If you feel unsafe, go slowly, turn 4×4 on or watch someone else go first in front of you.

Once you reach the end of the road, you will find yourself at the car park. This is the closest point to the central Hveradalir area reachable by car.

Kerlingarfjöll

14:40-16:20

Distance from car park: 2 minutes 
Time spent at: 1-3 hours (or more according to your hiking passion) 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no, probably
Physical condition needed: medium to advanced 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Clay staircase in Hveradalir area of Kerlingarfjöll

Kerlingarfjoll hiking options

Once in Kerlingarfjöll, you have numerous hiking options. You may for example hike to Snækollur, the highest peak of Kerlingarfjöll. This is a challenging hike, where you need to be in a very good physical shape. Snaekollur offers the best views over Kerlingarfjöll and it will take you about 5 to 7 hours. Nevertheless, the two most popular options to explore the area are shorter and easier hikes around Hveradalir hot springs.

The most popular hiking option

An option we chose – to arrive at Hveradalir geothermal area by car (steepest part of F347, past mountain resort) and to explore it from there. You may hike around the area as long as you want and as far as you want and turn back at any moment. I.e., you’re going to be returning the same way you came there. This is the most time-efficient option and allows you to see one of the most beautiful views of Kerlingarfjoll in quite a short amount of time.

One of the numerous trails in Hveradalir area of Kerlingarfjoll

Another popular option is to start at Kerlingarfjöll Mountain Resort and hike to Hveradalir yourself. It will take you around an hour to reach Hveradalir area and you may enjoy some additional nice views on top of that of Hveradalir. You have to come back the same way you arrived in here (unless you are doing a big 3-day loop with sleepovers). The big advantage of this trail is a hot spring somewhere around the first third of the trail, where you may bath. The disadvantage is the time aspect, as you will be spending additional 2 hours just getting to and from Hveradalir.

Hveradalir hike

14:40-16:20

Hveradalir area is one of the most beautiful and breath-taking places I’ve ever been to in my life – together with Askja, Landmannalaugar and the F-roads south of Landmannalaugar. You literally feel like you’re on a different planet. This time it’s not rainbow mountains, no black sand, no green moss. This time, it’s orange mountains mixed with wild sulphuric hot springs and snow. A lot of snow. And cold. And the wind. Welcome to Hveradalir.

The ground is covered with clay (or something like clay) and with every step of yours it sticks to your shoes like glue. That means either take some shoes you don’t like that much or be prepared for some thorough cleaning. Hikes in here are not dangerous. At least not under normal wind conditions. And if you don’t go as far as snow-covered trails are. Then, they may be dangerous.

One of the summits of the several smaller hills around the Hveradalir in Kerlingarfjöll

There are several smaller hills and there are also smaller wooden stairs-like steps almost on each of them to help you with the ascent. And I do understand why. If it weren’t for them, every 10th visitor would have slipped on the clay and injured or killed himself. The views and the atmosphere of the place is truly amazing. Hot springs with hot sulphuric steam are everywhere and they help create an occasional feeling of warmth. There are, however, no hot springs to bath in Hveradalir area. This is contrary to Google maps calling the location “hot springs” or “geothermal area”.

We hiked around the area for around 90 minutes and enjoyed every moment of it. Except for the cold windy weather. With regards to visibility, clouds of fog were being replaced by the somewhat clearer sky, and vice versa, every 5 minutes. So be patient, and you may get better scenery for pictures. Or be lucky and come when the weather is clear. We hiked about 4-5 smaller hills and turned back from each one either at the end of the trail or if the trail started to be covered by deep snow, or reached high enough to be completely covered by fog.

Hot springs

Well, if you put “Hveradalir” in the Google maps, the place with no road pops up, quite far from the car park. However, Hveradalir area starts right next to the parking lot so this data point is slightly mistaken. The second confusing thing is if you are looking for hot springs to bath in. You will not find them in Hveradalir. Although Google is saying this is a hot spring area, yes, it is, but you can’t bath in any.

And it’s not easy to find it where the hot spring available for bathing actually is. We’ve accomplished that by asking a receptionist at Kerlingarfjoll mountain resort. She told us that the only hot spring with the bathing option is roughly in the one-third of the trail from mountain resort towards Hveradalir. I.e. after some 20 minutes of walking. Well, we already had enough and the weather started to get foggy and rainy, so we decided to go on with our journey. But firstly, we had to clean our shoes for at least 15 minutes to get off the Kerlingarfjoll clay.

Gullfoss

18:55-19:15

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Gullfoss at the time of our visit, i.e. 7 pm

The rest of the F35 towards the south, starting in Kerlingarfjoll is about the same as the northern part of F35. That means no river crossings, a lot of potholes and countless acres of deserted highlands. The logical option when arriving at the south end of F35 is the famous Gullfoss waterfall. And we followed this logical option.

Despite being tired already, we decided to go for 2 last sights. First of them was Gullfoss, or typically one of the most touristy places. You’re going to notice it once you arrive at the gigantic car park next to the restaurant and souvenir shop. However, we arrived in the evening during Covid-19 times. This meant an empty car park and a closed restaurant with a souvenir shop. And also – almost no tourists.

The waterfall is very easily accessible, which probably explains why it’s usually so touristy. It’s also very picturesque. It wasn’t one of our favourites, though. We were already spoiled enough with all of the places we had seen already at that time. As someone on the Google maps had put it “3/5 Icelandic stars, that is 5/5 stars anywhere else”.

Strokkur

19:30-20:00

Distance from car park: 5 minutes 
Time spent at: 10-40 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Being encouraged by the low number of tourists at the time of our visit, we decided to continue to our last point of interest on that day. Again, a logical choice, just a few minutes of drive from Gullfoss – legendary Strokkur. This time, we aimed for the undeniable number one in the ranking of touristy places. We arrived at this parking place and there were only 2 other cars. Maybe we are wrong? Too far away from the actual geyser? No, we were right.

Yes, at the time of our visit there were 6 other people than us near Strokkur. Now comes a little trivia window again. There are two geysers at this place. The old one – “Geysir” and the new one – “Strokkur”. The trick is, Geysir only erupts very rarely (if ever), whereas Strokkur erupts every 2 to 10 minutes. So better don’t wait for the Geysir to erupt.

What’s there to add? Watch the eruptions as many times as you’d like to and you’re good to go.

Flúðir camping

21:30-

I was planning to bath in the Hruni hot spring, the next day in the morning so I picked a Flúðir campsite for us, right next to Hruni. Well, the campsite was very simple and belongs to the worse ones from all of those we’ve been to in Iceland. Nevertheless, at least it had showers. I don’t remember any kitchen area though. Luckily, this day we had our only restaurant dinner, so no need for the kitchen.

Skipped places

• Fosslaug hot spring
• Secret Lagoon Hot Spring

Although Fosslaug hot spring seemed like a very cool place to soak in, we decided to skip it. Fosslaug is located near Varmahlid and would be a detour on our way to Kerlingarfjoll. And Kerlingarfjoll was our priority for that day, so we decided to go for more hot springs in the following days.

The same holds for the Secret Lagoon Hot Spring, with little addition of being touristy as well. We definitely preferred an experience of wild hot springs, rather than organized and touristy ones.

Videos

Oct

2020

Day 7 – Amazing places in Northern Iceland

We woke up on a partially sunny, partially cloudy morning. Our plan for today was to walk in more touristy steps and see the famous Dettifoss with Selfoss and explore the areas around Hverir and Krafla. And, to camp as closest to F35 as possible. Why? Well, because the following day was supposed to be devoted to one of our highlights – Kerlingarfjöll.

Contents

Dettifoss and Selfoss
- How to get there and from what side
Dettifoss
Selfoss
Hverir, Námaskarð and Námafjall
Hverir
Námafjall
Krafla area, Leirhnjukur, Víti
Víti
Leirhnjukur – Krafla lava fields
Hverfjall
Goðafoss
From Reykjahlíð to Varmahlíð
Varmahlíð campsite
Skipped places
Videos

Dettifoss and Selfoss

10:00-11:00

How to get there and from what side

You have two choices about how to get to these well-known waterfalls. From the west or from the east. There are endless debates all over the internet about which side is the best. I will make it easier for you. Eastern side is the best. No discussion. Easy.

Observe tourists on our side (east) and the opposite side (west) of the Dettifoss

Ok, let’s be a bit more serious now. Yes, I think the eastern side is much better. Why?

The road leading there is more adventurous
View from the eastern side is much better
Most likely you won’t get wet (much) on this side
Car parks are smaller, but that should mean fewer tourists, right?

That’s why we went for the eastern side.

Dettifoss

10:05-10:20

Distance from car park: 5-10 minutes
Time spent at: 10-15 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little / medium 
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

This is how trail from the car park towards Dettifoss looks like. Easy.

From our Möðrudalur campsite it was an easy ride – first on the Möðrudalsleið, then ring road number 1 and then road 864. Road 864 belongs to one of the better Icelandic gravel roads. I was able to drive the road quite fast. However, there are some passages which have a lot of bigger potholes. So, if you spot and avoid these, you will be fine and quick. For our Dacia Duster, this was a piece of cake. You’re going to leave your car (surprisingly) at a parking lot called Dettifoss parking (east).

A rainbow next to Dettifoss during our visit

It will take you some 5-10 minutes to walk from the car park on a stony but perfectly safe trail to reach the waterfall. Dettifoss is one of the most beautiful Icelandic waterfalls we’ve seen. Mostly, because its massive water volume is really impressive. It’s also said to be the most powerful Icelandic waterfall, and one of the most powerful ones in Europe as well. For those interested, there’s a nice website summarizing all waterfalls here. We were also lucky enough to catch Dettifoss with a rainbow over it.

Selfoss

10:35-10:45

Distance from car park: 20-30 minutes
Time spent at: 10-15 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little / medium 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

The eastern viewpoint of the Selfoss waterfall

You have to reach Selfoss by walking, there’s no car park. Nevertheless, it’s a short walk of about 10-15 minutes from Dettifoss, again on either stony or normal path. After the waterfalls we’d already seen at that point, we were not that overwhelmed by Selfoss. It’s a nice series of many small waterfalls, so what’s more interesting about it is its width. Needless to say, it’s still a very beautiful place to see.

Dettifoss with Selfoss were also the only places during the Covid-19 times where we met Asian tourists. I just wonder how many tourists are here usually, when there’s no Covid? Probably a lot of.

Hverir, Námaskarð and Námafjall

12:15-13:00

A short glossary may be useful at this place:

Hverir = hot-mud spring area (! Not available for bathing !)
Námaskard = the entire area including Hverir, so these two are often used interchangeably (Namaskard hot springs or Hverir hot springs, just there are no hot springs to bath in)
Námafjall = the mountain in the Hverir area, next to hot springs
Hverfjall = another volcanic mountain, 12km to the southwest of Hverir area

A nice overview of the area can be found here.

Hverir

12:15-12:25

Distance from car park: 0 minutes
Time spent at: 15-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Hverir, aka Námaskarð, in the front with Námafjall mountain in the background

As I already described, Hverir is a hot mud spring area and reminded me a lot of Seltún geothermal area near Reykjavik. Having already seen Seltún, we again were not that much impressed. The entire area was also very very windy on the day of our visit. Hence, it wasn’t very pleasant standing outside in the gravel area where dry clay was blowing into your eyes. Nonetheless, the area is nice and you probably won’t find anything similar anywhere else in the world, so it’s definitely worth visiting. It also suffers from being touristy, thanks to its easy and quick access from the ring road.

Námafjall

12:25-12:55

Distance from car park: 5 minutes to the start of the trail
Time spent at: 1,5 to 2 hours 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no
Physical condition needed: medium
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Námafjall clay trail

Námafjall is the mountain standing just above the area of Hverir and yes, as you probably guessed, you may hike it all the way to the top. There’s a loop trail starting near the car park and ending at the same place. It takes approximately 1,5-2 hours to complete, depending on your physical condition and weather conditions. There’s a nice view over the lake Mývatn and over the entire Hverir area from the top. But, again, compared to all the other places we’ve seen in Iceland it just felt like an average one.

View from the Namafjall mountain

The western part of the loop is a bit steep and you’re walking on a clay surface which doesn’t have a good grip at all. This, together with a strong wind at the time of our visit, was the reason my girlfriend decided to turn back and not finish the ascent to the top. I decided to reach the top myself, see the view and then turn back the same way in order to save some time compared to finishing the entire loop. This took me roughly 30 minutes. As I already described, the view from the top was nice, just for me not that breath-taking as the views in Landmannalaugar or the ones in Askja area. And naturally, the wind was quite obnoxious.

Krafla area, Leirhnjukur, Víti

14:40-16:10

A short glossary again:

Krafla = entire area with a power plant, lava fields (Leirhnjukur), and volcanic lake (Víti)
Leirhnjukur = huge lava fields
Víti = volcanic lake on the opposite side of the road to lava fields

Víti

14:40-14:55

Distance from car park: 0 minutes
Time spent at: 10-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Víti lake in the Krafla area

Víti is a very nice volcanic lake. It’s very easily accessible by car (the parking lot is right next to it). For those who don’t visit Askja, this will be probably the most beautiful “Víti”, or volcanic lake, they will see in Iceland. So it’s definitely worth making a stop, despite being a more touristy place.

Leirhnjukur – Krafla lava fields

15:20-16:10

Distance from car park: 5-10 minutes
Time spent at: 0,5 to 2 hours 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little to medium (lot of walking)
Interesting index: 2 – great (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Leirhnjukur

Lava everywhere. That would be the short description of Leirhnjukur. This is the area most of the visitors are looking for when planning a visit to Krafla. The area with a few geothermal hot springs and a LOT of lava stands some 5-10 minutes of walk from the parking lot. Once being there, it’s up to you how and for how long you prefer to explore the entire area. There are several paths, with the longest loop having approximately 4 kilometres. That’s the loop we took.

Krafla, start of the Leirhnjukur trail

It took us roughly 1 hour to finish the entire loop. Everything is well marked so it’s hard to get lost. The entire area (except a few hot springs where you cannot bath) is just a lot of lava in different forms. A hill of lava. A valley of lava. A field of lava. Reddish lava. Blackish lava. Lava. It’s definitely an interesting and surreal place to be at. I’m not a big fan of lava so I would give it just a “3 – nice”. On the other hand, my girlfriend really loved the place giving it “1 – amazing”. Hence, I decided to give it a composite “2 – great”.

Krafla lava fields

Hverfjall

17:10-17:50

Distance from car park: 0 minutes
Time spent at: 20-30 minutes round trip + 10-60 minutes at the top 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: medium 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Northern (quicker) trail towards Hverfjall

Hverfjall is a very nice volcanic crater easily reached by car, near Reykjahlid. It can be a nice addition to your Krafla and Hverir area trip on a day with good weather. To get to the top and enjoy the most beautiful view of both Hverfjall and the surrounding area, you have to choose one of the two hiking trails. The northern one is the one which most of the visitors use because it’s supposed to be easier and shorter. We took that one as well (so cannot say how does the other one look). Here’s the map displaying both trails.

At the summit of Hverfjall

The hike is easy, safe and short on a mildly steep gravel trail. It took us some 10 minutes to reach the top, with the wind being still strong, as in Hverir. A view from the top is really picturesque. It’s not recommended to descent down to the crater, due to unstable ground and no real trail leading there. You may hike around the entire crater though. We, however, just hiked it to the top, enjoyed the views and headed back.

View from the peak of Hverfjall

Goðafoss

18:55-19:20

Distance from car park: 10 minutes
Time spent at: 10-20 minutes 
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little 
Interesting index: 2 – great  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Godafoss before sunset

From Hverfjall we took a route 848 south heading towards Goðafoss. The route is nice and big part of it goes next to the lake Mývatn, where you may make several stops, according to your taste.

Godafoss is a waterfall on a bucket list of everyone driving the entire ring road. You’ll most likely find it in every Icelandic guide. That means we’re talking about a touristy place again. Reaching Godafoss is easy. You may leave your car at the Fossholl parking lot. From there you take a 10 minutes’ walk either from the south or from the north of the waterfall. We took the southern route and I can recommend it, views from there were very nice.

This is a preview of the northern trail (other side of the river) and southern trail (our side) towards Godafoss

We were lucky again to have beautiful sunny weather and arrived at the waterfall around the sunset time. Path to the Godafoss is paved and virtually everyone can make this little walk. Goðafoss is very nice and definitely worth visiting, though not our favourite Icelandic waterfall.

The southern viewpoint of the Godafoss waterfall

From Reykjahlíð to Varmahlíð

19:20-21:10

We were planning to see Kerlingarfjoll on the next day because the weather was supposed to worsen considerably over the following days. So, our mission on this day was to get as close to road F35 as possible. That meant a long drive even after a long and tiring day ending with the visit of Gódafoss. And so, I drove.

Firstly, a short drive on ring-road 1. What followed was a choice between a detour via road 84 or a paid tunnel (continuing on the ring road) towards Akureyri. Price for the tunnel is around 10Eur, which isn’t much. The thing is, you will save only 10 minutes when going through the tunnel and you will miss some nice coastal views of Akureyri fjord, experienced only when driving on the road 84. That’s why we chose a short detour to 84 and I recommend you do the same (unless you have any special passion for tunnels).

We just passed through Akureyri but it seemed to be a very nice town with a unique atmosphere, worth making a stop. Next time.

We continued on a ring road 1 towards Varmahlíð. The road will take you through a mountainous area. We had a chance to experience some genuine Icelandic weather changes at that time. During a 1,5 hour drive, we enjoyed roughly 20 switches of clear sky to heavy rain, then clear sky, then light rain and so on, and so on. And just to encourage you, on a half-way there, there’s a big drift-mark on the road and an old car lying flipped over, completely wrecked, next to the road. So, yes, drive carefully.

Varmahlíð campsite

21:10-

It was a late evening and we were really tired when we reached the Varmahlíð campsite. Additionally, the campsite decided to close its showers, due to Covid-19. The campsite also apparently didn’t have any kitchen area (or maybe it was just again closed). On top of that, the grass ground of the camp was soaking up with water completely, so with every step, you got quite wet (unless you wore gumboots). And the rain continued to pour and wind to blow. All of these probably contributed to us not liking the campsite much.

Skipped places

Hafragilsfoss
Hljóðaklettar national park
Jökulsárgljúfur / Vatnajökull National Park with Ásbyrgi canyon
Grjótagjá cave, Lava field Dimmuborgir
Mývatn baths
Húsavík
Aldeyjarfoss

Hafragilsfoss is accessible either by hike from Dettifoss or by drive from Dettifoss as well. We decided not to go for it because it was not supposed to be so beautiful as the other waterfalls on our list.

If you are really into hiking, you may also go for two national parks nearby – Hljóðaklettar national park and Jökulsárgljúfur / Vatnajökull National Park with Ásbyrgi canyon. Seeing their real photos, we didn’t find them to be the top Icelandic places to see in 12 days, so we skipped them due to the lack of time. The same we did with Grjótagjá cave and Lava field Dimmuborgir – we have many caves in our homeland and we’d already seen Leirhnjukur lava field.

With regards to Mývatn baths – we preferred a more natural and spontaneous experience of wild natural hot springs, in comparison to a rather touristy Mývatn. I don’t doubt the place is probably very nice though. We thought a while about going to Húsavík to see its famous whale watching tours. We finally decided not to, due to saving the time, money and not being much into organized tours. Covid-19 times even contributed to this preference of ourselves.

What we had originally planned to see was Aldeyjarfoss, because the waterfall made it to my bucket list of the most beautiful Icelandic waterfalls. I also wanted to drive at least a part of infamous F26. Mainly due to the lack of time and prioritization (Kerlingarfjoll the next day, because of good weather), we finally decided to skip the waterfall.

Videos

Oct

2020

Day 6 – Askja and Stuðlagil Canyon

In this post, we write in detail about our experience of visiting Askja for the first time. We combined this trip with seeing Studlagil Canyon.

Be sure to also read our detailed guide to Askja, for all the best places to see around Askja and useful driving tips.

Contents

Covid testing in Egilsstadir
F905, F910 and more to Askja
Askja, Viti, Oskjuvatn
- F894 – Öskjuvatnsvegur
- Askja
F905, Austurleið, F907 and Jokuldalsvegur towards Stuðlagil canyon
- Austurleið
- F907 and Jokuldalsvegur
Stuðlagil canyon – western side / eastern side
- Western side
- Eastern side
Möðrudalur camping
More Videos

Covid testing in Egilsstadir

7:45-7:55

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, our first with a completely clear sky and the sun shining at the full throttle. I set our alarm clock to an unpleasantly early 6:30, but for a reason. We wanted to go to Askja and I wanted us to have enough time for the drive, since I read (and also heard as advice during our car rental pick-up) that you should definitely take your time, because of the rough road leading there. The weather forecast seemed to be incredibly on our side, that’s why we‘d left our campsite particularly encouraged a few minutes after 7:30 and headed towards our 2nd Covid testing in the health centre in Egilsstadir.

Waking up on a beautiful sunny morning in a rooftop tent in Fellabær camp, before our trip to Askja

We were afraid of how long will the testing take. Testing was supposed to start at 8 AM and the receptionist told me the day before, that we should arrive soon because lots of people are about to come on that day. We’d arrived at the testing spot at 7:45 and there was already medical staff performing tests, with 2 people in the queue in front of us. Waiting time was 2-3 minutes and the test was performed in another 2 minutes, so we were basically done in 5 minutes – really kudos to Icelandic medical staff! Despite being a hassle for travellers to have themselves tested twice, at least the testing process was very smooth and quick so that it didn’t interfere with our plans almost at all.

F905, F910 and more to Askja

8:30-12:00

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes (not pleasant but worth the experience)
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

There are actually several different roads leading to and from Askja. We drove all the main ones. All the “bloggers” out there will tell you that the most treacherous one is supposed to be F88 from the north. The easiest route according to guides is then supposed to be the combination of F905 and F910 which we took during our first trip on our way to Askja. However, during our second trip, we took road F88 and realized that in dry conditions it’s actually shorter, quicker, and with much easier terrain.

Long story short – F905 and F910 are nicer in our opinion but longer. River crossings are usually similar (F88 vs F910). F905 and F910 have sand and big boulders and you have to drive really slowly. There’s nothing like that on F88. There’s, however, one river crossing on F88 – Lindaá river. Lindaá river crossing on F88 is usually the same size (medium) as those on F910, but when it rains, it can get bigger. So either check the rain in past days carefully or choose a bigger car.

If you are visiting Askja for the first time, better take the roads F905 and F910. Despite being bumpier and more difficult, you don’t need to deal with the unpredictability of the Lindaá river on F88.

Möðrudalsleið road, the first gravel road you’re gonna encounter when coming from Egilsstaðir direction

On our way back, my plan had two versions. First one, in case we didn’t have enough time, was coming back using the same roads and finding the first campsite nearby. However, my major version of the plan was seeing the Studlagil canyon on our way back, i.e. using the roads F910, F905, detour to the right without number called Austurleid (by the lake Thrihyrningsvatn), a short piece of F907 and then to the left via Jokuldalsvegur. I wasn’t able to find any info anywhere over the internet about this road that’s why I wrote a few lines about it here.

Modrudalsleid

8:40-9:10

Crossroads between Möðrudalsleið road and F905

Weather was unbelievably nice, the sun was shining, the sky was completely clear and there was not even the slightest blow of wind. If this is not the weather to go for Askja then it never is. We’d firstly driven a while on the ring road, then turned left shortly for the road without any number on Google maps with a fancy name Möðrudalsleið. I guess the more the name of the road resembles some killing machine the rougher the actual road is, but that’s just what we’d observed. Möðrudalsleið is a quite good gravel road (compared to many other F-roads) so I was able to drive really fast.

F905

9:10-10:50

F905 to Askja on an exceptionally beautiful sunny summer day

After driving some two-thirds of the road, we turned left to F905, where a real adventure began. By “a real adventure” I don’t mean anything dangerous (at least with our dream weather it definitely wasn’t), just endless out of this world landscapes as if you were on another planet. F905 and the ones following (together with reaching Landmannalaugar from the south) were the most beautiful roads we drove and are definitely highlights of our entire Icelandic trip.

Different types of surface alternate between each other, each one the more beautiful than the one before. Gravel, clay, rocks, sand, sulphur – anything you can imagine, all of this surrounded by unforgettable views of the volcanic hills around. I don’t remember any river on F905 (maybe only some small ponds, which shouldn’t cause you any trouble at all).

F910

10:50-12:00

Gated bridge at F905 road towards Askja. Just open the gate when crossing the bridge and close it afterwards.

After spending some time on F905, the road turns into F910, which is very similar in its character to F905, just, once again a bit different. There are a few parts of the road where you’re going to drive literally on huge volcanic rocks and you have to drive really carefully not to damage your car – this is where a good 4×4 with high ground clearance happens to be useful. The most important part of an Icelandic F-road which you should pay attention to (as I wrote here) is the regular rivers and their existence on your road.

There are two medium-sized rivers on F910. When we’d reached the first river, there was already a 4×4 car waiting in front of the river, I think Toyota Landcruiser. It seemed like a driver wanted to see someone else to cross first. I stepped out of the car and inspected the river. This one was not very wide and I was able to observe where the best part to cross it is, even by visual inspection. Depth of the river was fair, some 40-60cm at the deepest point so should you have an appropriate 4×4 car for medium-sized rivers and take precautionary steps not to sink your car.

F910, or Austurleið, continuation of road F905 towards Askja

Since we’d already gained some experience with river crossings on our way to Landmannalaugar, we were more confident here in Askja. After my river inspection, the Toyota driver approached me and asked: “Is this your first time as well?” I just smiled and thought “man I know how you feel, we’ve been there some 2 days ago” and said that we have some experience already from Landmannalaugar. She asked us whether we may cross first so that she can see us, and so we did. I just adhered to all river crossing rules and the crossing went smoothly. After the ford, I waited to see whether Toyota was able to ford the river as well and yes, they were.

F910 towards Askja

The second river emerges very shortly thereafter. The depth looked to be about the same, i.e. 40-60cm at the deepest point. Just this time the river was considerably wider and the road on the other bank of the river was not in front of us but skewed to the left. So, we guessed, we had to steer to the left when crossing. The shallowest part seemed to be on the right side, so we forded there, realizing the river is a bit deeper than we’d thought, i.e. on the upper side of our estimated range (some 60cm the deepest point). Nevertheless, we were already in the river so we didn’t stop and our Duster was able to make it to the other bank without any trouble.

Dreki mountain huts

Next, we arrived at the junction of F88 and F910, where, by turning left, we continued via F910 and soon reached Dreki mountain huts – the only place where you may actually stay overnight in Askja area. There’s a free public toilet as well. Finally, we reached the Askja area – but where to go now?

Askja, Viti, Oskjuvatn

12:10-15:15

Distance from car park: 20-30 minutes one way (from Vikarborgir)
Time spent at: >1 hour
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: medium to advanced (depends if you want to climb Viti)
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Useful map of Askja and Öskjuvatn area

A detailed map of the area to be found here.

A short glossary may be useful at this place. You may hike all of these and more:

Askja = name of the entire area.
Viti = volcanic crater you are probably aiming for as we were, with blue picturesque geothermal water.
Oskjuvatn = big lake just next to Viti, with no geothermal water (Google calls Oskjuvatn “Lake Askja”).

F894 – Öskjuvatnsvegur

12:10-12:30

Vikraborgir car park, the closest point available on your route towards Askja/Víti crater

Once you arrive at Dreki huts, you may already leave your car here and go for 8km hike towards Viti and Öskjuvatn and you will definitely enjoy the beautiful mountain area even more. What we did, was to drive as close to the actual geothermal Víti lake as possible and spend most of our time there.

To do that, you have to take the F894 road, i.e. slight turn right coming from F910 direction, standing in Dreki huts spot. The road is really rough and rocky, with volcanic stones and rocks about everywhere. At the end of the road, you will reach the car park with another toilet booth, called the Vikraborgir car park. This is where you have to leave your car.

Askja

12:30-15:15

Amazingly beautiful Askja (the whole area), Víti (the crater lake) and Öskjuvatn (the bigger lake nearby) all in one picture

From the car park, it takes some 20-30 minutes of walking the well-marked path with yellow sticks to reach the place everybody admires in the pictures – i.e. Víti crater. The sun still shined, the sky was still clear and the wind was still mild – what a wonderful day! And Viti crater looked even better than in the photos! Fairy-tale-like blue water with moon-like surrounding landscapes. This was the highlight of our trip. From this spot you may either:

Just admire the beauty of Viti crater and monumental Oskjuvatn lake next to it, or
Hike around the area, or
As we chose (or as my girlfriend persuaded me), hike down the Viti crater and swim in the green/blue geothermal water.

Hiking trail down to Askja crater (Víti)

This was one of the two moments during our journey when I was a bit scared (first one when hiking up the Blahnjukur peak in Landmannalugar, climbing the steep clay slippery path). Here again, the descent was steep and the ground was covered with slippery clay, which means you’re unable to control any fall of yours, in case it happens.

Nevertheless, it’s a short descent and not too dangerous, so in good weather, you should be able to make it. Once down in the caldera, you may enjoy swimming in the water with a temperature around 25°C, which is definitely not a hot spring but it’s definitely warmer than air (at the time of our visit around 10-15°C). Once in a lifetime experience.

Öskjuvatn lake in Askja area, next to famous Víti crater

The way back is the same – i.e. 20-30minutes walk to the car park, taking F894 to Dreki huts, from there F910 and from there you may decide between 3 main options – F88 or F905 or detour to Stuðlagil Canyon, as we did.

Me swimming in 25°C sulphuric water of Víti crater in Askja

F905, Austurleið, F907 and Jokuldalsvegur towards Stuðlagil canyon

15:15-18:45

We left Askja at 15:00, so we still had enough time for at least a short stop at Studlagil canyon, which was my primary best-case plan. We headed back from Askja, firstly via the same roads of F894, F910, two river crossings and then driving about two-thirds of F905 when we had to turn right according to Google maps to a road without any number called Austurleid (by the lake Thrihyrningsvatn).

Austurleið

This road and the roads which followed – I had literally no information about whether they contain any river crossings and if so, how serious they are. Hence, there was the only option – to try our best and in the worst case turn back. Well, at least if we had enough fuel. I tried hard to tank as much fuel as possible as close to the Askja area as possible. However, our trip was still a bit long even for Dacia Duster’s fuel tank. If we had to turn back in the middle of Austurleid or F907 or not to say, even later, we would have gone out of fuel probably. Luckily this hasn’t happened.

F907 and Jokuldalsvegur

Austurleið by the lake Þríhyrningsvatn didn’t contain any serious river crossings, just small rivers and small ponds of depth 20-30cm at max. The following short piece of F907, as well as a detour to the left for Jökuldalsvegur road, didn’t contain any river crossings and the quality of the roads was better compared to F905 and F910 in Askja area. Jokuldalsvegur is actually a semi-paved road and it’s definitely not dangerous to drive on.

Stuðlagil canyon – western side / eastern side

18:45-19:10

Distance from car park: 5 minutes / 30-40 minutes
Time spent at: 20-40 minutes / 1-2 hours
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little / medium
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Stuðlagil Canyon, view from the western side

After a long day, coming from the southern side of Jokuldalsvegur, we finally reached the western bank of Studlagil canyon (i.e. left coming from the south, or right coming from Egilsstaðir direction). Two main viewpoints of the canyon do exist, i.e. there are two possible ways how to explore the canyon – from two different sides.

If you are lucky enough, water in the canyon will be crystal clear (as in our pictures). In case you are not, the glacier water of the Kárahnjúkar dam will change the colour of the water to a less picturesque one. Nevertheless, the canyon columns will remain the same at any time 🙂

Western side

Stuðlagil Canyon, another view from the western side

The western side we explored was the one suitable for those who don’t have enough time or energy to discover the canyon by walking along. On the western side (left from the south, right from Egilsstaðir) there’s a car park and stairs taking you down to the man-made viewpoint. It takes some 5 minutes to climb down the stairs. From there you may admire most of the beautiful views of the canyon. It’s not possible to descent down to the canyon itself though, compared to the other side.

Eastern side

The eastern side is the one where it’s possible to hike down right to the canyon itself. The car park you will aim for is this one. You have to first cross the small bridge to the eastern side of the canyon, where you have to leave your car (or eventually you may leave your car somewhere before the bridge). Then you have to walk along the bank of the canyon towards the south to see its most beautiful part. From there you are able to descent down to the river and make some amazing photos from the close distance.

Möðrudalur camping

21:00-

The closest campsite to Studlagil canyon, in the direction towards Reykjahlid, which had good reviews, turned out to be Möðrudalur campsite. That’s where we successfully ended Day 6 of our journey. Luckily, we managed not to run out of fuel, so after leaving Jokuldalsvegur I quickly headed for the nearest gas station. Continuing on the ring road and turning back left to drive a short part of Möðrudalsleið again, we arrived at Möðrudalur campsite.

Möðrudalur campsite

The campsite was nice with a very cosy restaurant serving homemade dishes. We were lucky to see a very nice sunset as well. Definitely one of the better campsites.

Day 5 – Ring road from the South to the East

We woke up on the foggy, cloudy morning in Kirkjubaerklaustur campsite. Exactly according to the forecast. By the way, weather forecasts were quite accurate during our stay. From Kirkjubaerklaustur it’s a short drive to one of the main sights we had been planning to see on day 5 of our journey – Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon.

Contents

Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon
Svartifoss in Skaftafell park
Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón
Höfn
Eastfjords and Öxi road
Egilsstaðir and Fellabaer camping
Skipped places
More Videos

Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon

9:50-10:20

Distance from car park: 5 minutes
Time spent at: 15-30 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Picturesque surroundings of Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon

Compared to the day before – full of Landmannalaugar hiking – this was supposed to be much more relaxing day. Our first stop was, probably thanks to Mr Bieber, Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon. You’re going to spot the place quite clearly, because there will already be several cars parking at the spot before you arrive, regardless of time. Yes, Fjadrargljufur has become a really touristy place after Justin’s video even in Covid times.

One of the main viewpoints at Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon

It will take you some 5 minutes from the parking lot to get to the canyon itself. Yes, Fjadrargljufur canyon is really nice, but compared to the Sigöldugljufur canyon, we were a bit disappointed after all that hype about it. This was definitely the most touristy canyon we’d visited, even during Covid times. Nevertheless, Fjadrargljufur canyon was still very nice and worth visiting.

One of the main viewpoints at Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon

A few minutes before reaching Fjadrargljufur canyon there was a detour for Laki craters which we were considering going for. At the end of the day, we decided not to, due to mostly not very pleasant weather and tight schedule of ourselves (it was cloudy and it rained a little on the day of our visit with a half foggy air). There’s an F-road leading to Laki craters and in the event of nice weather, the views from Laki should be very nice. The entire trip takes a couple of hours and since the weather at the time of us passing by was quite foggy, we decided not to go.

Svartifoss in Skaftafell park

12:30-13:50

Distance from car park: 20-30 minutes one way
Time spent at: 15-30 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Svartifoss in the distance. 30 minutes before, all we could see was fog.

This was a touristy day and we were aware of it, as we were visiting the most touristy part of an Iceland – the south. Our next stop was Svartifoss waterfall famous mostly thanks to the Vikings series. Once we reached the car park of the Skaftafell national park, we realized what “touristy” actually means here. The car park and entire infrastructure around the entrance of the park were huge compared to all other sites we’d seen before. So we did park our car along 40 other cars and went for the Skaftafell trail towards Svartifoss.

Svartifoss trail takes some 20-30 minutes to complete, i.e. to reach the Svartifoss waterfall itself and it’s a fairly easy one. Map of the area is available e.g. here. You’re going to probably meet a lot of fellow tourists, as we did, along the path. When we reached the Svartifoss, however, there were just 2-3 couples together with us and shortly thereafter we were there all by ourselves. The weather was so-so with cloudy sky and slight fog. Still, Svartifoss was really beautiful and worth seeing.

The closest viewpoint to Svartifoss after sky finally cleared a bit. Still, we are wet in the pic as you may see.

There are many other hiking trails in the Skaftafell national park, so if you are into hiking you have several options to go for. Since Svartifoss is supposed to be the highlight of the entire area, we again didn’t go for any other trail and went just for Svartifoss. After seeing it and enjoying the views we turned back towards our car.

It looked like we will be spending the night according to plan in Egilsstaðir so we decided to adhere to rules set by the Icelandic government and go for the second Covid testing as recommended. On our way back to the car park I called the health centre in Egilsstaðir with an inquiry whether we may come the next day for our second Covid test. I also explained that we prefer the earliest possible time to not interfere with our planned visit to Askja. A very friendly receptionist replied that yes, we may come the next day for testing even before the official start at 8 am and it shouldn’t take long to be tested. And, so we did.

Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón

15:00-16:00

Distance from car park: 5 minutes each
Time spent at: 15-20 minutes each
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Fjallsárlón on a cloudy day

Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón are two glacial lakes located right next to the glacier. This means that you can observe pieces of glacier floating in the lake, which is an interesting experience. Coming from the Vik direction Fjallsárlón is the first and the smaller one compared to Jökulsárlón. That being said, Fjallsárlón experience is very similar to that of Jökulsárlón. And both are definitely touristy places, because of their easy accessibility by car and stable place in all Icelandic travel guides.

If we had to skip any sight due to lack of time, these two would probably be the ones we’d choose. It’s a short walk from the car park to the lake, where you can observe exactly what guides promise – pieces of glacier floating in the water. You may even approach the bank of the lake to look at these pieces from the closes possible point and even touch them if they are out on the shore.

Making fancy iceberg pictures near Fjallsárlón

There are several guided boat trips around the lake, which will take you closer to the floating glaciers, or the big glacier itself. We didn’t find them to be worth the time (1-2 hours) and money (50-100eur/person) spent as the experience is quite similar to the one we already had and we aren’t any special fans of glaciers. As I already mentioned, and as you may read almost in every guide, Jökulsárlón is bigger and more touristy, but otherwise, the experience is about the same.

Höfn

17:30

Time spent at: 15-20 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Our ultimate destination where we wanted to camp on day 5 of our Icelandic journey was supposed to be eastern metropole of Egilsstaðir. This was also the place where we were supposed to take the second Covid test the next day in the morning. On our way towards Egilsstaðir, we wanted to firstly stop at Höfn. According to guides and Google maps, this was supposed to be a nice small village by the sea with beautiful views of the surrounding volcanic mountains. That sounds like a nice place to make a short stop.

The reality was, however, slightly different, as the weather on that day kept being cloudy and foggy. Hence, once we arrived at Höfn, there was no visibility of the surrounding mountains and we were able to see only the small part of them. Apart from the mountains, we realized there was nothing particularly fascinating about Höfn, so, after a short meal break, we continued our road towards Egilsstaðir.

Eastfjords and Öxi road

18:30-20:45

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Short stop near Djúpivogur. Observe illegal off-road driving by someone.

If we wanted to see the best of Iceland in 12 days, we didn’t have enough time to explore Eastfjords separately, that’s why we just drove through them. When we left Höfn, we headed towards Djúpivogur, enjoying a nice part of southeast fjords. The weather was still only so-so with frequent clouds and quick rain showers alternating with brief periods of sunbeams penetrating the clouds. The seaside drive was very nice, although I can imagine, it may be even better in case of completely clear weather.

We’d driven already for more than 1,5 hour when we reached the junction with the road 939, with Google maps saying that exactly the road 939 should be the quickest way towards Egilsstaðir. We turned to 939, or the so-called “Öxi road” accordingly, not knowing at that time why the road has a name. Many other roads in Iceland don’t have any name. Well, we shortly found out why. Öxi road looked like a former F-road, or at least something very similar to the F-road. It was a gravel road with a lot of potholes and right after turning to it, it started to be quite steep.

Icelandic crazy Öxi road 939 – one of the viewpoints in the beginning

We’d experienced a short interlude of some nice weather when beginning with the Öxi drive and soon after driving on Öxi we reached a small car park where we saw several people taking pictures. This spot (see above) wasn’t marked on the Google maps, nor had I read anything about it. Nevertheless, we parked our car, got out of it and realized why do so many people take pictures. An amazingly picturesque valley full of waterfalls, fairytale-like green moss and cliffs emerged in front of us. Out of this world experience once again. One of the most beautiful photo spots of our entire trip. It was probably possible even to come closer to the waterfall valley by walking, but we remained satisfied with the look we just saw and continued through Öxi further.

This was the time when we finally realized why this road has a name. Öxi was a quite steep mountain road with lots of turns, potholes and beautiful scenery alongside it. I’d never read about it beforehand, but whatever, that’s Iceland, right? Our weather wasn’t ideal at all, with fog getting heavier and rain starting to pour persistently. Hence, the entire Öxi experience had become quite scary at some point, with my girlfriend starting to have a facial expression as if she were in a horror movie. The entire drive took some fair 45 minutes in these weather conditions. Once we turned to road 95, we also popped out of the fog and the weather was nice once again, keeping the fog and the rain at the Öxi road.

Egilsstaðir and Fellabaer camping

21:30-

Soon, we reached Egilsstaðir around 9 pm, where we had planned to camp. That’s what we’d planned. However, having arrived at the campsite, the receptionist told us their campsite is full and they cannot take even more cars, now that the new Covid distancing restrictions are in place. So, for the first time, we were denied camping and we felt really desperate at that moment. We were really tired after an entire day and didn’t really feel like searching for another camp. The receptionist, however, was so nice to check for us, whether the nearest camp in Fellabaer has free space.

Fellabær campsite next to Egilsstaðir

After her call, she got a positive reply and so we headed another 5-7 minutes towards Fellabaer where we camped at the small local campsite. This camp probably mostly served as a substitute in cases like this, when Egilsstaðir campsite happens to be full. The campsite was alright, although a bit small and not very modern, but it had everything we needed. Moreover, the kitchen was empty at the time when we wanted to cook the dinner, despite being really small.

Skipped places

Laki craters (foggy weather)
different trails in Skaftafell, especially Skaftafellsjökull viewpoint due to foggy and rainy weather
Svínafellsjökull
Hoffel hot tubs (paid and no time)

We skipped Laki craters due to bad visibility (cloudy and foggy weather) and prioritization of other sights which were about to follow on our journey. It’s also possible to hike several different trails in Skaftafell park, which we didn’t because the one towards Svartifoss was supposed to be the most beautiful.

If we went to Iceland next time and the weather was good, we would definitely go to Skaftafellsjökull viewpoint – a view over a magnificent glacier, which looked really nice in the pictures. It’s also possible to go see Svínafellsjökull for similar views and should be also worth visiting. The last sight we skipped were Hoffel hot tubs, due to the lack of time and a detour we didn’t find worth spending time on during our packed trip schedule.

Day 4 – Landmannalaugar and Highlands in the north

Contents

Landmannalaugar hikes
Brennisteinsalda hike
Laugahraun
Bláhnjukúr hike
F208 north towards Sigöldugljufur canyon
Ljótipollur
Sigöldugljufur canyon
Haifoss
Long road towards Vik with heavy rain
Kirkjubaerklaustur camping
Skipped places
More Videos

Landmannalaugar hikes

There are two main, most beautiful, one-day hikes you can do from the Brennisteinsalda campsite. And it can be a bit confusing to understand the difference between them and how to get to each trail. At least for me, it was in the beginning. So let’s get to the point.

First of the hikes, the easier and quicker one, is the hike ending at the top of the Brennisteinsalda volcano, or “orange mountain”. It takes about an hour to reach the top and some 30 minutes to come back. The ascent is of normal difficulty and everyone should be able to make it.

Pointing at Brennisteinsalda from Bláhnjúkur hiking trail

The second hike, for me even more beautiful, is the hike to the Bláhnjúkur peak or “Blue peak”. It’s a bit longer hike, it took us 1,5 hour to get to the top and some 1 hour to get back to the campsite and you should be in good physical condition to make it, at least compared to other places in Iceland where you just step out of your car and make a 5-minute walk. But it’s definitely doable for everybody and more than just worth it as it’s one of the most beautiful views in entire Iceland. Just be prepared for a mountain hike.

View from the top of Brennisteinsalda towards Bláhnjúkur

What helped me the most with orientation was this map. I wonder why it’s so hard to find this map online, but this map is basically all you need to know. If you are in a good physical condition and weather is good, I definitely do recommend you to go for both peaks – Brennisteinsalda and Bláhnjúkur as well. It’s a beautiful loop trail, so you don’t go twice via same trail and all the views around it are breath-taking. On a halfway to Brennisteinsalda you’re going to cross lava field called Laugahraun which is interesting as well, although compared to the other peaks it’s not that special.

The most important slice of Landmannalaugar map for your 1 day trip

There are of course many other trails in the Landmannalaugar area. If you are really into hiking or if you’re planning to spend more days in the area, you’re more than welcome to go for the other trails as well. The longest one is supposed to take some 3-4 days and ends in Thórsmörk, another magnificent valley. You will be probably spending nights in mountain huts along the way if you choose this hike. We didn’t go for it, as we wanted to see as many different parts of Iceland in possible in 12 days, but next time – why not? Just be prepared for rough cold weather even in summer and its sudden changes.

Brennisteinsalda hike

9:00-10:30

Distance from car park: 5/10 minutes (to the start of the trail, from camping/car park in front of the camping)
Time spent at: 1 hour to the top
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no
Physical condition needed: medium
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

This is how the start of the hiking trail towards Brennisteinsalda looks like

Hike for Brennisteinsalda volcano is quite easy and takes around 1,5 hour round trip. If you either don’t have much time, or weather is worsening or you simply aren’t into hiking that much, you can definitely make this one. The trail to the top and the view from the top itself are definitely worth it. We experienced it in slightly foggy weather and it was still beautiful.

Easy Brennisteinsalda hiking trail

You start at the main building of Landmannalaugar/Brennisteinsalda campsite where there are red signs pointing to two opposite directions. When coming from the river crossings facing the campsite, the one pointing left is the one for Bláhnjúkur and the one facing right is the one for Laugahraun lava field and Brennisteinsalda. The other way how to orientate yourself is simply to go in the direction of the mountain (you can see it throughout almost the entire trail) and use common sense.

Although the trail is well marked, the signs are not very helpful because they contain just the name of the entire trail and they don’t point specifically to Brennisteinsalda. It’s important to stick to the marked trail to not destroy Icelandic untouched nature and not get yourself fined heavily.

Views from the Brennisteinsalda hike

Your first checkpoint would be crossroads with Laugahraun lava field where you will continue to the upper right, i.e. above the field. Then you will eventually arrive at another crossroad just below Brennisteinsalda where you should turn right, to face the only little steeper part of the hike right towards the peak. Once you reach the peak, you can enjoy 360° views of surrounding landscapes, Laugahraun field from bird-eye view and also majestic Bláhnjúkur peak nearby.

View from the top of Brennisteinsalda on a slightly foggy day. Still very windy at the top, despite calm day.

There was no wind below Brennisteinsalda at the time of our visit, but at the peak wind was blowing like crazy. So be prepared for this. After Brennisteinsalda you may either come back to the campsite or continue for the Bláhnjúkur peak – as we did. If you have enough energy and the weather is alright I definitely do recommend to go for Bláhnjúkur as well as the views surrounding that route are even more amazing.

Laugahraun

11:00-11:10

Distance from car park: 5/10 minutes (to the start of the trail, from camping/car park in front of the camping)
Time spent at: 15-20 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

View from the top of Brennisteinsalda towards Laugahraun

Laugahraun is a lava field with interesting rock formations formed from volcanic lava eruptions. It takes some 30-40 minutes to reach it from the campsite and it stands on the halfway to Brennisteinsalda mountain. It’s a nice place to see but it was not that amazing for us compared to other sights like peaks of Bláhnjúkur or Brennisteinsalda. We didn’t go particularly for it, but we stumbled upon it on our way back from Brennisteinsalda peak and on our path further towards Bláhnjúkur mountain.

If you have enough energy and good weather I recommend you to take the same route as we did so that you can admire all of them. Coming from Brennisteinsalda, if you leave the Laugahraun field at its top-right part, you will find yourself at the beginning of the trail for Bláhnjúkur , the Blue peak.

Bláhnjukúr hike

11:15-13:45

Distance from car park: 15 or 40 minutes (if you want to go only for Blahnjukur or if you firstly want to go for Laugahraun lava field)
Time spent at: 2 hours to the top, 60-90 minutes back down
Worth visiting even with bad weather: no
Physical condition needed: advanced
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Slippery clay slope at the start of the hike to Bláhnjúkur or Blue peak

For us hike to Bláhnjúkur, or the Blue peak, was the most beautiful, the most rewarding and the most difficult part of our one day visit of Landmannalaugar. We had to find the beginning of the trail, we had to ford the small river, we had to climb the steep muddy hill and then we had to cope with a strong cold wind at the top. All of these were definitely worth the experience. Views encompassing the route are amazing if you are lucky with the good weather. View from the peak is even more breath-taking. So how do you reach Bláhnjúkur?

You have three options to reach the top (including circular round trip we did, starting with Brennisteinsalda and continuing to Bláhnjúkur or vice versa). Arriving from river crossings before Landmannalaugar you may:

either turn left and go directly for Bláhnjúkur or
you may turn right, reach the Laugahraun lava field first and then continue for Bláhnjúkur hike or
of course, you may choose the order we chose, i.e. after reaching Laugahraun continue for Brennisteinsalda peak, then come back to Laugahraun and then go for Bláhnjúkur.

I recommend the way we did it, i.e. go for the circular route, so that you can see everything.

Spectacular views right from the beginning of the hike on Bláhnjúkur and even on the slightly foggy day

After you leave the upper right part of Laugahraun field (coming from Brennisteinsalda trail), you will arrive at the small river. Despite the river being small, there’s no bridge or a designated place where the river should be crossed. We spent almost 30 minutes searching for the spot where to cross the river to not get our feet wet in this cold weather. And up to this day, I don’t know where was the “official” spot meant for this river to be crossed.

What we finally did was going almost 10 minutes to the right along the bank of the river coming to the place where the river was shallow enough with enough pebbles to jump on and pass. Then we had to come these 10 minutes on the other side of the river back again to reach the yellow marks marking the trail towards Bláhnjúkur. So, after 30 minutes of struggle, we managed to ford the river without getting wet, although I’m not sure whether this was the way meant for crossing, probably no.

Bláhnjúkur hike near the top

Afterwards, for us, the most dangerous part followed. A trail is well marked with yellow sticks so you shouldn’t get lost. You will shortly arrive at the steep clay slope going up closer towards Bláhnjúkur. The ascent is not hard or anything, but it’s quite steep and you don’t have a good grip on the ground because of the clay. So with each step, you feel like slipping on the smooth clay. I was equipped with high-quality La Sportiva hiking shoes and those didn’t help either. There are neither stairs nor chains so you can only help yourself by going slowly zig-zag to the top.

Fortunately, this part is not too long and takes some 10 minutes to complete. What follows next is just a typical gravel hiking trail and you shouldn’t have any problems continuing up the path. Magnificent views will shortly emerge and will accompany you all the way to the top.

One of the views from the peak of Bláhnjúkur towards Landmannalaugar and 2nd (steeper) hiking trail

We had a semi-clear sky with partially sunny, partially cloudy weather and light fog. This is still supposed to be good weather so we enjoyed every moment of it. Visibility (although not perfect) was fine and the views were, as I already mentioned, breath-taking. We met only a single-digit number of visitors at the peak, so at the time of our visit, peak being crowdy wasn’t an issue. It was really windy and temperature felt like 5°C even on the sunny summer day like ours, so be prepared for that. Once reaching the top, you will be rewarded with the best views over the area.

Another view from the peak of Bláhnjúkur towards Landmannalaugar camp, Laugahraun and 2nd (steeper) hiking trail

We started our descent from the other side of the mountain (the one where you may access Bláhnjúkur right from the campsite), which was supposed to be much steeper, according to guides I’ve read. That definitely wasn’t true and compared to the steep clay part we had to overcome before, this was a piece of cake. I wonder what’s worse – to ascent the clay part or descent? I guess descent would be worse.

The trail continued without any obstacles until we reached the point where we could see the small river we’d forded before from above. At this point we’d also seen the campsite from above already, so we continued pursuing that direction. The entire descent wasn’t hard and it took us some 1 hour at maximum to reach our campsite again. We went for a hot chocolate at the nearby snack bar and ate a little. It was still only before 3 pm so we had enough time to continue with our journey.

F208 north towards Sigöldugljufur canyon

15:00-15:30

Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Interesting index: 3 – nice  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Horses or “Icelandic ponies” blocking the F208 road Fjallabaksleið Nyrðri north of Landmannalaugar

This is the F208 all of the guidebooks out here suggest you use if you want to go for Landmannalaugar. Well, if you are afraid of, or if you simply don’t want to cross rivers, then yes, this is the right way to arrive and leave Landmannalaugar as well. All the other ways like F208 to the south, F233 and F210 towards Maelifell or Landmannaleið – the shortcut in/out of Landmannalaugar, all contain some serious river crossings.

The beginning of the road near Landmannalaugar, until Ljótipollur detour, is very beautiful. Afterwards, the road shortly turns into a dull gravel road. Hence, the majority of the road is just a normal gravel road with potholes without any nice views alongside it. Compared to the out of this world, amazing F208 to the south there isn’t much to see.

F-road towards Ljótipollur

But the views you see from this road are not the reason why people like us use it. Apart from not going back down the same road to the Vik, there lie two very nice stops along the road. Namely, two beautiful canyons entirely different in appearance, both definitely worth visiting. These were among the most beautiful places we’ve seen.

The northern part of F208 is actually definitely doable also by 2wd car, it would just be a really bumpy ride. That’s what I meant by saying “it’s all about river crossing” when it comes to the difficulty of Icelandic F-roads., Since there’s no river crossing on this part of the road, it’s doable also by a normal car.

Ljótipollur

15:30-15:50

Distance from car park: 5 minutes ascent
Time spent at: 15-30 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Ljótipollur “parking”

Ljótipollur is a remote canyon where you will meet out of this world colours on every corner. It definitely didn’t look like a touristy place at the time of our visit and we had it all for ourselves at around 3 pm which is, I guess, still a peak hour.

If you put name Ljótipollur into your Google maps, it will navigate you towards detour in the right direction from northern F208 road, coming from Landmannalaugar direction (left, coming from F26 direction). There aren’t any good road signs so just follow Google and you should be fine. You’re going to drive nice black gravel road in the middle of nowhere which will end with the sign “cars forbidden” again in the middle of nowhere. The place with the sign served as a car park at the time of our visit (2 more cars were parked there, what a crowd). We left our car at this improvised car park and continued walking towards Ljótipollur direction a Google was pointing at.

Ljótipollur

The walk took us around 5 minutes and a majestic red volcanic crater suddenly stood in front of us. We were the only visitors admiring it at that time. I don’t have any idea where were the people who arrived by the other 2 cars parked in the car park. Just us, absolute silence and a picturesque canyon filled with crystal clear water.

The weather was supposed to worsen considerably in the evening according to the weather forecast and there were already clouds gathering in the sky. Still, we were lucky that up to this point of our trip we hadn’t experienced any persistent rain. You can also hike around the Ljótipollur area but that wasn’t our plan, because Ljótipollur was already supposed to be the highlight of the area and we were really tired after Landmannalaugar hikes. That said, we left Ljótipollur and continued further towards one of the three most famous Icelandic canyons – Sigöldugljufur canyon.

Sigöldugljufur canyon

16:30-17:00

Distance from car park: 10 minutes
Time spent at: 20-40 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes, probably
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Sigöldugljufur canyon just by ourselves

Sigöldugljufur canyon was our favorite canyon in Iceland, because it was the least touristy and, in our opinion, the most beautiful. With all its remoteness it embodies for me the spirit of Iceland, i.e. a picturesque hidden place in the middle of nowhere. And that’s exactly where you will find Sigöldugljufur canyon, at the end of the road F208, in the middle of nowhere.

Google maps are quite precise with the location of canyon, although you won’t find any road signs indicating it, so you have to rely solely on Google maps. The canyon is located on the right side of F208 coming from the Landmannalaugar direction (i.e. naturally on the left side coming from the F26 direction). The only sign telling you “there’s something nearby” is the little car park near the spot which is the closest point connecting the road and the canyon marked on Google maps.

All alone at Sigöldugljufur canyon

When you leave the car park, you continue along the unmarked gravel road (used only by locals) and you keep on the left side of it, exactly as suggested by google maps. After some 10 minutes of walking, you will arrive at the right bank of the canyon and a huge network of small rivers and waterfalls of unbelievable colours will emerge in front of you. You will literally find yourself as in the middle of the fairy tale, especially if you’re as lucky as we were, and will be there all by yourself.

It’s possible to continue several kilometres ahead along the valley, so it’s just up to you how far you want to go. You are able to see the major part of the canyon already from the first moment you have it in your sight, however. That’s exactly what we did – admired it for a couple of minutes and didn’t continue further along the valley.

There’s actually no marked trail, so unless they make one anytime soon, you’re going to slightly break the rules, as you will be walking on an “unmarked path” and therefore destroying Icelandic nature a bit. We tried to go the same way back to spare the nature of our footsteps. That being said, I think it’s inevitable someone will build a marked trail heading to the canyon soon as it’s becoming more and more touristy from what I’d read before our trip.

Haifoss

18:00-18:20

Distance from car park: 5 minutes
Time spent at: 15-30 minutes
Worth visiting even with bad weather: yes
Physical condition needed: little
Interesting index: 1 – amazing  (1-amazing, 2-great, 3-nice)

Just Haifoss

It was already around 6 pm when we were deciding whether to make a detour to Haifoss or not. I persuaded my girlfriend to do so, because this was the only time we had Haifoss quite nearby. And it was also supposed to be the tallest waterfall in Iceland, hence the one you’re going to probably include into your to-do list. The road leading to Haifoss (332) is the gravel road which you will be able to drive fast on, because it doesn’t have any potholes just a lot of gravel on it. That’s also why it’s not marked as an F-road.

Once you reach the well-marked car park, Haifoss is just a few steps next to it, in a huge moss-covered green valley with many sheep around. This is the place which is supposed to be more touristy, due to its accessibility also by 2wd cars, and yes it was even during our visit. There were some 3-4 cars other than us parking at the car park, which seemed like a lot compared to our experience at that time. There are several viewpoints of the waterfall, all next to each other so you will have enough space to admire the waterfall from and make same nice pictures. Despite weather being cloudy already, we were able to make some nice pictures anyway.

Long road towards Vik with heavy rain

18:30-22:00

After leaving Haifoss, a long road towards Vik stood in front of us. Yes, we could camp anywhere closer, but I still felt like having enough energy to do the drive and my girlfriend didn’t mind and, also, I didn’t want to camp again in the same camp – Vik. That’s why our next target destination I chose for us was the campsite in Kirkjubaerklaustur, as it had some really good reviews in Google maps. So I drove a lot. Back via road 332, then the road 32, then the road 30 and then kilometers along the road 1 just to reach the Kirkjubaerklaustur camping around 10pm. This was our most exhausting day and I’d already been tired as hell after 15 hours of being awake.

Moreover, shortly after leaving Haifoss, the weather forecast proved itself to be correct and the promised rain started and it intensified with each hour passing by. In the middle of our journey to Kirkjubaerklaustur the rain started to be really heavy and the roads were full of water, so we had to drive more carefully i.e. slower.

Kirkjubaerklaustur camping

22:00-

We reached Kirkjubaerklaustur camping in a heavy rain after 10pm and there was a huge ramp in front of the entrance to the campsite, so our first thought was “oh my god, we’re really late, what if nobody’s there?”. Luckily for us, there was still a campsite manager at that time guarding the ramp and hence we were able to pay for the camping and proceed. The campsite is very nice in a good condition and I definitely recommend camping in here. Although the weather was brutal at the time of our visit with heavy rain and wind, we still remember the campsite as one of the best.

Skipped places

Longer hikes near Landmannalaugar
Hjalparfoss waterfall

Landmannalaugar area is a paradise for hikers. You may easily spend there several days and still don’t have enough. We didn’t go for longer hikes this time, due to either shortage of time and us not being that much into more hardcore hiking. Not to mention, we were not equipped well enough for hikes lasting longer than just a single day.

There’s another nice waterfall near the route we drove called Hjalparfoss which we skipped. The reason for skipping it was quite straightforward – we’d already seen a ton of fascinating things on that day and Hjalparfoss was not supposed to be any special compared to the other ones we’d seen already.