5 Days in Reykjavík

You'll see it from almost everywhere. Hallgrímskirkja is 74.5 meters tall, the largest church in Iceland, and its architect, Guðjón Samúelsson, is said to have drawn it to echo the basalt columns of the country's waterfalls. It took 41 years to build: work began in 1945, the tower and wings were done in 1974, and the nave was consecrated in 1986. The statue of Leif Erikson out front is older than the church, a gift from the United States for the Althing's thousandth anniversary in 1930.

The inside is plain and white, so go for the tower. A lift takes you to a deck above the colored roofs, the bay and the mountains. Tickets are sold in the church shop only, and last entry is 16:45 in winter. In October 2026 the church celebrates the 40th anniversary of its consecration, with a festival week from 18 to 25 October.

The cheapest honest introduction to Icelandic food is across the street from the church. Kaffi Loki serves home-style plates built around dark rye bread, including slices topped with mashed fish, and a rye bread ice cream that tastes better than it sounds. It's open from 8:00 to 22:00 every day, with the kitchen closing at 21:30.

There are no reservations, so go early or after 14:00 rather than at peak lunch. It's a tourist stop and it knows it, but it serves the food Icelanders grew up on. Order the fish on rye bread first, and share a second plate if you're curious.

Walk down Skólavörðustígur, the rainbow-painted street that runs from the church, and turn onto Laugavegur, which means "wash road". It earned the name honestly: until about 1930, women walked this way with their laundry to the hot springs in Laugardalur, a trek of roughly two miles each way, and the road itself was improved from 1885. Today it's the main shopping street, with design stores, cafés and bars.

Stop for a coffee at Mokka Kaffi, at Skólavörðustígur 3a, which has served espresso and shown art since 1958, and look at the street art in the side lanes. A few minutes from the bottom, on Austurvöllur square, sits the Alþingi, the parliament that traces itself back to 930 and has met in this building since 1881.

Iceland's only flea market fills the old Customs House by the harbor on Saturdays and Sundays, from 11:00 to 17:00. More than 50 stalls sell second-hand records, books, antiques, vintage clothes and wool, and the food corner is where you meet hákarl (fermented shark), harðfiskur (wind-dried fish) and pickled herring. Whale meat is sold there too, and most visitors are better off skipping it.

Check the label before you buy a wool sweater, to see where it was made. The market has been under pressure from the city's plans for the building, so check the market's site before you build your day around it.

Harpa is the glass concert hall on the harbor, opened on 4 May 2011 and designed by the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects with the artist Ólafur Elíasson, whose faceted glass panels were meant to echo Iceland's basalt. Construction started in 2007 and was halted by the 2008 financial crash, and the government decided to finish the half-built shell. For several years it was the only building project going in the country. The Iceland Symphony Orchestra lives here, and the building won the EU's Mies van der Rohe award in 2013.

Walk in and look at the facade from the inside. The best way to use the building is a concert, so look up what's on at harpa.is.

Walk east along the waterfront to the Sun Voyager (Sólfar), a stainless steel ship frame on the shore. It's often called a Viking ship, and it isn't one: the sculptor, Jón Gunnar Árnason, called it a dreamboat and an ode to the sun. It won a competition for the city's 200th birthday and was unveiled on 18 August 1990.

Come at sunset, or after dark between 9 October and 8 December, when the Imagine Peace Tower on the island of Viðey throws its beam into the sky from one hour after sunset until midnight. The sculpture is also on Perlan's list of places in the city to try for northern lights, though the city glow works against you.

The hot dog stand on Tryggvagata has been serving since 1937 and is still run by the same family. The name means "the town's best hot dogs", the sausage is lamb with pork and beef, and the standard order is eina með öllu, "one with everything": ketchup, sweet mustard, remoulade, crispy fried onions and raw onions. Bill Clinton ordered his with only mustard in 2004, which is still talked about.

Prices have crept up, and the stand doesn't publish them, so expect to pay somewhere under 7 EUR for a sausage in a bun. It's still good, and it's still the thing everyone eats here. Eat it standing on the street.

This is where Iceland started to be a country. Around 930 the chieftains began meeting every summer at Þingvellir ("assembly plains") in an annual parliament, the Alþingi, which kept meeting here until 1798. The Lawspeaker stood on the Law Rock, the Lögberg, and recited the law from memory over three summers. It's also a rift valley on the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling apart, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.

Park at P1 (Hakið), look at the valley from the viewing platform, and walk down the Almannagjá gorge to the Law Rock site, then on to the Öxarárfoss waterfall if you have time and grip on your shoes. The visitor center, with a 40-minute interactive exhibition, is open 9:00 to 17:00 from November to March. Divers and snorkelers go into the Silfra fissure, in water of 2-4°C, with a dry suit certificate or a guide. It's not for everyone.

On the shore of Laugarvatn lake, Fontana is where you can taste geothermal baking. Staff bury rye bread in the ground by a geyser, leave it for 24 hours, dig it up and serve it warm with butter. It's sweet, dark and nothing like sandwich rye. The facilities reopened on 1 August 2026 after a full renovation.

Between October and May the bread tour runs at 11:45 and 14:30, and it often sells out, so book it. The steam baths and a dip in the lake are the other half of Fontana; if you want both, count three hours and skip a stop later.

The word geyser comes from this valley. Haukadalur is a field of hot springs and the Great Geysir ("the one that gushes"), whose hot springs have been on record since 1294 and which once threw boiling water 60 meters into the air. Today Geysir erupts only rarely, sometimes not for years, and its neighbor does the work. Strokkur ("the churn"), about 50 meters south, erupts every 6-10 minutes, usually 15-20 meters high and sometimes 40.

Stand behind the ropes and wait; with a six to ten minute cycle you'll get several tries. The area is free to walk around, the ground is hot and the water scalds, and the wind carries the spray, so check which way it blows before you pick a spot.

Ten kilometers from Geysir, the Hvítá river, fed by the Langjökull glacier, falls 32 meters in two steps into a canyon with walls up to 70 meters high. The best-known story belongs to Sigríður Tómasdóttir, a farmer's daughter who fought a lease to a foreign investor in the early 1900s and is often called Iceland's first environmentalist. The falls were made a nature reserve in 1979.

The waterfall is open around the clock and free, and the boardwalk from the café takes about three minutes. In the cold months the paths near the edge are wet from spray and icy, so wear shoes with grip. The shop is open until 20:00. Any car can reach it, but check the weather before you go.

A tomato farm in Reykholt with the restaurant inside the greenhouse, among the plants. The signature is a tomato soup with a bread buffet, which costs 3,740 ISK this year. It's a sit-down lunch, not a snack, so book a table. The kitchen is open daily from 11:30 to 16:00, which makes it the hard deadline of the afternoon.

It's pricey for soup and bread, but it's a proper alternative to a cafeteria lunch at Gullfoss. If you're skipping a stop, skip Kerið, not this one.

Kerið is a crater lake about 6,500 years old, 55 meters deep and 170 meters wide, ringed by red volcanic rock. The water is a deep blue-green on a bright day. You pay 700 ISK at the gate, walk the rim, and get back in the car.

The site is open while the sun is shining, so you need to be here by about 16:30 in late October and by 15:00 in December. If the light's gone, skip it and drive home, another hour.

The first waterfall is 128 km and about two hours from the center, right beside Route 1. Seljalandsfoss drops 60 meters from an old sea cliff, and a path runs behind it, so you can see the falls from the back. The river starts at the Eyjafjallajökull glacier, which sits on top of a volcano.

In winter the spray freezes on the cliff and the path behind the falls can be closed because of ice and falling rocks. Don't go past a fence, and wear shoes with spikes or good grip.

Thirty kilometers further east, Skógafoss is 25 meters wide and falls 60 meters from the cliff that was the coastline until the sea retreated about 5 km. On sunny days it throws up a rainbow, sometimes a double one. Legend says the first settler here, Þrasi Þórólfsson, hid a treasure chest in a cave behind the falls; locals found it, but could only pull the ring off the chest before it disappeared, and that ring is now in the nearby museum.

Climb the 527 steps beside the falls to look down on it. At the top a trail leads on to Fimmvörðuháls. The Skógar Museum, 10:00 to 17:00 from September to May, is worth an hour if you have it.

A 120-meter headland with a lighthouse built in 1927 and a sea arch below it. The name means "door hill island", and the view from the top is wide, taking in the coast on both sides. It's often called the southernmost point of Iceland, and it isn't: that's Kötlutangi, to the east.

The headland is a nature reserve, and parts of it close each spring for the nesting birds, between 1 May and 25 June at the Environment Agency's discretion, so check the sign at the gate. Stay behind the barriers, because the cliffs are high and the wind is strong.

Black sand, basalt columns, the sea stacks of Reynisdrangar and a cave. The beach is beautiful and it's dangerous, and the danger has a name: sneaker waves. They come after a long run of small waves, run much further up the beach than the rest and can pull an adult into the sea in seconds. Several visitors have died here, and rescues of people pulled in by a wave are not rare.

Follow the light at the entrance: yellow means be careful, orange means stay at least 25 meters from the water, red means the beach is closed and you watch from the viewing area. Never turn your back on the sea, keep children beside you, and stay out of the cave and away from the columns when the light is red. In February 2026 storms collapsed part of the columns, and rocks also fall from the cliff.

Vík í Mýrdal is the southernmost village in Iceland, on Route 1 about 180 km from Reykjavík, with around 750 people and the main services for 70 km around. Smiðjan Brugghús is a microbrewery and restaurant in an old warehouse, founded in 2017, known for thick burgers, wings and spare ribs cooked in its milk stout. Check its hours before you count on dinner.

Leave by 17:00 if you can. Strong wind and ice are the usual problems on the way home, so if the forecast is bad, stay the night and let the road clear.

The Reykjanes peninsula is where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes ashore, and it's one of the few places on Earth where you can see it above sea level. At Sandvík, a small footbridge crosses a fissure between the Eurasian and North American plates. It's symbolic, a photo stop more than a sight, but it makes the idea concrete: the gap beneath you is getting wider.

New cracks have opened near the bridge and other popular spots, and they're easy to miss, so stay on the marked paths. It's 61 km and about an hour from the center.

Gunnuhver is a high-temperature geothermal area on the southwestern tip, named after a ghost. In the folk story, a woman called Gunna haunted the area until a priest tricked her into following a ball of yarn to the spring, where she fell in. The real thing is just as dramatic: the biggest mud pool in Iceland, about 20 meters across, boils here, and the steam has grown stronger since power production began in 2006.

Two viewing ramps keep you out of the scalding ground. Stay on them, and expect a smell of sulfur. The site has been closed from time to time as the activity shifts.

The first lighthouse in Iceland was built in 1878 on the sea cliff of Valahnúkur, and within a few decades earthquakes and surf had eaten so much of it that it had to be replaced. The new lighthouse stands on a hill nearby. It's popular with Icelanders and with photographers, and the steam from the geothermal field next to it often drifts through the picture.

Walk out to the cliffs of Valahnúkur and watch the swell come in from the Atlantic. Bring a windproof layer.

Brimketill is a small pool carved by the sea into the lava shore west of Grindavík, and folklore says a giantess called Oddný used to sit in it. The viewing platform is a few steps from the car park, and the waves can reach it.

There's no safety supervision. The currents are strong, the gusts sudden, and going into the water can kill you. Keep children by the hand and don't walk down to the rocks.

Grindavík is a fishing town, and it's where the eruptions have hit hardest. The whole town was evacuated in November 2023, and it reopened to the public on 21 October 2024. Safetravel's advice now is simple: the town is open, but the area is still hazardous. Crevasses can open, so stay on paths, know where the exits are, and expect evacuation sirens if the threat level rises. Many homes are empty and some damaged areas are fenced off, but hundreds of people still commute here to work, so don't treat it like a ghost town.

Bryggjan, the fishermen's restaurant by the harbor, reopened in June 2025. It's open daily from 11:00 to 21:00, with the larger dining room serving until 16:00, and the building used to be a net-making shop. Lunch here puts money into a town that has had a hard three years.

The Blue Lagoon is man-made. It's the runoff from the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, which started in 1976, and after bathers noticed in the 1980s that the silica-rich water helped psoriasis, a bathing place opened in 1987. The milky color is silica, and the water is 37-39°C. Tickets are for a timed slot and should be booked ahead, and hours change with wind, gas forecasts and eruption warnings. The lagoon has closed many times since 2023, for about four months in total by December 2024, and lava covered its old parking lot in November 2024. A big redevelopment is still being built, with completion expected in spring 2027.

The honest comparison. The Blue Lagoon is 50 km out and the most dramatic setting, in a black lava field, and best on an airport day. Sky Lagoon is 8 km from the center in Kópavogur, looks over the sea, costs about 14,000 ISK for the standard pass and takes no one under 12. A local pool gives you most of the point for about an eighth of the price, with Icelanders instead of tourists, and that's day five. If you only do one, pick by logistics.

Perlan ("the pearl") is a glass dome on the Öskjuhlíð hill, resting on six of the city's hot water tanks. It opened to the public on 21 June 1991. Four tanks still hold the city's hot water, one holds an ice cave about 100 meters long, made of around 400 tons of snow and ice, and one is a planetarium. The exhibitions open at 9:00 and close at 21:00.

It's a museum, not the real thing, and it's not cheap. The exhibits cover glaciers, volcanoes and a bird cliff, and the planetarium show, Áróra, is a film about the northern lights. Perlan itself says the only way to guarantee seeing the lights is to visit Perlan. Use it on a rainy day and for the 360-degree deck.

If you only see one museum, make it this one. The National Museum was founded in 1863 and has been in its building on Suðurgata since 1950. The permanent exhibition tells Icelandic history through about 2,000 objects, including the Valþjófsstaður door, a medieval carving of a knight who kills a dragon and frees a lion.

It helps to have walked Þingvellir first, because the story of the Alþingi and the Law Rock suddenly makes sense. There's an audio guide in ten languages including English, a café and lockers. It's open daily from 10:00 to 17:00, and buses 1, 2, 3, 6, 11 and 12 stop at the university outside.

Tjörnin ("the pond") sits in the middle of town, next to the City Hall and several museums. Feeding the birds is such a pastime here that the pond has been called the biggest bread soup in the world, so if you bring crumbs, bring few.

Walk around the pond to the City Hall on its edge, and the fish lunch is a few minutes away.

Messinn is a fish restaurant on Lækjargata, open every day from 11:30 to 21:00 (22:00 on Fridays and Saturdays). Its signature is the fish pans: fresh fish, butter-fried potatoes and vegetables, brought to the table in the pan, and meant to be shared.

Fish is the right thing to eat in Iceland, because the country has always lived off the sea. Share a pan, ask what came in that day, and skip the starters, which is where the bill grows.

The Old Harbour (Gamla höfnin) is where the whale watching boats leave. Elding runs trips from its base at Ægisgarður 5c, and in winter trips get cancelled for weather, so book one early in the stay and ask about rebooking first.

If you're not going out on the water, the harbor is still a good walk, west of Harpa along the quay, with the sea on one side and the town on the other. A coffee here after the museum is a good break.

Pools are how Icelanders socialize, and in 2025 UNESCO put the country's swimming pool culture on its list of intangible cultural heritage. Vesturbæjarlaug, in the west of the city, opened in 1961 and is a neighborhood favorite: an outdoor 25-meter pool, five hot tubs, a steam room, two saunas, an infrared sauna and a cold tub. It's open 6:30 to 22:00 on weekdays and 9:00 to 22:00 on weekends. UNESCO's entry describes the hot tubs as informal debating parlors, and you can listen in even if you don't understand a word.

The rules are real, and the city publishes them. Wash thoroughly without a swimsuit before you go in, and wear clean swimwear. Phones and cameras are banned in the changing rooms and on the pool area. No glass, no alcohol, no tobacco. Downtown, Sundhöllin, opened in 1937 and designed by the architect of Hallgrímskirkja, has a rooftop with sun beds, hot tubs, a sauna and a steam room. Its weekday hours have gaps, so check them.

Grótta is a tidal island on the tip of Seltjarnarnes, a few kilometers west of the center, with a lighthouse from 1947 on the site of an 1897 original. The causeway is under water at high tide, so you can walk out during a window of about six hours at low tide. Check the tide table first. It's a nature reserve, closed to visitors from 1 May to 15 July for the nesting terns.

It's also one of the best places near the city for the northern lights. They show up between late August and late April when the sky is dark and clear, and the forecasts at vedur.is and auroraforecast.is are what you check: cloud cover matters as much as activity. Bring a headlamp, dress warmly, and park in a proper lot, never on the road. There's no guarantee, and that's the honest part: the lights follow solar activity and clear skies, not your calendar, so stay flexible and try on more than one night.