Isafjordur Key Highlights: The Places Worth the Drive

Six named places carry almost every trip that leaves this port. They are a long way apart, three of them have a season, and only two charge anything at all. Each one below answers the same set of questions: what it is, what it costs, how you get to it, and how long to give it. Three of these are only reachable from the water, which is what the Isafjordur boat tours are for.

Dynjandi, the waterfall the coaches are for

What it is: A fan of water dropping about 100 metres over stepped basalt at the head of Arnarfjörður, widening as it falls. Six smaller waterfalls step down the slope below it before the water reaches the sea. It has been a protected natural monument since 1981 and it is the largest waterfall in the Westfjords.

What it costs: Nothing. There is no gate, no ticket office and no published parking charge — and no shop, no café and one small block of toilets that queues on a busy day.

How you reach it: About an hour each way on Route 60, crossing Dýrafjörður and passing through the Dýrafjarðargöng tunnel, which opened in October 2020 and replaced the old pass over Hrafnseyrarheiði. Nine of the trips here stop there.

How long to give it: The walk from the car park to the foot of the main fall is about fifteen minutes over loose rock. Ninety minutes on the ground lets you climb it without hurrying; the stops on offer run from fifty minutes to an hour and fifty.

Vigur Island, the farm you can land on

What it is: One of three islands in Ísafjarðardjúp, named for its spear shape, and a working eiderdown farm as well as a nature reserve. It holds Iceland's only windmill and Iceland's smallest post office, and puffins, eiders, guillemots and Arctic terns all nest there.

What it costs: The landing and facility fees are inside both boat fares, from $178.

How you reach it: A boat from the Ísafjörður pier next to the tender berth — about six minutes' walk from a ship docked alongside and about one from a tender. The crossing takes half an hour each way.

How long to give it: Three hours door to door, of which about two are ashore. The puffins arrive in mid-April and start leaving in early August, with few sightings after mid-August; other seabirds build again to the end of September.

Bolafjall, the platform over the edge

What it is: A steel viewing platform on a 638-metre summit above Bolungarvík, opened in 2022 and cantilevered out over the cliff. It looks over Ísafjarðardjúp, Jökulfirðir and Hornstrandir, and on the clearest days people claim to see Greenland.

What it costs: Nothing to stand on.

How you reach it: Up the road from Bolungarvík to the summit radar station, which is typically open from mid-June to mid-September and depends on the weather even then. Bolungarvík itself is reached through Bolungarvíkurgöng from town.

How long to give it: An hour from town including the drive up, and the two private day tours are the trips here that build it in.

Ósvör, the fishing station rebuilt

What it is: A replica of a nineteenth-century Icelandic fishing station on the shore at Bolungarvík: the rowing boat Ölver, a crew hut with its tools, a salt house and a drying hut. A curator in a traditional fisherman's outfit shows visitors round.

What it costs: Entry is charged; the official regional listing publishes no figure, so ask at the door rather than budgeting a number from elsewhere.

How you reach it: Fifteen minutes by road from town through the tunnel to Bolungarvík, and it is on the shore below the road.

How long to give it: Half an hour. The published season is 10 June to 20 August, 10:00 to 16:00, with other times by arrangement.

Neðstikaupstaður and the Westfjords Heritage Museum

What it is: The old Danish trading post at the end of the Ísafjörður spit, holding the oldest cluster of timber-frame houses in Iceland: Krambúð of 1757, Faktorshús of 1765, Tjöruhúsið of 1781 and Turnhúsið of 1784. The last of those is the Westfjords Heritage Museum; the 1781 warehouse is now a seafood restaurant.

What it costs: ISK 1,600 for an adult and ISK 1,200 for a senior. Walking between the buildings costs nothing.

How you reach it: On foot. It is about ten minutes from the cruise pier along the spit, and the e-bike tour passes it.

How long to give it: An hour for the museum, twenty minutes for the buildings alone. The season is 15 May to 31 August, 10:00–17:00, then 1 to 15 September, 11:00–15:00.

Hvítanes, where the seals lie out

What it is: A seal haul-out on the north shore of Ísafjarðardjúp where the animals lie on the seaweed rocks close enough to watch from the bank. It is one of the few places in the Westfjords where seals are a reliable roadside sight rather than a lucky one.

What it costs: Nothing.

How you reach it: By road along the Djúp. One shore excursion here stops there for half an hour and then spends three quarters of an hour in Súðavík, which is the village the 1995 avalanche struck.

How long to give it: Thirty minutes at the colony is enough. Seals do not always co-operate: one traveller who saw only two was taken to a waterfall instead.

How far each one is from the pier

Two things fall out of that table. The four free places are the ones furthest away, which is the whole argument for a guided trip here: you are buying the road, not the entry. And nothing on the list is more than about an hour from the pier, so a call of six hours has room for one of them properly rather than two badly. Hornstrandir, the roadless reserve you can see from Bolafjall, is the exception — it is a different kind of trip and no day tour here reaches it.

Which trips reach which

Most of the trips here stop at Dynjandi, a pair cross to Vigur Island, one turns inland to the seals, and one stays in town on a bicycle. The things to do page sorts them by how much time you have rather than by what they visit, and the map shows which pier each one leaves from. If a place above is the reason you are coming north, Isafjordur Tours lists the trip that reaches it.

Sources

Checked on 5 September 2026. Hours, fares and road conditions belong to the bodies that publish them and they change with the season. The official pages are the place to confirm before you travel.

• Visit Westfjords — the regional tourist board
• Visit Westfjords — Dynjandi
• Visit Westfjords — Vigur
• Visit Westfjords — Outstanding Bolafjall
• Visit Westfjords — Ósvör Maritime Museum
• Visit Westfjords — Westfjords Heritage Museum
• Wikipedia — Ísafjörður, for the trading-post dates