Ísafjörður tours: what to book, by time you have
Three hours in Ísafjörður: Vigur island. Half a day: Dynjandi or a whale boat. A full day: Hesteyri. Kayaking is for fit adults with eight hours.
The short version
- Vigur island is the best short trip: three hours, a 30-minute boat each way, eider farm and seabirds, summer only, from €182.
- Dynjandi from Ísafjörður takes about four hours as a tour. Worth it if you have never seen it, from €142.
- Boats into Ísafjarðardjúp for whales or puffins take two to three hours, from about €102. Sightings are likely in season, never certain.
- Hesteyri in Hornstrandir is five hours with a village walk and coffee, from €159.
- The Vigur sea kayak day is eight hours with a minimum age of 16, from €302.
If you have one thing to book in Ísafjörður, book Vigur island. It’s three hours, it leaves from the harbour in town, and it’s the trip that makes most sense of where you are: a working eider farm on a small island in the middle of the fjord, with seabirds nesting round your feet in summer. Everything else here depends on how long you have and whether you’ve already seen Dynjandi.
If you have three hours: Vigur
The Official Vigur Island Tour, from €182, is run by the family and foundation that look after the island. A converted ferry takes you about 30 minutes across Ísafjarðardjúp. On the island a guide walks you through the farm, the eiderdown tradition and a path through the puffin burrows. The whole trip is three hours door to door, with departures through the day in summer.
It’s summer only, and the island is a nature reserve, so you stay on the paths. Puffins nest there in season. We can’t tell you how many will be home the day you go.
Arriving by ship, the boat is a few minutes’ walk from the cruise pier, or right next to the tender pier.
If you have half a day and haven’t seen Dynjandi
Dynjandi is the waterfall people come to the Westfjords for, and it’s a little over an hour’s drive from Ísafjörður. Magic Iceland Travel’s Dynjandi Waterfall & Iceland’s Oldest Bookstore, from €142, is four hours, built around ship times, and adds a stop in Flateyri at the old bookshop. Minimum age six. That extra half-hour over the plain Dynjandi tours is what makes the bookshop stop possible, and it’s a quieter half-hour than the waterfall car park.
Our Westfjords detour guide covers the shorter Dynjandi and farm tours if four hours is too much.
If you want to be on the water
Ísafjarðardjúp is a big, sheltered fjord, and it has become a good place for humpback whales in the warmer months.
- Sjóferðir’s Whale Watching Ísafjörður, from €102, three hours from the harbour, many departures a day.
- The same company’s Puffin Party, from €104, two and a quarter hours, summer only. It heads for puffins on the water, often near Vigur, and whales are possible on the way. It needs 12 people to run; if it doesn’t, you’re refunded.
Choose the whale boat if whales are the point, the puffin boat if you’re short of time and want birds. Neither lands on Vigur. If you want to stand on the island, that’s the Vigur tour above.
If you have a full day: Hesteyri
Hesteyri is an abandoned village in Jökulfirðir, inside the Hornstrandir reserve, reached only by boat. Sjóferðir’s History at Hesteyri, from €159, is five hours: up to 70 minutes on the boat each way, a guided walk round the houses, and coffee and cakes in the old doctor’s house. It’s the easy, calm way into Hornstrandir. Summer boats only, and weather decides whether the boat goes.
If you want to hike properly in the reserve, that’s a different trip. Our Hornstrandir guide covers the longer days and the basecamp nights.
If you’re fit and want to paddle
Borea Adventures’ Seabird Discovery, from €302, is an eight-hour sea kayak day round Vigur, among the eider ducks and puffins. Transport and gear are included. The minimum age is 16, and eight hours in a kayak on open fjord water is a real day’s effort. Not for a ship day. Not for a first time in a kayak either, if the forecast is breezy.
Cruise-day options, quickly
Ships usually give you six to nine hours. That fits one of these, not two:
- Vigur (three hours) and a walk round the old harbour houses.
- Dynjandi with the bookshop (four hours).
- A whale or puffin boat (two to three hours) and lunch in town.
Hesteyri at five hours is possible on a long call but leaves no slack if the boat is late back. We wouldn’t.
Our honest take
Vigur first. It’s short, it’s run by the people who live with the island, and it shows you the fjord from the water and the land in one go. If you’ve seen Dynjandi on the drive in, skip the waterfall tours and take the whale boat instead. If you have a second day, go to Hesteyri.
The downside with all of it: the Westfjords season is short and the weather is honest. Boats get cancelled, and Vigur is summer only. If you’re here in winter, most of this list doesn’t run. Book the boats early in your stay so a cancelled one can move to the next day.
