Vök Baths in East Iceland: which ticket to book

Book the entry ticket at Relax - The essential Vök Baths experience, €56, if you are driving. A private tour from Seyðisfjörður costs €442 or more and buys you a driver, not better water. Cruise passengers on a tight clock are the exception.

What Vök is

A geothermal bathing spot on Lake Urriðavatn, a short drive from Egilsstaðir, the junction town of the east. The pools float on the lake itself, so you soak with the water around you rather than a wall. It is open all year, and our tickets are for a 1.5 hour visit.

The east has little else of this kind. In the north there are three or four baths to choose between, and we compare them in Mývatn Nature Baths vs Forest Lagoon vs GeoSea. Here there is one, so the question is only which ticket.

The three entry tickets

All three are meet-on-location. You drive there, you show up. No pickup.

• Relax, €56. The essential entry. No towel in the price.
• Enjoy, €64. Adds a towel.
• Indulge, €73. Towel and one drink included.

The gap between the cheapest and the dearest is about €16. If you did not pack a towel, Enjoy is the sensible one. Indulge is for people who would buy a drink anyway. Check the current list on the tour page before you pay, as the operator changes what each tier includes.

If you arrive by ship

Seyðisfjörður is where cruise ships and the Smyril Line ferry dock in the east. Vök is on the far side of the Fjarðarheiði pass, which is a drive of roughly half an hour to Egilsstaðir and then on to the lake. A ship’s schedule leaves no room for a late bus, so the tours here are private and priced per vehicle.

• Private Vök Baths Escape, €1,231, 4 hours. Gufufoss, the pass, then the pools, and back to the ship. Priced for a group in one vehicle, so check the passenger limit and split it.
• Exclusive East Iceland: Vök Baths, Reindeer & Waterfalls, €442, 5 hours. Adds the East Iceland reindeer park and a waterfall stop. It is a private tour, and it is the cheaper of the two, which looks odd. The pricing differs by vehicle size and group, so read the options on the page.

Downside: private tours burn a lot of your port time on driving. Of a 4 hour tour, maybe an hour and a half is in the water.

Season and weather

The pools stay open in winter, and a hot soak with snow on the shore suits some people very well. The pass over Fjarðarheiði is the weak point. It can close in bad weather, and a closed pass will end a shore excursion before it starts. For a ship day, ask the operator what their plan B is. For a car trip, check the road status the morning you go.

We do not promise any particular view or light. The pools are the point.

How it fits an East Iceland day

Pair it with a morning at Seyðisfjörður or the reindeer park, then soak in the afternoon. If you are on a Ring Road trip, the east is long and quiet, and an hour in warm water is a good use of a slow afternoon. We cover the rest of that region in East Iceland: Seyðisfjörður, Stuðlagil and puffins.

Our honest take

Drive, and buy the €56 or €64 ticket. Choose the towel tier unless you have your own. Skip the Indulge tier unless the drink matters to you.

If you are on a cruise, the €442 combined tour beats the €1,231 Vök-only one for most people, since you also get the reindeer and the waterfall. Both are private, so book early and confirm the ship’s all-aboard time with the operator. And be honest about the trade-off: you will spend more time in a vehicle than in the water. If that bothers you, pick Stuðlagil or the puffins instead.