Puffins in Iceland

Mid-April to mid-August. Puffins arrive at the nesting cliffs in April, hatch chicks in June and leave for the open sea by late August. July is the safest month for numbers and for chicks being fed. Outside this window there are none on land, and a tour sold as a puffin tour in October is a boat ride. Reykjavík puffin boats usually run May to August; check the tour page for the exact dates each year.

Yes. Two small islands in Faxaflói, Akurey and Lundey, hold puffin colonies ten to fifteen minutes by boat from the Old Harbour. One-hour trips like Elding's classic puffin watching (/experience/1299/) circle the islands slowly; you do not land. Bring binoculars, because the boats keep a respectful distance and puffins are small. It is the easiest puffin option in Iceland and a good fit for children or a spare hour before dinner.

On land, at a cliff, not from a boat. Látrabjarg in the Westfjords, Borgarfjörður eystri in the east and Dyrhólaey on the South Coast let you sit a few metres from birds that ignore you. Vestmannaeyjar has the largest colonies. Reykjavík boat trips are convenient but distant. If you are travelling the Ring Road in June or July, the puffin tour from Seyðisfjörður (/experience/973294/) gets you to the eastern cliffs with a guide.

Yes, mostly. They are short, an hour or so, and stay in the sheltered bay, so seasickness is rarer than on a three-hour whale trip. Children usually enjoy the boat as much as the birds. The downside is distance: puffins look like specks without binoculars, so ask if the boat has some to borrow. Combined whale-and-puffin trips (/experience/1569/) run six hours, which is long for under-eights.

You can, in a few Reykjavík restaurants, usually smoked as a starter. Whether you should is your call. Puffin hunting is legal in limited areas and the population is under pressure from warming seas, so many Icelanders no longer eat it. We do not sell food tours that feature it. If you want the tradition without the bird, try lamb, langoustine or plokkfiskur, which any food walk will cover.

From €55 to €205 a person, with a typical price of €110. That is the median of 35 per-person day-tour fares we currently sell. Multi-day packages and private charters are priced differently and sit outside those figures.

Puffin Watching Yacht Cruise from Downtown Reykjavík – Small Group Experience with Sea Trips Reykjavík, at €55 a person. Read what it actually is before booking on price alone — the cheapest line is sometimes an admission ticket rather than a guided trip, and a large coach costs less per seat than a small-group minibus because it gives you less time at each stop.

1 of the 44 are priced on request rather than published, which almost always means a private charter where the cost depends on group size and pickup point. Ask us and we will get a quote from the operator.

44 of them, from 25 operators: Your Friend in Reykjavik, SEA LIFE TRUST Beluga Whale Sanctuary, Arctic Adventures, Volcano ATV, Húsavík Adventures, Whale Watching Hauganes and 19 more. Every one is a company we hold a contract with — we do not list everything in Iceland, on purpose.

Day tours run from 1 hour to 9 hours, most commonly about 2 hours. Pickup and drop-off are usually inside that figure, so a three-hour tour from Reykjavík can mean closer to four door to door.

1 of these are admissions or tickets rather than guided tours — Guided Tour with General Admission from €51, for instance. Worth knowing if you are driving yourself and only need entry.

18 of 44 (41%) offer pickup. The rest ask you to meet on location. Pickup is the single most common cause of a missed tour in Iceland: it runs to a window rather than a time, and the bus will not wait long.

6 of the 44 are private, the other 38 are shared departures. Private costs more in total but is priced per vehicle, so for four or more people it often works out close per head — and you set the pace.

Across the next 360 days of live availability we hold departures in October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September. That is a rolling window rather than the whole year, so a month missing from that list is not necessarily a month with nothing running.

44 of 44 run only part of the year; the other 0 run all year round. In Iceland that is usually about daylight or ice rather than demand.

Cutoffs run from 1 to 24 hours before departure, and 18 of them accept bookings inside 24 hours — so booking the night before is often possible. Popular winter tours sell out days ahead regardless of the cutoff.

39 of 44 (89%) allow free cancellation at least 24 hours before departure. The exact window is on each tour page and comes from the operator's own policy, not ours. If the operator cancels for weather you are refunded in full.

Operators rate them: 26 easy, 10 very easy, 8 moderate. Iceland's ratings assume weather — an easy walk in still air is a different proposition in 15 m/s of wind.

19 of the 44 set one, ranging from 2 to 14 years. The rest have no stated minimum, which usually means infants are allowed but not that the tour suits them.

36 of 44 are marked family-friendly by the operator. That is their judgement rather than ours, and it usually means the walking is short and the vehicle has a toilet.

Operators have flagged accessibility on some: 2 for wheelchair users, 2 for limited mobility, 2 for prams and strollers. Ring us before booking rather than relying on the flag alone — Icelandic sites vary enormously and a flag does not describe the terrain at the stop.

Varies by operator. Across these: admission fees on 4, wi-fi on board on 2, landing and facility fees on 2, goods and services tax on 2, entry tax on 1. Anything not listed as included is not included — Icelandic operators are literal about this.

33 of 44 are guided in person, with guiding offered in Chinese, English, German, Icelandic. English is standard on every shared departure in Iceland; other languages usually mean a private guide.

They start from Capital Region (Reykjavík), South Coast (Hella, Hvolsvöllur, Vík), Húsavík, Akureyri & the North, East Iceland (Egilsstaðir, Seyðisfjörður), Golden Circle area (Selfoss, Flúðir, Þingvellir) and 1 more. Where a tour starts matters more in Iceland than how long it lasts: the same tour from Reykjavík and from Vík are different days entirely.

The operator cancels and refunds you in full — Icelandic operators cancel readily, and that is a good sign rather than a bad one. What they will not do is refund you for a tour that ran and simply had poor visibility. Wind cancels more tours here than rain or cold.