Egilsstadir: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Egilsstaðir is a young town that grew up around a farm at the crossroads of the east, and it was only made a municipality in 1947. North of it a single road crosses the moors to Borgarfjörður eystri, a fishing village of elves, puffins and one famous painter. The drive is about 70 km each way, part of it gravel over a mountain pass. Go in puffin season if you can, and bring layers: the pass can be in cloud when the town is sunny.
A short history of Egilsstadir
Egilsstaðir is the largest town in east Iceland, but it is very young: it was founded only in 1947, as a service centre for the farms of the area, at the point where the roads meet. It sits on the bank of the long Lagarfljót lake, and according to legend a giant serpent lives in the lake, a kind of Icelandic Loch Ness monster. The town grew thanks to its airport and to a huge project, the Kárahnjúkar dam and an aluminium smelter in the nearby fjord, completed in 2007–2008.
The ten best sights in Egilsstadir
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1Minjasafn Austurlands
Start here: one hour explains the reindeer, the turf farms and how isolated the east was
2SkriðuklausturA writer's grand house and the ruins of a medieval monastery side by side; the lunch buffet is famous
3SnæfellsstofaThe national park centre for the eastern highlands; ask here about the roads before going higher
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4Blue Church, Seyðisfjörður
Summer concerts are held inside on Wednesday evenings; the rainbow street leads straight to its door
5SkaftfellThe contemporary art centre of the east, with a bistro downstairs; check what is on before you drive over
6TvísöngurA sound sculpture on the hillside above Seyðisfjörður; go inside and sing a note, about 20 minutes uphill
7HengifossAllow two hours for the walk up and back; the path is steep in places and muddy after rain
8LitlanesfossHalfway up the Hengifoss path; many turn back here, but the basalt columns alone are worth the climb
9StuðlagilWalk down from the east-side car park to reach the canyon floor; the west-side platform only looks down
10HallormsstaðaskógurIceland's best-known forest, with marked trails and an arboretum; a sheltered walk on a windy day
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Egilsstadir →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Egilsstadir:
Free walking tours in Egilsstadir
Egilsstaðir to the puffins
Egilsstaðir is a young town that grew up around a farm at the crossroads of the east, and it was only made a municipality in 1947. North of it a single road crosses the moors to Borgarfjörður eystri, a fishing village of elves, puffins and one famous painter. The drive is about 70 km each way, part of it gravel over a mountain pass. Go in puffin season if you can, and bring layers: the pass can be in cloud when the town is sunny.
- Minjasafn Austurlands · The museum's centrepiece is a full turf farmhouse room, the baðstofa, where whole families once slept, ate and worked by lamplight through the winter. Another hall covers the reindeer, brought to Iceland from Norway in the 18th century and now living wild only in the east.
- Lagarfljót · The long lake is said to hide the Lagarfljót Worm, a serpent first mentioned in an Icelandic annal of the 14th century. In 2012 a local farmer filmed something long and twisting moving in the river, and the video went around the world.
- Vök Baths · Vök means a hole in the ice: in winter, hot springs under the lake Urriðavatn kept patches of water open when everything else froze. The baths, opened in 2019, put floating pools on the lake right above those springs.
- Álfaborg · This small rocky hill outside Bakkagerði is held to be the home of the queen of the Icelandic elves. The village has kept the story alive with a viewing platform on top, and locals still ask that the rock be left undisturbed.
- Bakkagerðiskirkja · Jóhannes Kjarval, the most loved painter in Iceland, grew up in this fjord. The altarpiece he painted for the village church in 1914 shows Christ preaching from Álfaborg, with the jagged Dyrfjöll mountains of the fjord behind him.
- Hafnarhólmi · The islet by the harbour is one of the easiest places in Iceland to see puffins up close, from wooden platforms built so the burrows are not trampled. The birds arrive in mid-April and leave for the open sea in mid-August.
Over the pass to Seyðisfjörður
Seyðisfjörður is the reason many people come east: a village of coloured wooden houses at the end of a deep fjord, with a blue church and a strong art scene. The 27 km road from Egilsstaðir climbs to more than 600 metres over Fjarðarheiði, then drops to the sea past waterfalls. The pass can have snow in June and fog any day, so check road.is. In town everything is walkable in a couple of hours.
- Gufufoss · The name means 'steam falls', for the cloud of spray that hangs over it. It lies on the river Fjarðará, which drops in a string of waterfalls beside the road, so there is a new one at almost every bend on the way down.
- Blue Church, Seyðisfjörður · The church was built in 1922, and the street leading up to its door is painted in rainbow colours. In summer it hosts a concert series on Wednesday evenings.
- Skaftfell · The Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth lived and worked in Seyðisfjörður in his last years, and the art centre grew from the circle around him. It opened in 1998 in an old house by the harbour and still shows his work.
- Seyðisfjörður harbour · In 1906 the first telegraph cable to Iceland came ashore here from Scotland via the Faroes, connecting the country to Europe. At the time Seyðisfjörður, built up by Norwegian herring merchants, was one of the busiest towns in Iceland, and many of its timber houses were shipped over from Norway as kits.
- Kaffi Lára · The bar's house beer is named after El Grillo, a British oil tanker sunk by German bombers in this fjord in February 1944. The wreck still lies on the bottom of the fjord and is a known dive site.
- Tvísöngur · The German artist Lukas Kühne built the five connected concrete domes in 2012. Each one resonates at a different note, tuned to the harmonies of tvísöngur, an old Icelandic way of singing in two voices.
Up the valley to the highlands
South of town the lake Lagarfljót runs for 30 km between the largest forest in Iceland and a valley of waterfalls, and the road loops around it. At the far end the valley opens onto the highlands and the national park, and a separate road leads to the basalt canyon of Stuðlagil. The full loop with the canyon is a long day of 200 km or more. Wear real walking shoes for Hengifoss and Stuðlagil, where the paths are steep and loose.
- Hallormsstaðaskógur · Iceland lost most of its trees within a few centuries of settlement, and this birch wood was among the first to be protected, in the early 1900s. Foresters later planted trees from all over the cold world here, and the arboretum shows which ones survived.
- Litlanesfoss · The smaller fall drops between tall, regular columns of basalt, some of the best on the east coast. It is the halfway point on the path to Hengifoss, and many people find it the more beautiful of the two.
- Hengifoss · At about 128 metres it is one of the highest waterfalls in Iceland. The red stripes in the cliff are layers of ancient soil and ash, baked red by the lava flows that buried them millions of years ago.
- Skriðuklaustur · An Augustinian monastery stood here from 1493 until the Reformation, and excavations in the 2000s found hundreds of graves, showing it also served as a hospital. Beside the ruins stands the house that the writer Gunnar Gunnarsson built in 1939 to a design by the German architect Fritz Höger.
- Snæfellsstofa · The centre looks out towards Snæfell, at 1,833 metres the highest mountain in Iceland outside the glaciers. Herds of wild reindeer graze on the highland around it in summer, and the exhibition explains how to spot them.
- Stuðlagil · For centuries the canyon walls were hidden by the high, grey water of the glacier river Jökla. After the Kárahnjúkar dam upstream began holding the river back, the water dropped and cleared, revealing one of the largest collections of basalt columns in Iceland.
Getting to Egilsstadir and getting around
- Egilsstaðir Airport · Flights to Reykjavík take about an hour; the airport is a few minutes from the centre, across the lake bridge
- Egilsstaðir bus stop · Long-distance buses to Akureyri and local buses to Seyðisfjörður stop here; outside summer, very few a day
- Seyðisfjörður ferry terminal · The Norröna car ferry to the Faroe Islands and Denmark docks here once a week; the town fills on ferry day
Cheap eats in Egilsstadir
Egilsstaðir is the shopping and service town for the whole east, so it has the supermarkets, the bakery and the pizza that the fjord villages do not. Reindeer is the local speciality, as a burger or on a pizza, and it is found almost nowhere else in Iceland. Prices are high, so the supermarket picnic is a real option.
- Salt Café & Bistro · Soups, salads and reindeer burgers, about 2,500-4,500 ISK
- Askur Pizzeria · Pizza and pasta, about 3,000-4,500 ISK
- Bókakaffi Hlöðum · Coffee and cake among second-hand books, about 800-2,000 ISK
- Klausturkaffi · Lunch buffet at Skriðuklaustur, about 3,500-4,500 ISK
- Kaffi Lára · Bar food and El Grillo beer in Seyðisfjörður, about 2,500-4,000 ISK
- Bónus Egilsstaðir · The cheapest picnic in the east, about 1,000-2,000 ISK
Museums in Egilsstadir
- Minjasafn Austurlands · Turf-house life and the reindeer of the east
- Skriðuklaustur · Gunnar Gunnarsson's house and the monastery ruins
- Skaftfell · Contemporary art by the harbour in Seyðisfjörður
- Snæfellsstofa · National park exhibition on the highlands
Nature and day trips near Egilsstadir
- Hengifoss · A 128 m fall in red-striped cliffs; two hours up and back
- Stuðlagil · Basalt canyon with a blue-green river
- Hallormsstaðaskógur · Forest trails and an arboretum by the lake
- Litlanesfoss · Waterfall framed by basalt columns
- Gufufoss · Roadside waterfall on the way to Seyðisfjörður
- Hafnarhólmi · Puffins at arm's length in summer
Things to do in Egilsstadir with kids
- Vök Baths · Floating hot pools on a lake, plus a cold plunge
- Egilsstaðir swimming pool · Town pool with a slide and hot tubs
- Atlavík · Lakeside beach and campsite in the forest
- Tvísöngur · Five concrete domes that sing back
- Fardagafoss · A short climb to a waterfall you can stand behind
- Álfaborg · Climb the home of the elf queen
Where to eat in Egilsstadir
- Nielsen · Seasonal dinner in an old house in the centre; book ahead
- Norð Austur · Sushi from local fish in Seyðisfjörður, summer only
- Hótel Aldan · Dinner in old timber houses in Seyðisfjörður
- Berjaya Hotel Hérað · Hotel restaurant with reindeer and lamb on the menu
- Kaffi Lára · The bar of Seyðisfjörður, with its own beer
- Skaftfell Bistro · Pizza and fish at the art centre, a local meeting place
Frequently asked questions about Egilsstadir
What is there to see in Egilsstadir?
The top sights in Egilsstadir are Minjasafn Austurlands, Skriðuklaustur and Snæfellsstofa. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Egilsstadir?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Egilsstadir without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Egilsstadir?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Egilsstadir, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Egilsstaðir to the puffins.
How do you get to Egilsstadir and get around?
The main ways are Egilsstaðir Airport, Egilsstaðir bus stop and Seyðisfjörður ferry terminal. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Egilsstadir, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Egilsstadir that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Egilsstadir for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.