Things to Do in Seyðisfjörður Without Leaving the Town
Seyðisfjörður has 676 residents and about a kilometre of walkable street, and it still holds more than most towns ten times its size. A blue church at the top of a painted road, an art centre in a herring warehouse, a museum buried by a landslide, a tanker on the bottom of the fjord and a waterfall four minutes up the pass. This page covers what you can do on your own two feet, and where the town stops and a vehicle starts.
Quick answer
Everything in the town sits within 0.3 km of the cruise piers on flat ground. The blue church, the rainbow street, the Skaftfell art centre, the harbour and the El Grillo memorial fill an easy two hours on foot and cost nothing. Gufufoss waterfall is 3.6 km up Route 93, four minutes by vehicle and too far to walk in a port call. Anything beyond that, including the canyon and the puffin colony, is 90 minutes of driving each way.
Key takeaways
- Free and on foot: the blue church, Norðurgata's rainbow street, the harbour, the landslide scar and the El Grillo memorial gun
- Skaftfell Center for Visual Art has run exhibitions since 1998 and has a bistro upstairs
- The Technical Museum's building was buried by the December 2020 landslide and the collection is still being recovered
- Gufufoss, 27 m, is 3.6 km up the road: a taxi or a tour stop rather than a walk
- Serious hiking starts at the edge of town, with the Vestdalur route running five to six hours
- Everything further out is a guided trip, because there is no bus and no rental desk in the town
What Sits Inside the Walk
The piers are 0.3 km from the centre and the ground is flat the whole way. That means a normal walking pace covers everything below in about two hours, including stops.
| What | From the pier | Time to see it | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rainbow Street, Norðurgata | 5 minutes | 10 minutes | Free |
| Bláa kirkjan, the blue church | 7 minutes | 15 minutes | Free, concerts ticketed |
| Skaftfell Center for Visual Art | 5 minutes | 30 to 45 minutes | Small entry, bistro upstairs |
| The harbour and the lagoon | 2 minutes | 20 minutes | Free |
| El Grillo memorial gun | 8 minutes | 10 minutes | Free |
| The landslide scar above the town | 10 minutes | Look up, it is unmissable | Free |
| Gufufoss waterfall | 3.6 km, 4 minutes by road | 20 minutes | Free, needs a vehicle |
The blue church
Bláa kirkjan was consecrated in 1922 and stands at the head of the rainbow-painted street, which is the arrangement every photograph of Iceland's east coast eventually comes down to. The wooden interior is plain and worth the five minutes.
In summer the church runs a concert series on Wednesday evenings, jazz, folk and classical, in a room that seats a fraction of a cruise ship. If you are staying in the town rather than passing through, it is the one fixed event in the calendar worth planning around.
Rainbow Street
Norðurgata is painted in stripes across the tarmac from the lagoon up to the church door, repainted each summer, and it is the reason a town of 676 people appears on international feeds at all.
It is also a working street with people living on it. Photograph it from the pavement, do not stand in the middle of the road for twenty minutes, and give way to the car that needs to get past you.
Skaftfell
The Center for Visual Art has occupied an old timber building since 1998 and runs exhibitions through the summer, with a bistro upstairs and a residency programme that brings artists to the fjord for months at a time.
It is the reason the town has the reputation it has. LungA, the arts festival a fifteen-year-old local started in 2000, held its twenty-fifth and final edition in July 2024 after funding ran out, but the art house it grew alongside is still open.
El Grillo
A British tanker sunk by German aircraft on 10 February 1944 lies on the bottom of the fjord at about 45 m. The crew survived; the ship was scuttled after the attack to remove it as a target.
One of her guns stands by the water as a memorial and takes two minutes to find. Divers still go down to the wreck, which is one of the best-known dives in the country, and she is still leaking oil eight decades later, which the Icelandic government has spent years and a good deal of money trying to stop.
The landslide, and the museum under it
Look up from the main street and the scar is obvious: bare ground and drainage works cut into the slope above the houses. On 18 December 2020, after weeks of rain, the hillside came down and mudflows damaged 39 houses and destroyed 12. Nobody died, because the police had evacuated the area the day before.
The Technical Museum of East Iceland, founded in 1984, lost the building that held its collection, its printing workshop and its archive. Recovery work has gone on ever since. The town does not hide any of this, and asking a guide about it will get you a longer answer than you expected.
Walking Out of Town
The paths start where the houses stop, which is unusual and useful. Two of them are worth knowing about.
- Vestdalur, the serious one: a five to six hour traverse from Stafdalur over the heath, past the mountain lake Vestdalsvatn and down along the Vestdalsá river into the town, with waterfalls most of the way down
- The Vestdalur nature reserve walk from the town side, shorter, reaching the lake and the cave known as the Mountain Maid's cave
- Fjallkonustígur, the Mountain Maid's trail, a marked route above the fjord for anyone who wants height without a full day
- The road up towards Gufufoss and the pass, which is walkable but has no pavement and carries every coach in town
None of these fit inside a cruise call. Five to six hours of walking against an 8 to 10 hour window with a mandatory return time is not a margin anyone should test, and the weather here turns fast. If you are staying a night in the town, they are the reason to.
Gufufoss
The one sight just outside the town that everyone sees. Gufufoss drops 27 m beside Route 93, 3.6 km from the pier, and takes four minutes by road and rather longer on foot along a road with no verge.
Nearly every guided trip out of the fjord stops here on the way back, so if you have booked anything at all, you will get it without arranging it separately. If you have not, a taxi is the practical option and taxis in this town are few.
What needs a vehicle, and how far
Everything below is out of walking range, and the distances are the reason the guided trips run the lengths they do. Full detail on each sits on its own page.
| Where | From the pier | By road | Reachable on foot? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gufufoss waterfall | 3.6 km | 4 minutes | No pavement, not advised |
| Egilsstaðir | 27.2 km | 25 minutes | No |
| Vök Baths | 32.6 km | 32 minutes | No |
| Hafnarhólmi puffins | 92.9 km | 84 minutes | No |
| Stuðlagil Canyon | 98.8 km | 90 minutes | No |
What to Do With the Time You Have
If you have three hours or less ashore
stay in the town. The church, the street, Skaftfell and the harbour fill it comfortably and you will not be watching the clock.
If you have a full port call and want the countryside
book a guided trip. The canyon and the puffin colony are both 90 minutes each way, and there is no bus or rental desk here to get you to either. Everything running is compared in the Seydisfjordur tours lineup.
If you would rather be on the water than a coach
take the three-hour fjord cruise from the harbour. It leaves a walk from the pier and never touches a road.
If you are staying overnight
walk Vestdalur, go to the Wednesday concert in the blue church if it is summer, and see the town in the evening when the ships have gone.
If the weather has closed in
Skaftfell has a roof, a bistro and something on the walls, and the church is dry. Both are inside the 0.3 km.
Practical Notes
A town this size has limits, and the ones that catch visitors out are predictable.
- Bring a waterproof. The town takes over 1,650 mm of rain a year, roughly twice Reykjavík
- Carry a card. Everything takes them and cash is close to pointless in Iceland
- Do not count on shops for lunch: choice is small and the ferry days empty them
- Nothing here is open late outside the summer months
- There is no rental desk and no scheduled bus, so any plan involving distance needs a booked trip
- Toilets are at the harbour and in the cafés, not on the street
The other thing worth knowing is what the town is like when a ship is not in. On a quiet Tuesday in June it is a fishing village with an art gallery. Between eight and five on a call day it holds several thousand extra people.
If you are staying overnight, the evening after the ship sails is the version most residents would recognise.
Questions About the Town
Is Seyðisfjörður walkable from the cruise pier?
Yes. The piers sit 0.3 km from the centre on flat ground, a five to ten minute walk, and everything worth seeing in the town itself is within a few minutes of that. No shuttle is needed and none is provided.
How long do you need in Seyðisfjörður?
Two hours covers the town on foot without rushing. A full day means a guided trip out of the fjord as well. An overnight stay is what the hiking and the Wednesday concerts are for, and it is the only way to see the place after the ships leave.
What is there to do in the rain?
Skaftfell Center for Visual Art has exhibitions and a bistro upstairs. The blue church is open in summer. Both sit inside the short walk from the pier, which matters when the rain here arrives sideways.
Can you walk to Gufufoss waterfall?
Not sensibly. It is 3.6 km up Route 93 on a road with no pavement and steady coach traffic. Four minutes in a vehicle, and nearly every guided trip from the pier stops there on the way back, so it usually comes free with something else.
Is there anything to do outside the summer?
Less than you would like. The cruise season runs May to September, most of the small businesses follow it, and the pass over Fjarðarheiði closes in winter storms. The town is still there and so is the church, but the visitor infrastructure is seasonal.
What should I wear for a day in the town?
A waterproof jacket and shoes you do not mind getting wet, whatever the forecast says. Full detail is on the what to wear page, which covers the difference between a town walk and the canyon hike.
Where does the ferry from Denmark arrive?
At the ferry terminal in the town, the same water the cruise ships use. The Norröna sails from Hirtshals by way of the Faroe Islands between March and October, which makes Seyðisfjörður the only place in Iceland you can arrive with your own car from abroad. On a ferry day the town gets a second wave of arrivals, most of them driving off towards the pass within the hour.