Borgarfjörður Eystri

The first puffin landed at Hafnarhólmi on April 8, 2025. That single fact tells you everything about what makes Borgarfjörður Eystri different from every other place in East Iceland: people here track their puffins the way farmers track their sheep, by name of colony and exact arrival date. The village has 91 permanent residents and, for roughly four months a year, an estimated 10,000 nesting pairs of Atlantic puffins.

This remote fjord sits 75 kilometres from Egilsstaðir, the nearest town with an airport. The road in, Route 94, was fully paved only within the last decade, and it crosses a mountain pass that closes in winter. Getting here is the point. The drive itself, through rhyolite mountains that glow orange, purple, and green depending on the light and the time of day, is one of Iceland’s better-kept secrets.

The Puffins at Hafnarhólmi

Most puffin-watching in Iceland requires a boat, a steep cliff-top scramble, or both. At Hafnarhólmi, a network of boardwalks and elevated viewing platforms threads directly through the nesting colony. Birds burrow within a metre or two of the planks. Admission is free, though a donation box sits at the entrance. The colony is active from mid-April through early August, and the birds typically depart around the second week of August, so timing matters. Early morning visits in June and July give you the best light and fewer people sharing the boardwalk.

What most guides skip: puffins are almost entirely silent on land. What you actually hear is the low murmur of thousands of wings and the occasional billing clatter between mates. Go early enough and the only other sounds are wind and waves.

Stórurð and the Víknaslóðir Trails

The Víknaslóðir trail network covers around 150 kilometres of marked routes across the East Fjords, but the section most visitors tackle is the day hike to Stórurð. The name translates loosely as “the great boulder field,” and the description undersells it. Retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age deposited enormous boulders across the valley floor, and pools of clear turquoise water collected between them. The effect is less Icelandic and more like a landscape from a fever dream.

The standard approach starts at Vatnsskarð pass on Route 94, climbs over the 634-metre Geldingafjall ridge, and descends into the boulder field. Allow four to five hours for the round trip and do not underestimate the ridge section if the weather is changeable, which in East Iceland it usually is.

The longer Víknaslóðir routes connect Borgarfjörður Eystri to Seyðisfjörður over four to five days of walking, passing through abandoned farming settlements along the way. Many of the farms in these inland valleys were given up during the mid-twentieth century when the hardship of remote subsistence farming proved unsustainable. The empty foundations and collapsed turf walls you pass are not dramatic ruins so much as quiet evidence of how marginal this land has always been.

The Elves and the Church

The village’s reputation as the “capital of elves” is not pure tourism invention. Iceland’s Huldufólk tradition is genuine folk belief, and Borgarfjörður Eystri has its own designated elf church, Álfakirkja, a small rocky outcrop beside the main road that locals have treated as elf territory for generations. Road workers in the area have reportedly rerouted construction rather than disturb it. Whether you find this charming or peculiar is personal, but the local insistence on it is sincere.

The village church, built in 1902, is worth a short stop. The altarpiece painting by the Icelandic artist Júlíana Sveinsdóttir depicts the Sermon on the Mount with the rhyolite mountains of the East Fjords as the backdrop. That detail, a biblical scene transposed onto the exact landscape you can see through the church windows, is the kind of thing that stays with you.

Where to Stay

Álfheimar Hotel is the main accommodation option in the village. Rooms run from around $120 to $180 per night in summer 2025, with breakfast included. The hotel is family-run, the restaurant serves traditional Icelandic meals including locally caught fish and lamb, and the garden looks directly out onto the fjord. Book well in advance for July visits: this is not a place with overflow options, and the Bræðslan music festival in late July fills every bed in the area.

Bræðslan is worth mentioning separately. The festival converts the village’s old herring factory into a concert venue for a weekend each summer. It is small, it sells out fast, and it draws artists who would normally play Reykjavík. If your dates overlap, do not miss it.

Getting Here

Fly into Egilsstaðir from Reykjavík (roughly 45 minutes on Air Iceland Connect, with multiple daily flights in summer). From Egilsstaðir, rent a car. There is no public transport to Borgarfjörður Eystri and no practical way to reach the hiking trails without a vehicle. The drive from Egilsstaðir takes about an hour in good conditions, longer if you stop at the mountain pass viewpoint, which you should.

One timing note: the mountain road is occasionally closed in late May and early June due to residual snow at the pass. Check the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration website (road.is) before setting out.

The Crowd-Dodge

Most visitors come in July for puffins and hiking. Early June is quieter and the rhyolite colours can be sharper in the lower-angle light. The puffins are already present from mid-April, and by early June the colony is fully established. You lose nothing on the wildlife side and gain considerably on the solitude side, particularly on the Stórurð trail where July sees enough foot traffic to feel social rather than remote.

The Álfheimar restaurant is the only proper dinner option in the village, so eat there or bring supplies from Egilsstaðir. The village shop has basics, but planning ahead saves a 150-kilometre round trip for something you forgot.