Akureyri
Iceland
Iceland’s northern town at the head of a long fjord, drier and colder than the south and an hour from Mývatn
Photo by Josh Reid on Unsplash
Photos by Ed Wingate, Sigurdur Fjalar Jonsson, Lachlan Gowen and Emily Crawford on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Iceland
September to March for the aurora, and June to August for the whale boats and the long days
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 60mm in Oct
Where it is
65.68°N, 18.09°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Give the aurora three or four nights and look at the cloud cover map, not only the activity number
- Go to the town pool after dark — locals do, in any weather
- Hire a car for a day to Mývatn rather than taking a tour, if you can drive on snow
- Take the whale boats in summer from Akureyri if the fjord is calm, Húsavík if you want better odds
- Pay the Vaðlaheiði tunnel toll online the day you drive it, or the bill arrives with an extra charge
Akureyri travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Iceland
Very expensiveThe króna, and you will not need a note of it. Cards and phones work everywhere, from the swimming pool to the hot-dog kiosk. Do not change money before you come.
ATMs & cards
Landsbankinn, Arion banki and Íslandsbanki all have machines in the centre, and you will probably never use one. Self-service petrol pumps want a card with a PIN — check yours has one before you hire a car. Decline conversion if a terminal offers it.
Avoid these
- nothing in particular — you will rarely need cash
Use these instead
- Landsbankinn
- Arion banki
- Íslandsbanki
Cards work everywhere. Unmanned petrol pumps need a card with a PIN, which catches out drivers whose cards are signature-only.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Iceland
Very safeOne of the safest towns you will visit. The risks are winter roads and weather: check road.is and vedur.is before every drive, take the aurora forecast and the cloud forecast together, and do not drive north to Siglufjörður or east over the passes in a storm. Pavements ice over; the town pools are the place to warm up after a cold night outside.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Pavements and steps in winter, which are ice under a dusting of snow — clip-on spikes are sold in town
- Driving to Siglufjörður and Ólafsfjörður in winter, through long tunnels and along a coast where avalanches close the road
- Standing outside for hours on an aurora night, which is colder than walking in the same temperature
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Iceland visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Iceland
Good and affordableRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
Excellent and centralised, but almost all of it is in Reykjavík. In the interior you may be hours from a road, let alone a hospital, and search and rescue is volunteer-run — register your travel plans at safetravel.is.
Exposure and vehicle accidents on ice are the real risks. There are no dangerous animals and the tap water is among the cleanest anywhere.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodArctic char and lamb, and the skyr is better up here because the dairies are. Brynja’s soft ice cream is a local institution in any weather. Bónus and Krónan are much cheaper than eating out for lunch.
Travel tipsNightlife
A small town’s weekend: a handful of bars and one good live-music room on the main street, busy on Friday and Saturday and quiet the rest of the week.
- Hafnarstræti — the pedestrian street, with most of the bars on or just off it
- Græni hatturinn — the live-music venue, and the reason to stay up
Closing: Early midweek and a few hours after midnight at the weekend — later than you expect and earlier than Reykjavík.
Alcohol is sold only at the state Vínbúðin shop, which closes in the early evening and is shut on Sunday.
Getting around
Limited- HreyfillWorks here
- UberNot here
- BoltNot here
Hreyfill the taxi firm, by app
- From the airport
- Keflavík to Reykjavík 18,000–22,000 kr by taxi, against 3,500 kr on the Flybus
- Against a taxi
- There is no ride-hailing in Iceland — the law has kept Uber and Bolt out, and taxis are metered and dear.
Book the Flybus or hire a car. A taxi from the airport is a genuinely painful number.
Time zone and your working day
Atlantic/Reykjavik — 4 hours ahead of you
4 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–13:00 your time, 13:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 05:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 05:00–13:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Iceland
Ookla publishes no mobile median for Iceland, so there is no figure here for what a phone gets.
Why these are Iceland's numbers and not Akureyri's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2.2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Akureyri, so these are medians for all of Iceland. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Travel tipseSIM
A data eSIM for Iceland, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:
Works here
Works hereRevolutIn the app
Must-see
Travel tipsNearby day trips
Travel tipsSay a few words
Icelandic
- HelloHalló / Góðan dagha-LO / GO-than dahg
- PleaseTakk fyrirtak FI-rir
- Thank youTakktak
- Yes / NoJá / Neiyow / nay
4 more phrases
- Excuse meAfsakiðAF-sa-kith
- How much is it?Hvað kostar þetta?kvath KOS-tar THET-ta
- The bill, pleaseReikninginn, takkRAYK-ning-in
- Cheers!Skál!skowl
Religion
Lutheran, and largely secular
The national church is Lutheran. Old Norse belief has a small formal revival, Ásatrú, which is officially recognised.
Travel tipsDo's and don'ts
Do
- Shower thoroughly and naked before entering any public pool — this is strictly enforced and not negotiable
- Take shoes off indoors
- Respect closed roads and warning signs absolutely; people die ignoring them
- Use first names — Icelanders do not use surnames as we do, and the phone book is by first name
Don't
- Do not walk on moss; it takes decades to regrow and off-road driving is illegal
- Do not tip — it is not expected and can confuse
- Do not ask about elves expecting a joke, or expecting a serious answer either
- Do not underestimate the weather; conditions change within the hour
Where to stay in Akureyri
No Holistay rentals in Akureyri yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Akureyri on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Akureyri AEY
10 minfrom the airport· 3 km as the crow flies
10 min to the centre by taxi or hire car.
Also worth pricing: Keflavík KEF — every international flight; then a domestic flight from Reykjavík city airport or most of a day by road.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
