Höfn
Iceland
A fishing town under Vatnajökull, and the nearest town to Jökulsárlón and the winter ice caves
Photo by Cyrill Hänni on Unsplash
Photos by Sammy Schuckert, Yvon Hoogers, Kameron Kincade and Ankit Sood on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Iceland
November to March for the ice caves and the aurora, with a guide and a flexible plan, and June to August for open roads and the langoustine
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 160mm in Oct
Where it is
64.25°N, 15.21°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Sleep here and reach Jökulsárlón at first light, before the coaches from Vík
- Book the ice cave with a guide and accept that it may be cancelled for weather or melt
- Walk Stokksnes for Vestrahorn — the landowner charges at the café, which is fair
- Eat langoustine at least once, preferably at lunch when it is cheaper
- Keep a spare day: the sands close the road more often than the forecast admits
Höfn travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Iceland
Very expensiveThe króna, but you need none of it in your hand. Cards work at the glacier lagoon car park, the petrol station and the langoustine restaurants alike.
ATMs & cards
There are bank machines in Höfn and almost nothing between here and Vík, which does not matter because nothing on the way wants cash. Make sure your card has a PIN for the self-service pumps.
Avoid these
- nothing in particular — you will rarely need cash
Use these instead
- Landsbankinn
- Arion banki
- Íslandsbanki
Cards work everywhere, including at the lagoon. Unmanned petrol pumps need a card with a PIN.
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 safeThe town is entirely safe; the drive and the ice are not trivial. The Ring Road east of Vík crosses open sands where winter wind can shut it for a day — check road.is and vedur.is every morning and build a spare day into the plan. Never walk onto a glacier or into an ice cave without a licensed guide: a summer cave at Breiðamerkurjökull collapsed on a tour group in 2024 and killed a visitor. Do not stand on the floes at Diamond Beach.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
- Höfn — the whole town
- Jökulsárlón — from the shore and the boats
- Stokksnes
Worth more attention
- Diamond Beach — the surf here pulls hard, and climbing onto the ice for a photograph is how people are taken off the beach by a wave
- Breiðamerkurjökull — ice caves and glacier walks only with a licensed guide, and only in the cold months
- The Ring Road across the sands in winter wind, which can close it for a day at a time — road.is before every drive
- Floating ice at the lagoon, which rolls without warning; it is not a platform
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
GoodLangoustine — humar — is what Höfn eats and celebrates every summer with a festival; have it on pizza, in soup or grilled with garlic butter. Restaurants are few and some shorten their hours in winter, so check before you drive in late.
Travel tipsGetting around
Car needed- 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 Höfn'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 Höfn, 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 Höfn
No Holistay rentals in Höfn 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 Höfn 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 Keflavík KEF
5h 30mfrom the airport· 360 km as the crow flies
About 5h 30m by hire car along the Ring Road, longer in winter.
Also worth pricing: Hornafjörður HFN — domestic flights from Reykjavík city airport, not Keflavík; 5km from town.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
