Where to See Puffins in Iceland: 8 Spots and the Season

Látrabjarg in the Westfjords, Hafnarhólmi at Borgarfjörður eystri and Heimaey in the Westman Islands are the three places in Iceland where you can stand a few metres from nesting puffins, and the window that works at all of them is mid-May to early August. Outside that window the answer is different, because puffins spend most of the year at sea and the colonies are empty.

That timing is the part most trip plans get wrong. The first birds come ashore in the middle of April and almost all of them have arrived by early May, the colonies are at their busiest in June and July, and most of them empty out by the middle of August. Anyone arriving in September is already late nearly everywhere, and anyone arriving in October has missed the season completely.

The first-hand part of this post is a guest post by my dad, Hans, who went looking for a close-up photograph of an Icelandic puffin and eventually got one. I have kept his account and added the practical detail around it.

When are puffins in Iceland?

Puffins are in Iceland from the middle of April to the middle of August, and they are at sea for the rest of the year. The first birds appear at the colonies around mid-April, the rest arrive through late April and early May, and by early May the burrows are occupied.

Puffins are only ashore to breed. Each pair lays a single egg in a burrow dug into the turf on a clifftop or a grassy slope, both parents take turns incubating it, and the adults spend the summer flying out to sea and back with beakfuls of sand eels for the chick. Once the chick fledges, the whole colony goes back to the open Atlantic and does not touch land again until the following spring.

June and July are the two months where a sighting is close to certain. The birds are on the cliffs, the days are long enough to visit at any hour, and the adults are making constant fishing runs, which is also when they are easiest to photograph.

When do puffins leave Iceland?

Puffins leave Iceland from early August, and most colonies are empty by the middle of the month. The adults go first, the chicks follow, and a cliff that was covered in birds in the third week of July can be quiet by the second week of August.

The Westman Islands are the one exception worth planning around. Pufflings there fledge later, and each year between mid-August and mid-September the town of Heimaey runs its puffling patrol: young birds that follow the street lights instead of the moon end up in the town, and residents collect them in cardboard boxes overnight and release them from the cliffs the next day. Visitors can join in, and it is the only reliable puffin experience in Iceland after the middle of August.

Are there puffins in Iceland in September or October?

No, there are effectively no puffins to see in Iceland in October, and September is a gamble limited to the Westman Islands. By October every colony is empty and the birds are hundreds of kilometres out in the North Atlantic, where they stay until spring.

Plan a puffin trip for the second half of May, June or July if the birds are the reason you are going. If your dates are fixed in late summer, aim for Heimaey and the puffling season rather than driving to a mainland cliff that will be deserted.

What is the best place to see puffins in Iceland?

Látrabjarg is the best place to see puffins in Iceland if you want them close and you are willing to drive for it. The cliff runs 14 km along the westernmost tip of the Westfjords and rises to 441 m, it holds one of the largest seabird colonies in Europe, and the puffins on the clifftop are famously untroubled by people standing next to them.

The reason for that tameness is local. Puffins have not been harvested at Látrabjarg the way they have elsewhere in Iceland, so the birds there have no particular reason to treat a human at close range as a threat. That is what makes the close-up photograph possible without a hide or a long lens.

Hafnarhólmi at Borgarfjörður eystri is the better answer if you would rather not drive a long gravel road. A network of boardwalks and viewing platforms runs straight through a colony of roughly 10,000 pairs, the birds nest within a metre or two of the walkway, and you park at the harbour and walk up. Puffins fish through the day and come back in numbers in the evening, so arrive after about 6pm for the fullest cliff.

Where to see puffins in Iceland: a practical list

The 8 puffin colonies below are the ones worth planning a route around, listed with what access at each actually involves. Two of them can only be seen from a boat, and one is closed for part of the nesting season.

1. Látrabjarg, Westfjords

Látrabjarg gives the closest unmanaged view of puffins in Iceland, on a clifftop you can walk along. The cliff sits at the end of road 612 in the far southwest of the Westfjords, and the last stretch is unsealed, so allow far longer than the distance suggests and check the road before setting out.

Stay behind the line marked in the grass a short way back from the edge. It is there for two reasons: the overhang can give way, and the puffins nest in tunnels dug under that same turf, so a footstep in the wrong place collapses a burrow. Bjargtangar lighthouse at the western end is the westernmost lighthouse in Europe.

2. Hafnarhólmi, Borgarfjörður eystri

Hafnarhólmi is the easiest puffin colony in Iceland to reach on foot, and the birds nest around 10,000 pairs strong on a low headland behind a working fishing harbour. Boardwalks and two viewing platforms run through the colony, so you get an eye-level view without climbing anything or booking anything.

Drive to the end of road 94, past the village of Bakkagerði. Puffins nest here from around mid-April to the beginning of August, which makes it one of the earlier colonies in the country and one of the first to empty.

3. Heimaey, Westman Islands

Heimaey holds the largest puffin colony in the world, on the main island of the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the south coast. The viewing point is Stórhöfði at the southern tip, where a small birdwatching shelter lets you watch the birds on the slopes below without disturbing them.

Get there on the Herjólfur ferry from Landeyjahöfn, which takes about 35 minutes, or fly from Reykjavík. In bad weather the ferry sails from Þorlákshöfn instead and the crossing is much longer, so check the departure port on the day rather than assuming.

4. Akurey and Lundey, off Reykjavík

Akurey and Lundey are the two puffin islands in Faxaflói bay, and they are the only entries on this list you can do in an hour from the middle of Reykjavík. Boats leave from the Old Harbour, circle the islands and come as close as is safe, and landing is not permitted on either, so this is a view from the water rather than a walk among burrows.

Lundey means puffin island, which is why the name turns up on maps in several parts of Iceland. There is a Lundey here in Faxaflói, another in Skjálfandi bay off Húsavík in the north, and a third in Skagafjörður. A tour sold as a trip to Puffin Island could be any of them, so check which bay it sails in.

5. Dyrhólaey and Reynisfjall, south coast

Dyrhólaey is the puffin colony most people can fit into a Ring Road trip, about two and a half hours from Reykjavík near Vík. Puffins nest on the promontory and on the cliffs of Reynisfjall next door, and you watch them from marked paths on the headland.

Check the access rules before you drive out. The Environment Agency of Iceland can restrict visits to Dyrhólaey between 1 May and 25 June to protect the nesting birds, which in practice has meant keeping visitors on the footpaths during the day and closing the area overnight. The restriction is set each year after an ornithologist assesses the colony, so it is not the same every season.

6. Ingólfshöfði, southeast

Ingólfshöfði is a headland cut off from the mainland by black sand, and the only way onto it is a guided trip in a cart towed by a tractor across the flats. That sounds like a gimmick and is actually the point: the colony is undisturbed, the walk on top is short, and the guides take you to the birds.

Trips run in the puffin season only, from near Fagurhólsmýri between Skaftafell and Jökulsárlón. Book ahead, because the departures are few and the carts are small.

7. Grímsey, north

Grímsey is the puffin island on the Arctic Circle, 40 km off the north coast and the only inhabited part of Iceland the line touches. Puffins nest on the cliffs around the island in large numbers and the walk along the clifftops brings you within a few metres of them.

The Arctic Circle itself moves, which the island has turned into an attraction: the Orbis et Globus sculpture that marks it is shifted every year to follow the line, and it is drifting north off the island. Reach Grímsey on the Sæfari ferry from Dalvík or on the short flight from Akureyri.

8. Vigur and Breiðafjörður, west

Vigur is the small island in Ísafjarðardjúp that boats visit from Ísafjörður, and the landing puts you among puffins, eiders and Arctic terns on a working farm. It is the most comfortable close view in the Westfjords and it does not need the drive to Látrabjarg.

Breiðafjörður, the wide bay between the Snæfellsnes peninsula and the Westfjords, is the other option in the west. Boat trips from Stykkishólmur run out among its islands in summer, and puffins are one of many seabirds you see on the way rather than the single reason to go.

Puffin Island

Puffin Island in the north is Lundey, a small uninhabited island in Skjálfandi bay about 8 km from Húsavík, and the whale-watching boats from the harbour sail past it. That is where our own puffin hunt started, on a whale watching tour sold with a visit to Puffin Island attached.

I will not elaborate too much on the whale watching, which was a real disappointment. Besides the fact that we only saw one whale, I was a bit shocked that as soon as the animal came to the surface, five or six boats immediately chased it. Nothing of the respect for these ocean giants I had seen the year before in Canada, more whale stalking than whale watching.

We did sail to an island that was full of puffins. Even from a distance we got a better sight of the birds than we had off Brittany some years earlier, and some were floating on the waves quite close to our schooner. Not close enough for a good photograph, though. Capturing a large animal like a whale decently from a rocking boat is already difficult, and a flying puffin is a much harder target.

Other places to see puffins in Iceland

We went looking for a second chance further west, and the Snæfellsnes peninsula was the obvious place to try. After leaving Akureyri, where we had gone to Húsavík for the whale and puffin tour, we had a few days planned in Stykkishólmur, and I had found several birdwatching sites around the peninsula.

We planned a whole day driving around it. To cut a long story short, the rain poured down all day, and even when we were brave enough to get out of the car, the mist was so thick at times that we could not see more than 100 m ahead. The next day we were already booked on the Baldur ferry across Breiðafjörður to the Westfjords, so a second attempt on the peninsula was not an option.

That turned out to be the luckiest thing that happened to us, because the Westfjords is where the puffins were.

Was this the best place to see puffins in Iceland?

Látrabjarg was the answer, and I only found it because the Snæfellsnes plan had failed. Back on the internet I read that at the westernmost point of Iceland there was supposed to be a large colony of puffins, and that these particular birds were not shy of people at all, because they are not harvested in that area.

Sonia and I changed our plans for the Westfjords on the spot and made the Látrabjarg area a priority, which we had started calling puffin country by then. Coming off the ferry we saw a young couple hitchhiking, and when we asked, they said they wanted to go puffin watching and then maybe on to the Dynjandi waterfall. Exactly our itinerary, so the French youngsters came with us.

The trip to Látrabjarg is worth doing for itself. The Westfjords are the least inhabited part of the island, with entire abandoned villages, so it was no surprise that most of our route was on a dirt road. The scenery was gorgeous, and the frustration of the rain and fog the day before was completely forgotten.

How close can you get to a puffin in Iceland?

You can get within about a metre of a puffin at Látrabjarg, because you end up on top of the cliff rather than looking up at it. The drive took us about 1 hour 45 minutes, including photo stops, and when we reached the point we went straight for the edge. As soon as we approached it, we noticed a puffin sitting there, maybe a metre away.

I could not believe my eyes. The bird looked like it was posing. I had my close-up shot of a puffin in Iceland, and I spent almost an hour photographing them and simply watching.

There are line markings in the grass 70 to 80 cm back from the edge. We first thought they were only for safety, which is partly true, and they are also there because the puffins nest in tunnels under that grass. Stepping on one collapses it, which can end with a person going over the cliff and a crushed egg or chick underneath, so the line is worth respecting in both directions.

Go on an Iceland puffin tour

A puffin tour is the answer if you are short on time or based in Reykjavík without a car, because the two islands in Faxaflói bay are 15 minutes offshore and you cannot land on them anyway. Several boats leave the Old Harbour in Reykjavik daily through the season and circle Akurey and Lundey.

Two of them cover the same ground at different lengths. This puffin boat tour takes an hour, while this one runs an hour and a half. Both are weather-dependent and both stop running once the birds have gone, so check the operating dates against your travel dates rather than the other way round.

Book a boat only if a distant view will satisfy you. If you want the birds at arm’s length, the trip to make is to a land colony: Hafnarhólmi if you are driving the east, Heimaey if you are on the south coast, Látrabjarg if you have a day for the Westfjords.

Do people eat puffins in Iceland?

Yes, puffin is still eaten in Iceland, and hunting is still legal in parts of the country under local rules, quotas and short seasons. We saw it happening: a man stood on top of the island rock catching puffins with a long-handled net while we watched from the boat, which is the traditional method.

The bird is in trouble all the same, which is worth knowing before ordering it. Iceland holds the largest breeding population of Atlantic puffins in the world, the International Union for Conservation of Nature moved the species to Vulnerable in 2015, and the Atlantic puffin is listed as critically endangered on Iceland’s own national red list after decades of decline driven mainly by warming seas pushing the sand eels the chicks depend on further from the cliffs. Smoked puffin appears on menus as a traditional Icelandic dish, and a growing number of Icelanders now argue it should not.

Hotels we stayed at while we were in Iceland

The 5 hotels below are the ones we used on this trip, all of them still open and all of them chosen because they left us with the energy to keep going back out for the birds. They are spread around the Ring Road rather than clustered, which is what a puffin trip needs.

1. Reykjavík Marina, in the 101 harbour district of Reykjavík and the closest hotel on this list to the Old Harbour boats. It traded as the Icelandair Hotel Reykjavik Marina when we stayed and is now part of Berjaya Iceland Hotels. Check availability, prices and reviews on Booking.com.
2. Hótel Egilsen in Stykkishólmur, a converted historic timber house in the middle of town and the right base for Breiðafjörður and the Baldur ferry. Check availability, prices and reviews on Booking.com.
3. Akureyri, in the centre of the northern capital and an hour from Húsavík for the Skjálfandi bay boats. This one also traded as an Icelandair hotel and is now Berjaya as well. Check availability, prices and reviews on Booking.com.
4. Hali Country Hotel, on the Ring Road east of Jökulsárlón with views of Vatnajökull, and the practical stop for Ingólfshöfði. Check availability, prices and reviews on Booking.com.
5. Frost and Fire in Hveragerði, a geothermal spa hotel on the Varmá river about 30 minutes from Reykjavík. Check availability, prices and reviews on Booking.com.

Book earlier than feels necessary if your dates fall in June or July, because those are the two months everyone else also wants and the Westfjords and Westman Islands have very little stock. Compare places to stay across Iceland once your route is fixed.

What to pack for a trip to Iceland in summer

The 4 things below are what a summer puffin trip actually needs, and the list is short because everything else is ordinary travel kit.

• Hiking boots that are comfortable on loose ground. Clifftop turf at Látrabjarg and Grímsey is uneven and often wet.
• Merino hiking socks, which stay warm when they are damp and dry faster than cotton.
• A beanie and a windproof layer, because summer on an Icelandic clifftop is cold and the wind at Stórhöfði is relentless.
• A swimsuit, for the geothermal pools that are in almost every town and are the cheapest good thing in the country.

Leave the long lens at home if you are going to Látrabjarg or Hafnarhólmi. At both places the birds are far too close for it, and a phone or a short zoom does better work.

Now tell me: would you go puffin watching in Iceland, and which of these would you pick?

More on the country before you book: our guide to Iceland covers the regions and the driving, and there are 45 crazy facts about Iceland if you would rather start with the strange bits.

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WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 3 tips below come from Hans’s own hunt for a close-up photograph and from checking each colony’s access and season against a primary source, and each one stops a long journey to the wrong place.

1. Distrust a Látrabjarg season that runs into September. Tour pages advertise the cliff from May to September, and no primary source puts puffins there past the middle of August. Getting that wrong costs you the drive to the end of road 612 and a gravel road at the end of it, for an empty clifftop.
2. On Heimaey you do not need a second boat. Stórhöfði and its birdwatching shelter sit at the southern tip of the island, reached by road or on foot from the town, so the ferry or the flight is the only crossing you pay for. Older write-ups send readers looking for another boat trip once they land.
3. Check which Lundey a tour means. Lundey translates as puffin island and Iceland has more than one: the Lundey in Faxaflói bay is the hour-long boat trip from Reykjavík with no landing, the Lundey in Skjálfandi bay is 8 km from Húsavík, and there is a third in Skagafjörður. The first two sit on opposite sides of the country.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand account in this post is a guest post by her father, Hans, from his summer trip round Iceland with Sonia, which took in Húsavík, Snæfellsnes and the Westfjords. The team covers Iceland for independent travellers, including the boat tours, hotels and gear worth booking for a puffin trip, and updates this page when seasons, access rules and prices change.