Ingólfshöfði Puffin Colony

Ingólfshöfði

Southeast

Rising 76 meters from the black sand flats of Iceland's South Coast, Ingólfshöfði is a flat-topped promontory where Iceland's first Norse settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, reportedly spent his initial winter around 874 CE before founding Reykjavík. Today it's a protected nature reserve with one of the country's best seabird concentrations: puffins, great skuas, fulmars, razorbills, and common murres all nest on the clifftops each summer. Getting there is half the experience. You can't drive to the headland — a local family hauls visitors across roughly 6 km of wetlands and black sand on a tractor-drawn hay cart, about 25 minutes each way. A guided hike of around 1.5 hours then loops around the cape, with Vatnajökull visible to the north and an unbroken sweep of black coast in both directions. Tours run May through August when the puffins are present. Budget around 3 hours total. Advance booking is advised as group sizes are limited.

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