Best Boat Tours from Reykjavik's Old Harbour

Reykjavik makes one decision easy for you: every boat trip worth taking leaves from the same place. The Old Harbour — Gamla höfnin, if you want to sound local — sits a roughly ten-minute downhill walk from the bars and wool shops of Laugavegur, wedged between Harpa's glass-paneled concert hall and the old fish-packing sheds of the Grandi district. Walk the Ægisgarður pier on any morning and you'll pass the ticket huts and gangways for nearly every puffin, fishing, whale, and aurora boat in the city.

That turns the decision into a much better question: not where to sail from, but what you want out of Faxaflói Bay. Puffins? They nest on two islands about fifteen minutes offshore. Dinner? The bay is thick with cod. The northern lights? They show best once the city glow drops behind the breakwater. Below are the four trips I'd actually spend money on, ranked by what they deliver — with straight talk about which ones only run part of the year.

Getting to the Old Harbour — and what's around it

Logistics first, because they're almost embarrassingly simple. From Ingólfstorg square in the centre it's roughly ten minutes on foot to the water; from Hallgrímskirkja, closer to twenty, all downhill. There's no transfer to coordinate and no rental car required — you can finish a coffee downtown at quarter to and still make an on-the-hour departure if you walk with purpose.

It's also worth building in an hour on either side of your sailing, because the harbour has become a destination in its own right. The Grandi side holds Grandi Mathöll, a food hall in a converted fish factory, plus the Whales of Iceland exhibition and the Maritime Museum, and Sægreifinn near Geirsgata has been ladling out its famous lobster soup for years. Boat trip plus soup is a legitimate half-day plan.

Best one-hour trip: the Puffin Express

If you only do one short thing on the water, make it this. The Puffin Express (from €65.38) runs out to Akurey and Lundey — the second literally translates as Puffin Island — where thousands of Atlantic puffins burrow into the grassy slopes each summer. The whole round trip takes 1 hour, and the small hull is the point: these boats can edge far closer to the islands than the big whale-watching ships, and the captains throttle right down once birds are on the water around you.

The catch is the calendar. Puffins are only ashore from roughly mid-May to mid-August; after that the colonies empty as the birds head back out to the open Atlantic, and the trip stops making sense. If you're photographing them, know that puffins are small and absurdly fast in the air — your best shots are of birds rafting on the water or standing at their burrows, so a zoom lens earns its place in your bag.

Best evening sailing: catch-and-grill fishing in Faxaflói

Sunset Fishing in Faxaflói Bay is the trip I push on people who claim they don't like organized tours. From €151.30 for 2 hours and 30 minutes, the crew runs you out to productive ground, rigs the rods, and shows you how to drop a line — and the cod and haddock here are not shy. Most evenings, somebody who has never fished in their life is hauling up dinner within the first half hour.

The hook, so to speak, is what happens next: the crew fillets the catch and grills it right on board, so you're eating fish that was swimming under the boat twenty minutes earlier. And in June and July the 'sunset' label undersells it — Reykjavik sits far enough north that the sun barely dips below the horizon at midsummer, so you fish through a long golden hour at a time of night you'd normally be asleep. If hands-on trips like this are your speed, the Adventure in Reykjavik listings collect more in the same vein.

Best winter pick: hunting the aurora from the water

From September through April, the same pier flips to night mode. The case for Northern Lights by boat (from €106.29, 2 hours and 30 minutes) over a minibus tour is simple: light pollution. A boat clears the breakwater and the city glow falls away within minutes — no streetlights, no oncoming headlights, just black water and the silhouette of Mount Esja across the bay. When the aurora does fire, you also get something no roadside stop can offer: the lights hanging over Reykjavik's skyline on the way home.

Be honest with yourself about the odds, though. The aurora needs both solar activity and a clear sky, and nobody can promise either on a given night — a thick cloud deck beats any forecast. Many aurora sailings let you rebook if the lights don't appear, but terms vary, so read the policy on the tour page instead of assuming. And don't go looking for this trip in summer: through the brightest months the sky never gets properly dark, which is exactly why it doesn't run.

Best big-ticket outing: whales by daylight, aurora after dark

The Whale Watching & Northern Lights Combo Cruise stacks the bay's two headline acts into one 6-hour outing, from €193.43. Faxaflói holds whales in some form all year — white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises are near-residents, minke whales are the classic sighting, and humpbacks turn up often enough to keep crews hopeful — so you spend the daylight portion scanning for blows, then stay out as darkness falls and the aurora hunt begins.

It's the priciest trip on this list, but it solves a real problem for short winter breaks: two major experiences, one booking, one evening. If you'd rather split them across separate days instead, the Nature & Wildlife in Reykjavik listings show everything running in your window.

Match the boat to your travel dates

Run the seasonal logic before you fall in love with a trip. Visiting between mid-May and mid-August? Puffins and midnight-sun fishing are your moves, and any aurora product is off the table — the sky won't cooperate no matter what a listing implies. Visiting September through April? The lights cruise and the combo come into play, but the puffins have left. Whales, helpfully, are watchable in Faxaflói year-round, though summer generally brings calmer seas and longer viewing light.

If you have flexibility, early autumn is a quiet sweet spot: September brings nights dark enough for the aurora while the seas are often kinder than in midwinter, which is why the combo season opens then. Just don't plan around puffins that late — by September the colonies on Akurey and Lundey have emptied for the year.

Before you board: weather, refunds, and layers

Faxaflói is open North Atlantic water, and captains cancel for wind and swell, not for rain — a grey, drizzly day often sails just fine while a sunny, howling one doesn't. If the operator cancels, you'll generally be offered a new slot or your money back, but confirm the cancellation terms on each tour page before paying. The practical move: book boat trips early in your stay, so a blown-out evening can be rescheduled instead of lost.

Then dress like you mean it. The air over the bay runs noticeably colder than the city, even in July, and the boat's own speed adds wind on top — so bring a windproof outer layer, a hat, and gloves year-round, and wear proper layers underneath even when operators lend warm overalls on board. If you're prone to seasickness, take tablets well before departure, stay out on deck, and keep your eyes on the horizon; the bay can carry real swell on a breezy day.

That's the Old Harbour playbook: one pier, four very different ways to spend an evening on the water. Pick the trip your season actually allows, leave yourself a weather buffer, and spend the saved logistics time on lobster soup. For everything beyond the waterline — pools, food halls, day trips — start with the Reykjavik destination page.