Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour

Cape Ingolfshofdi is an isolated headland on the coast half way between Skaftafell in Vatnajokull National Park and Jökulsárlón ice lagoon. This historical nature reserve is home of thousands of nesting seabirds, like puffins and great skuas, guillemots and razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes. The cape is named after the first settler of Iceland, Ingolfur Arnarson, who spent his first winter in Iceland there in the year 874 AD. To get to Ingólfshöfði we cross 7 km of waters, marshes and sands in a tractor-drawn hay cart. The drive across Hofsnes Sand Flats takes about 30 minutes each way, so we spend about 1 1/2 hour hiking around the cape.

The tours to Ingólfshöfði have been conducted by the family in Hofsnes farm since 1990 when Sigurður Bjarnason had given up traditional sheep farming and needed to find new ways to make a living on his farm, offering tours down to Ingólfshöfði using his tractor and hay cart. His son Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson started to help his father soon, and then Einar’s wife, Matthildur Þorsteinsdóttir, and their oldest son Aron Franklín. Today the trip is normally done by Einar or Matthildur (Matta) or their sons, Ísak and Matthías.

In start and end of season the evening often provides the best chance to see the puffins close. The best time to visit puffin colony in hope of seeing lot of puffins in one trip is late June until early August. On the other hand we have quite a lot of days that we see hundreds of puffins even in May, or around mid June or August. In our experience the best puffin days are not the perfect sunny calm and hot days, but moderate wind, and even a little rain can often have more of them hang around the cliff edges. Late morning, early afternoon is often the best time for having many of them at home in the period mid June until early August. However we can never really know how many we will see on each given trip, there are many things that influence if the puffin wants to stay on the cliffs, or go down to the sea for the day. How close to the cape is the fish that they need to eat, how is the visibility in the sea for diving, how warm is it this afternoon, and what time of the summer is it are but few questions we need to consider. So even if we have 1000 puffins sitting around the cliff edges in one departure, the next departure on that same day might have only 10, or vice versa. Bottom line, the trip is in a nature reserve, not a zoo.

While we have spotted puffins in almost all departures in the period from early May until mid August now for many years we of course never know how close and how many puffins we spot on each trip. There are trips even in July that we only see couple of puffins flying by or only sitting down in the cliffs but not up on top where we are. 

The trip is suited for nature loving people that come not only to tick the box of their bucket list of spotting puffin, but are nature curious like us who are guiding the tours, and are interested in the history of Iceland and how our family has lived through the centuries in the strong nature of southeast Iceland. The motto of our family travel service is: From Coast To Mountains - Eleven Centuries In The Making.

The circle we hike around the nature reserve is 2-3 km long. In the beginning we need to walk up a 15-25° steep sand slope, and then through rather rocky terrain, but then it gets more easy, mostly hiking on flat grass land and we make many stops along the way. We don’t recommend that people participate in this trip unless they can do this hike.

Be careful to bring good outdoor clothing for this trip, the area is exposed to winds and rain, and sometimes sand storms.

Minimum age is 6 year old to take part in the tour.