Reykjavík

What to do in Reykjavík

The centre is about twenty minutes across on foot, and that single fact shapes the whole plan: nearly everything below is walkable from everything else, and the honest list of things to do in Reykjavík is shorter than most guides admit. It divides into three things in the city, and one category that is not in it at all.

The pools come first — fourteen within 8 km, cheaper than any museum ticket, open early and late, and busiest when the weather is worst. They are listed below with distances from the centre, and they are the one recommendation here that differs from every other list.

Then the museums. Three sit within 300 m of each other and of the old harbour, so a wet afternoon covers all three without moving a car — the list is further down this page, and twenty-four more are inside 8 km.

Then the walkable centre itself: Hallgrímskirkja’s tower for the view in the photograph above, the old harbour where the whale boats leave, and the parks on a dry day. The city’s best-known attractions all sit inside that twenty-minute radius, which is why a car is of no use until you leave.

Not in Reykjavík: the Golden Circle, the south-coast waterfalls, the hot springs and the aurora are day trips out of the city, not things in it. Lists that file them under Reykjavík are counting the drive as part of the city — budget the hours honestly, and book the ones you cannot drive to.

The pools — start here

Every guide sends you to the Blue Lagoon, 45 minutes away and priced accordingly. These are the ones people swim in. Straight-line distances from the city centre.

1. Vesturbæjarlaug — 1 km
   The west-end local pool, and the one Reykjavík residents name first. Hot pots, steam, and a queue of regulars who have been coming for decades.
2. Sundhöll Reykjavíkur — 1.2 km
   The oldest pool in the city, a 1937 Guðjón Samúelsson building — the same architect as Hallgrímskirkja. Indoor pool, outdoor hot pots on the roof terrace.
3. Ylströndin, Nauthólsvík — 2.9 km
   The geothermal beach: a lagoon of warmed seawater on the shore, with the cold Atlantic right beside it for anyone who wants the contrast.

Eleven more sit within the same radius. All of them, mapped →

Museums in the old town

All three are within 300 m of each other, and of the harbour.

1. Reykjavík 871±2 — 0.1 km
   A Viking-age longhouse excavated where it stood, with the museum built around it underground. The name is the date range the tephra layer gives.
2. Listasafn Reykjavíkur — 0.3 km
   The city art museum, across three buildings — Hafnarhús by the harbour is the contemporary one.
3. Icelandic Punk Museum — 0.3 km
   In a former public toilet on Bankastræti. Small, cheap, and exactly what it says.

Twenty-four more are inside 8 km. The full list →

Cheapest fuel in the city, today

Ranked by price rather than distance — you will fill up on the way out of town, so a few hundred metres matters less than the rate.

• Orkan Skógarhlíð — 2.0 km · bensín 95 253.2 ISK/L · diesel 306.1
• Orkan Bústaðavegur — 2.1 km · bensín 95 253.2 ISK/L · diesel 306.1
• Atlantsolía Kópavogsbraut — 3.9 km · bensín 95 253.3 ISK/L · diesel 306.2
• Atlantsolía Öskjuhlíð — 1.9 km · bensín 95 253.3 ISK/L · diesel 306.2
• Atlantsolía Skúlagata — 1.2 km · bensín 95 253.3 ISK/L · diesel 306.2

All 247 stations with live prices →