The Other Side of Iceland: Discovering the Eastfjords’ Untamed Beauty

Slip beyond Iceland’s famous south-coast waterfalls and the well-trodden Golden Circle, and the country reveals a quieter, salt-licked rim where mountains fall straight into the sea and villages cling to deep, glacial-cut inlets. This is the Eastfjords, a serrated edge of the island that trades spectacle for intimacy, crowds for conversation, and speed for the steady rhythm of tide and weather.

Here the geography writes its own poetry: narrow roads curl around headlands, scree slopes pour down from knife-back ridges, and long fjords mirror skies that change by the minute. The light is different too—silvery one hour, honeyed the next—catching the copper roofs of fishing sheds and the white wakes of eiders. You come for the scenery, yes, but you stay for the feeling that life has room to breathe.

Egilsstaðir, the region’s hub, sits inland on the banks of Lagarfljót and makes an easy base with services, cafés, and the small airport that links to Reykjavík. From here, Route 1 threads north and south along the coast, spoking into side roads that climb passes and dive through tunnels to reach fjord villages. In summer, the East is often calmer and sunnier than the south; in winter, snow can close the high passes and wind can fling spray across the quays. Plan with the weather and road reports, and keep your itinerary flexible.

Seyðisfjörður is a natural starting chapter, cupped by steep walls at the head of a blue fjord. A weekly ferry from mainland Europe and the Faroe Islands noses into its harbor, delivering hikers and artists to a town of timber houses, a powder-blue church, and a rainbow-painted street that leads to it. The art scene centers on the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, and trails climb to moorland waterfalls like Gufufoss, where spray drifts across the road like a silk curtain.

Southward the fjords become a string of characters. Reyðarfjörður, long and sheltered, holds memories of the Allied presence during World War II in its Wartime Museum. Fáskrúðsfjörður carries a French heartbeat—bilingual street signs and a lovingly restored French hospital tell of the cod fleets that once overwintered here. Stöðvarfjörður houses Petra’s legendary Stone and Mineral Collection, a jewel-box of East Iceland’s geology gathered over a lifetime. In Eskifjörður, paths trace the shore to the Helgustaðanáma nature reserve, where Iceland spar once gleamed from the earth; today the treasure is the view, and the rule is to leave every stone as you found it.

Beyond a modern tunnel, Neskaupstaður sits at the end of Norðfjörður, backed by a cliffside nature reserve where boardwalks wind through birch and along bird-stacked ledges. On calm days, sea kayaks nose into caves and under kittiwake colonies; on rough ones, you feel the rawness that shaped the town’s spirit. Further along the coast, Mjóifjörður lives up to its name—the “narrow fjord”—with a single skinny road that usually opens only in summer, leading to a hamlet that whispers rather than shouts.

Djúpivogur, certified by the Cittaslow movement, moves to an unhurried tempo. Stroll the harbor to Eggin í Gleðivík, a line of smooth, oversized granite eggs honoring local bird species. On summer days a boat heads to Papey, a low green island with a tiny timber church and cliffy puffin rookeries; on shore, cafés serve fish soup that tastes like it was cooked by the tide itself.

The East is also where Iceland’s wildlife feels most at home. In spring and summer, puffins crowd the rock at Hafnarhólmi in Borgarfjörður Eystri, where thoughtfully built platforms let you watch their bobbing parades almost at eye level. Reindeer—found nowhere else wild in Iceland—sometimes graze the heaths and winter lowlands, antlers etched against snow. Scan quiet coves for seals and, on lucky calm days, the dark sigh of a passing whale.

Borgarfjörður Eystri is a hiker’s talisman. Trails known as Víknaslóðir, the Trails of the Inlets, meander between deserted coves, turf ruins, and airy passes where the wind smells of heather and salt. Stórurð, the “Giant Boulders,” is a fairytale basin of turquoise pools and house-sized rocks tucked under the Dyrfjöll mountains—best tackled on a patient, well-prepared day with good boots and layers.

Turn inland from Egilsstaðir and the landscape softens around Lagarfljót, a long, steel-colored lake said to harbor a legendary serpent. On its eastern shore spreads Hallormsstaðaskógur, Iceland’s largest forest, a patchwork of birch and imported species laced with family-friendly trails and autumn color. Nearby, the red-banded cliffs at Hengifoss rise above a canyon of river-polished stone, with Litlanesfoss’s basalt columns standing like organ pipes on the way up. Skriðuklaustur, the former home of writer Gunnar Gunnarsson, pairs literary history with strong coffee and exhibitions, and just beyond it a visitor center opens the door to the Vatnajökull National Park highlands.

In recent years, Stuðlagil Canyon in Jökuldalur has leapt from obscurity into must-see status, its ranks of basalt columns dropping to a river that shifts from glacial gray to jewelled blue as the seasons turn. The beauty is fragile and the terrain deceptive—access points differ on each bank, water levels change with weather and hydro releases, and cliffs are unforgiving. Heed signage, stick to marked paths, and let the canyon keep its mystery by leaving only footprints.

Soaking is a national pastime, and the East has found its own expression of geothermal bliss at Vök Baths, where floating pools steam on a clear lake at the edge of Egilsstaðir. A late dip after a long hike feels especially earned when the sky holds onto gold well past midnight in June, or when ribbons of aurora tie themselves across the black winter hours.

Eating here follows the tides and the seasons. Expect unfussy plates that let pristine ingredients speak: line-caught cod, Arctic char from cold rivers, beetroot and rhubarb brightened by the long summer sun. In harborside cafés, fishermen talk weather over coffee and cakes, and in homey dining rooms the fish soup is a lesson in comfort. It is a pleasure to let hunger find you naturally, somewhere between a viewpoint pull-off and the next headland.

Driving the East teaches a useful humility. Distances on the map can take longer than you think as roads wrap fjords and climb passes; tunnels can shorten the route but the old coastal roads, where open, often hold the best views. Fuel up when you can, watch for sheep on the verges, learn the etiquette of single-lane bridges, and check conditions frequently. Fog slides into fjords on cat feet, rain can be horizontal, and yet ten minutes later the sun returns as if nothing happened.

Come prepared, tread lightly, and the Eastfjords repay you with something that is getting rarer in travel: a sense of being welcomed by a place rather than consuming it. People have time to talk. Landscapes have room to surprise you. Stories—of French fishermen, of a lake serpent, of reindeer on a winter field—pile up like smooth stones in your pocket.

The other side of Iceland is not hidden so much as unhurried. Follow the coastline where mountains meet the Atlantic, and you may discover that what feels like the end of the road is often just the beginning of why you came.