Reykjavik in winter: the small city under the northern lights

It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and the sun is going down over the harbour. The fishing boats are coming in with the day’s catch. The cathedral, the Hallgrímskirkja with its volcanic-basalt pillars, glows lavender against a sky that has not been fully bright today and won’t be again until tomorrow at eleven. A small girl on the pavement opposite, in a wool jumper, is licking an ice-cream cone in the cold, and her grandfather is not surprised. This is winter in Reykjavik.

Why I keep coming back

Iceland was, for a long time in my career, the place I went between difficult assignments. I came here first in 2009, in the aftermath of the financial collapse, when the krona had cratered and the country was raw with the consequences. I came back in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2021. The country runs on a particular combination of practicality and weirdness that I have, slowly, come to think of as one of the world’s great national personalities.

The Icelanders are descended from medieval Norwegian and Irish settlers. They have a literary tradition older than most European national literatures (the Sagas). They have one of the highest per-capita book publishing rates on earth. They believe in elves (some of them; ask a roadworks crew that has rerouted a road around a rock). They eat fermented shark.

Reykjavik is the city of this country. It has 130,000 people. It has the architecture of a fishing town done very tidily. It has good coffee, four notable bookshops, two excellent music venues, and a degree of natural-light variability you will not have prepared for.

Where to base yourself

Downtown (101). Almost everything is walkable from a base near the Hallgrímskirkja or down towards the old harbour. Reykjavik is small enough that you don’t need a neighbourhood strategy.

What to actually do

The Blue Lagoon is fine; don’t make it the only hot spring. The Blue Lagoon is genuinely beautiful and has been carefully managed, but it now requires advance booking, is expensive, and is crowded. Sky Lagoon, closer to the city, is the newer alternative with a more atmospheric infinity edge over the sea. The municipal pools — Sundhöll Reykjavíkur, Laugardalslaug — are where Icelanders actually go: a few euros, hot pots at various temperatures, a sauna, a steam room. Bring a swimsuit and a towel.

Hire a small car and drive the Golden Circle in one day. Thingvellir National Park (where the tectonic plates pull apart visibly), the Geysir hot-spring area (the original of the English word, though the famous one is now mostly its quieter neighbour Strokkur), Gullfoss waterfall (an absurd two-tiered cataract). 250 km, six hours of leisurely driving in winter, longer in summer when you’ll want to stop more.

Drive the south coast at least to Vík. Hire the car for two full days and continue past Gullfoss to Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, the black-sand beach at Reynisfjara, the small black church at Vík. The drive itself is the experience: glaciers visible to the north, the Atlantic to the south, the road empty of traffic in winter. Check weather and road conditions on road.is before you go.

Stay up for the aurora. Or, more realistically, sleep until around 11 p.m., wake to check the forecast, and walk five minutes out of central Reykjavik to a dark patch by the sea. The Grótta lighthouse on the western edge of the peninsula is the locals’ viewpoint. The aurora isn’t a guaranteed nightly show — solar activity matters, and clouds matter more — but on clear nights between September and April, it’s there.

Visit one of the bookshops. Mál og menning on Laugavegur is the all-purpose one; Bóksala stúdenta is the university shop and the academic one. Bring a book home. Iceland publishes more books per capita than almost anywhere on earth and many are translated into English.

Where to eat

Icelandic food, for a long time, had a reputation for being severe. It still can be. But the modern Reykjavik food scene is excellent.

Dill — One Michelin star, the modern Icelandic restaurant that proved this could be done. Reservations weeks ahead.

Mat Bar — A small wine bar with a serious kitchen, walk-in friendly, the small plates approach.

Snaps Bistro — French-influenced bistro, reliable for a non-tasting-menu evening, popular with locals.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur — The hot-dog stand by the harbour. A perfectly executed local hot dog (lamb, beef, pork, with crispy fried onions and a brown mustard) for around 600 ISK. Bill Clinton ate one here once and they will still tell you about it.

Brauð & Co. — A sourdough bakery on Frakkastígur with a vivid painted façade and a cardamom roll that is, on its own, a reason to visit Iceland.

When to come

Winter (November–February) for the northern lights and the empty country. Daylight is short — three to five hours — but the snow makes the landscape extraordinary.

Late February to early April is the sweet spot: aurora still possible, longer daylight, the country slowly waking up.

June for the opposite — the midnight sun, 22 hours of daylight, the highland roads opening, the puffins arriving.

Avoid the very deep winter weeks of December and early January if you want to drive — the storms are real and the daylight is shortest.

Practical notes

• Visa: Schengen.
• Money: Icelandic króna. Card universally — Iceland is one of the most cashless countries on earth.
• Driving: The car is essential outside Reykjavik. Roads.is and vedur.is are the live weather and road websites; check them obsessively in winter. Headlights on at all times, by law.
• Cost: Iceland is expensive. A beer is roughly €10–12 in a bar. Groceries are 50% higher than continental European prices. Plan accordingly.
• Tap water: Among the cleanest on earth. Don’t buy bottled water; you’re insulting the country.
• The lagoon entry: Book in advance, even in winter. Walk-up tickets are no longer sold.

A final thought

Iceland teaches a particular kind of attention. The weather changes every fifteen minutes. The light shifts every five. The country is so far from human-built scale — fields of pumice, ridges of frozen lava, glaciers visible from main roads — that you spend your time recalibrating your sense of size.

Reykjavik is the country’s small parenthesis: a city of fishermen and writers and bartenders, with one big church and a thousand small front gardens, where on the right December evening you can be walking back from dinner and the sky, simply, lights up. The aurora is the trip’s headline, but it isn’t the trip’s lesson. The lesson is the patience required for the aurora to appear: hours, sometimes days, of weather and waiting. The Icelanders have been doing this for a thousand years. They are not in a hurry. Neither, when you’re there, are you.