Travel Blog

Happy New Year! We hope 2023 has started well for you, and has great adventures in store.

From reindeer to seasonal beer, and greedy trolls to sweet traditional tales, East Iceland has a wealth of Christmas cheer.

“Why didn’t I stay longer?” Or “I wish I had stayed another night.” We hear that often in Austurland.

By mid-October, the days in Iceland are getting shorter and the temperatures are slowly dropping. The sun still makes regular appearances, and there’s a good amount of gluggaveður too (a great Icelandic word that translates as ‘window weather’). Gluggaveður is used to describe weather that looks good through a window from inside, but isn’t so enjoyable when you get outside! That might be a day when the sun shines brightly in a clear blue sky but there’s wind and chilly temperatures – and that happens often in Iceland after the summer’s over!

Whatever the age of your kids, we’ve got places to excite them, inspire their imagination, and bring science lessons to life. And why should kids have all the fun? This is an adult-friendly place too!

East Iceland is home to a handful of breweries that make delicious craft beers from the country’s pure water. Creativity is often on display, with beers that take inspiration from intriguing local ingredients (hello wasabi!), or perhaps are named for unique local features (from mountain peaks to hidden trolls). You can try Austurland’s beers at these 3 fun, friendly breweries in unexpected locations, and look for them being served in local restaurants and bars.

The Austurland Freeride Festival is an annual mountain skiing and snowboarding event headquartered in Eskifjörður and using the Oddskarð ski area as its base. It was created by local enthusiasts: mountain guides and skiing pros who know these mountains well and could see the potential of a winter festival with a difference.

One of Austurland’s highlights is Seyðisfjörður, the pretty fjord town that offers year-round art and creativity with lots of color and flair. Its rainbow-painted main street is a traveler favorite, and the unspoiled nature in its surrounding mountains and valleys is a joy to explore.

Every year, in the lead-up to Christmas, many children around the world become fixated on reindeer. Not in Iceland, however - even though reindeer roam wild here in Austurland. Santa Claus and his reindeer-pulled sleigh play relatively no part in Icelandic Christmas traditions. Instead, children are visited by 13 Yule Lads in the days preceding Christmas.

Thrainn Kolbeinsson is an Icelandic adventure and travel photographer. Recently he went on a vacation with his family in East Iceland. With his wife and two children (8 months and 3 years old) he recently visited some of their favourite locations in the Eastfjords. Here he shares why he thinks the Eastfjords might be the perfect destination for a family trip and shares a few tips for people traveling with children in Iceland.

A blog post by Gunnar Freyr, Icelandic Explorer about his family trip, the Ring of Riverdale.