Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour

The tours to Ingólfshöfði have been conducted by the family in Hofsnes since 1990 when the farmer Sigurður Bjarnason had given up traditional sheep farming and had time to try new ways to make a living on his farm. 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.
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. 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.

While we have spotted puffins in almost all departures in the period mid May until mid August now for many years we of course never know how close and how many puffins we spot. 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. In start and end of season the evening often provides the best chance to see them upstairs. The best time to visit puffin colony in hope of seeing lot of puffins in one trip is after mid 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 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.

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, 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. If you have booked the tour and we find out you are trying to bring a younger child than six year old it is most likely that one of you will have to stay behind with the child, but there will be no refund for your ticket.