Places We Wished We Had Visited

For 750 years, Skálholt was the centre of everything in Iceland — religion, education, politics, and power. The first bishopric was established here in 1056, the same year Iceland's first school opened on the same grounds. It was the spiritual and cultural capital of the nation for seven centuries, until a major earthquake in 1784 ended its role and the bishopric moved to Reykjavík. In 1550, the last Catholic bishop in Iceland, Jón Arason, was executed here along with his two sons — an event that marked the violent end of Catholicism in Iceland and the beginning of Lutheranism under Danish rule.

The cathedral standing today is the tenth church on this site, consecrated in 1963. Inside, stunning stained glass windows by Gerður Helgadóttir and a mosaic altarpiece draw the eye immediately. Beneath the church, a crypt holds the sarcophagus of Bishop Páll Jónsson, who died in 1211 — unearthed during excavations in 1954 — alongside ancient tombstones and a 13th-century tunnel that connected the cathedral to the school. Walking through it is said to feel exactly like the medieval passage it once was.

Skálholt sits just off the Golden Circle route, a two-minute detour from Road 35. You pass within reach of it on the way to Geysir and Gullfoss. It requires almost no extra effort — and it is, by every account from Icelanders we spoke to, one of the most significant places in the country.

Sólheimar — "Home of the Sun" — is one of the oldest ecovillages in the world, founded in 1930 by a visionary woman named Sesselja Sigmundsdóttir. She had been shaped by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and by a conviction that people with and without disabilities could and should live and work together. What she built in the southwest of Iceland has been doing exactly that for nearly a century.

Today, around 100 residents call Sólheimar home. The community is powered by geothermal and solar energy, grows organic vegetables in certified greenhouses year-round, runs a forestry programme, and produces eggs entirely on site. Alongside the agricultural work, six creative workshops operate continuously — candle-making, ceramics, woodworking, textiles, paper-making, and herbal products — with everything sold through the community's own shop and café.

Visitors can stay in the guesthouse, eat at the organic café, attend workshops, and walk the grounds. The Sesseljuhús Environmental Centre — a turf-roofed sustainable building constructed to mark the centenary of Sesselja's birth — functions as both an educational space and a community gathering place. It is the kind of place that makes a quiet argument for a different way of doing things, without ever making the argument loudly.

Flúðasveppir is the only mushroom farm in Iceland. That alone would make it interesting. But the scale of what they do makes it remarkable: around 11 tonnes of chestnut, button, and portobello mushrooms produced each week, employing 45 people in a town that was previously known mainly for its geothermal water and proximity to the Secret Lagoon. The farm also grows bell peppers and a range of other vegetables.

The Farmers Bistro that sits alongside the farm uses everything the farm produces — the menu is built around whatever is growing, and the mushroom dishes are the reason people come back. Mushroom soup with house-baked bread. A mushroom ice cream dessert that apparently needs to be tried to be understood. The farm also offers tours, where you can see how Iceland's geothermal conditions are used to create a sustainable growing environment that international industry groups have studied and tried to replicate.

Flúðir sits on Road 30, a few minutes from the Secret Lagoon, well positioned as either a lunch stop during a Golden Circle day or a deliberate detour in its own right.

Twelve man-made caves have been discovered on the land of Ægissíða near Hella on Iceland's south coast. Nobody knows who carved them. That is part of what makes them extraordinary. The site is considered Iceland's oldest standing archaeological remains — and some believe the caves may predate the official Norse settlement of Iceland in 874 AD, which would make them older than recorded Icelandic history.

Inside the caves, ancient crosses are carved into the walls, along with other markings and carved seats. Two theories dominate: that Celtic monks, seeking solitude during pilgrimages from Scotland and Ireland, carved these chambers for prayer and isolation; or that early Norse explorers, possibly exiles or runaway slaves, created them as shelters before the formal settlement. No consensus has been reached. The mystery is still very much open.

The guided tour takes around an hour and is offered daily, led by local Icelandic guides. The caves are right beside Route 1 — the Ring Road — around an hour from Reykjavík and directly on the South Coast route. They only opened to the public in 2019. The experience is described consistently by visitors as one of the most unusual and genuinely surprising stops in the country.

Sheep have been on this island for over 1,100 years. For most of that time, wool was what kept Icelanders alive. Ullarselið — the Wool Centre at Hvanneyri in West Iceland — is a place that takes that history seriously and makes it visible.

The centre combines a wool processing facility, a shop, and an education and workshop space. The processing is done entirely with biodegradable detergents and clean Icelandic water — no chemicals, no shortcuts. The goal is to demonstrate and teach sustainable wool production: washing, shredding, carding, spinning, and everything in between. Visitors can see how raw fleece is turned into the material that becomes the sweaters, blankets, and yarn they find in Reykjavík's shops — and understand exactly what that process involves at each stage.

Workshops are offered for individuals and groups, ranging from basic processing to dyeing and spinning. The shop sells finished wool products alongside materials for making your own. It is also one of the few places in Iceland where smaller producers — even individuals with the fleece from a single sheep — can have their wool processed, which has opened up small-scale production in a way that the larger mills could not accommodate.