Where to See Puffins in Iceland: The Short Answer

If you are looking for a practical where to see puffins in iceland map, five primary photography colonies deliver reliable cliff access: Látrabjarg in the Westfjords (65.5024° N, 24.5312° W), Dyrhólaey on the South Coast (63.4026° N, 19.1278° W), Ingólfshöfði in the Southeast (63.8006° N, 16.6400° W), the Westman Islands on Heimaey (63.4427° N, 20.2734° W), and Borgarfjörður Eystri in the East (65.5261° N, 13.8122° W). Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) arrive in April and depart by late August, with peak activity running from late May to mid-July. The files are waypoints. Your own mapping app — Gaia GPS, OsmAnd, Organic Maps, a Garmin — does the routing. Every paid map downloads as GPX, KML and GeoJSON in one purchase.

Puffin Photography Locations in Iceland: The Five Colonies Worth a Detour

Puffin photography requires balancing approach distance, light direction, and terrain stability. Not all colonies offer identical angles: some position you high above crashing surf looking straight down onto grass ledges, while others place you at eye level with habituated birds. When planning a self-drive route, these five colonies justify dedicated detours based on vantage point and access.

1. Látrabjarg (Westfjords)

Látrabjarg spans 14 kilometres of sheer sea cliffs that rise up to 441 metres above the Atlantic Ocean. Marking the westernmost point of Iceland, it holds one of Europe's largest seabird populations. For wildlife photographers, its value lies in proximity: burrows sit right on the turf rim, often within a metre of the trodden path.

  • Colony coordinates: 65.5024° N, 24.5312° W
  • Road access: Route 612 from Patreksfjörður. The road turns to washboard gravel for the final 40 kilometres, requiring slow driving around coastal inlets.
  • Parking: Marked gravel lot at the Bjargtangar lighthouse base. Coastal lighthouses like this are cataloged in our Lighthouse Map.
  • Walking distance: The first active burrows begin 200 metres from the car park up a moderate grass incline. Further vantage points extend along the path for several kilometres.

2. Dyrhólaey (South Coast)

Dyrhólaey is the closest major colony to Reykjavík, situated roughly 175 kilometres east along the southern ring corridor. The promontory offers elevated views over black volcanic sand plains, sea stacks, and breaking surf. It serves as an accessible stop detailed in our Dyrhólaey location guide.

  • Colony coordinates: 63.4026° N, 19.1278° W
  • Road access: Paved turnoff onto Route 218 from Route 1, located shortly before Vík í Mýrdal.
  • Parking: Upper car park by the lighthouse and lower car park near the beach access. Note that the lower parking area is closed during spring nesting to limit human disturbance. Check the posted gate notices on arrival.
  • Walking distance: From the upper car park, bird-viewing ropes and designated dirt paths begin within 100 metres.

3. Ingólfshöfði Nature Reserve (Southeast)

Ingólfshöfði is an isolated headland surrounded by tidal black sand marshes and ocean breakers. The cliff tops provide a habitat for puffins and skuas away from standard roadside traffic. Reaching the colony is impossible via standard rental car; it requires boarding an open tractor-drawn trailer that negotiates tidal flats under local supervision.

  • Colony coordinates: 63.8006° N, 16.6400° W
  • Road access: Turn off Route 1 onto an unpaved access track to the Ingólfshöfði departure point near Hof.
  • Parking: Marked staging lot at the departure barn.
  • Walking distance: After the 25-minute tractor ride across the sand, visitors hike approximately 2 kilometres in a loop up a 76-metre sand dune to access the seaward cliff edges.

4. Stórhöfði, Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar)

Heimaey, the main inhabited island of Vestmannaeyjar, supports a massive puffin breeding population. The Stórhöfði peninsula at the island's southern tip is known for extreme wind readings and dense cliffside burrows. It features a wooden observation blind that allows photographers to work in severe coastal conditions without buffeting handheld lenses.

  • Colony coordinates: 63.4427° N, 20.2734° W
  • Road access: Take the passenger and vehicle ferry Herjólfur from Landeyjahöfn (roughly a 35-minute crossing in standard seas). From the Heimaey ferry terminal, drive south on Route 622 for 5 kilometres.
  • Parking: Dedicated gravel pullout adjacent to the Stórhöfði weather station.
  • Walking distance: The observation hut and clifftop fencing are 150 metres from the parking area via a gravel track.

5. Borgarfjörður Eystri / Hafnarhólmi (Eastfjords)

Hafnarhólmi, situated at the small harbour of Borgarfjörður Eystri, offers the most controlled and intimate puffin photography location in the east. A marina boardwalk, stepped stairs, and raised timber viewing platforms wind directly through the nesting slope, bringing birds within 2 to 4 metres of visitors at eye level.

  • Colony coordinates: 65.5261° N, 13.8122° W
  • Road access: Route 94 from Egilsstaðir. The road crosses the Vatnsskarð pass before winding down along the coast to the harbour.
  • Parking: Paved and compacted gravel bays at the small boat harbour directly opposite the bird mound.
  • Walking distance: 50 metres from vehicle door to the foot of the viewing platform stairs.

Puffin Colony GPS Coordinates and What to Load Into Your App

When operating in coastal Iceland, having exact puffin colony coordinates loaded into an offline-capable tool prevents disorientation when sea fog rolls in or mobile signal cuts out. It is essential to distinguish between a colony coordinate (the cliff edge where you aim your glass) and a parking coordinate (where you leave your vehicle). Attempting to route your navigation app to a cliff face can lead you onto unmaintained tracks or private farm fields.

Colony Name Region Viewing Waypoint Parking Waypoint Typical Approach
Látrabjarg Westfjords 65.5024° N, 24.5312° W 65.5036° N, 24.5285° W 200–1200 m footpath uphill
Dyrhólaey South Coast 63.4026° N, 19.1278° W 63.4018° N, 19.1261° W 100–300 m marked trail
Ingólfshöfði Southeast 63.8006° N, 16.6400° W 63.8378° N, 16.6483° W Tractor transit + 2 km loop hike
Stórhöfði Westman Islands 63.4014° N, 20.2869° W 63.4022° N, 20.2877° W 150 m trail to viewing hide
Hafnarhólmi Eastfjords 65.5261° N, 13.8122° W 65.5268° N, 13.8135° W 50 m wooden stairs and platforms

The KML, GPX and GeoJSON files live on your device, so the waypoints work with no signal. Downloading offline map tiles is a separate step inside your mapping app. If you need step-by-step instructions on transferring waypoint files into specific applications, we maintain detailed walkthroughs for loading spatial data:

The coordinates are published as an open CC-BY dataset at our open coordinate dataset. What is sold is the curation, the formats and the season and access notes — not secrecy. You can find comprehensive sets covering waterfalls, coastal features, and historic churches across our wider catalog, including the Landscape Map.

When to Go: Season, Light and the Puffin Window

Timing your trip around the puffin lifecycle is critical. Arriving two weeks early or late means seeing empty cliff ledges populated only by northern fulmars and black-legged kittiwakes.

  • April: Rafts of puffins congregate on the ocean surface near their colonies. Birds begin landing on the cliffs in mid-to-late April to clean out burrows, but presence on land is erratic.
  • May: Egg-laying occurs. Adults take turns incubating eggs underground. Colony activity stabilises, with consistent bird numbers on the grass rims during morning and evening.
  • June: Peak photographic activity. Continuous daylight allows for shooting into the night. Adults frequently make flights out to sea to feed.
  • July: Chicks (pufflings) hatch. This is the optimal window for classic frames of adults returning with beak-loads of small fish. Chicks begin appearing near burrow openings late in the month.
  • August: Fledging begins. Adults abandon burrows, and young birds fledge under cover of darkness to escape predatory gulls. By the third week of August, numbers drop sharply; by the final week, colonies are virtually deserted.

At Iceland's latitudes (63° to 66° N), lighting conditions in June and early July do not follow mid-latitude golden hours. In midsummer, the sun grazes the horizon between 23:00 and 03:00, casting soft, warm side-light across ocean-facing cliffs. At Látrabjarg and Dyrhólaey, this low nocturnal sun illuminates western and northern cliffs without the harsh highlights produced at midday.

Midday overcast weather should not deter you. Puffins possess brilliant white breast plumage and deeply saturated orange beaks. Direct summer sunlight creates severe dynamic range issues, frequently clipping white feather detail while leaving dark eye recesses underexposed. Flat cloud cover acts as a natural diffuser, allowing for clean exposure balance without blown highlights.

The files carry season and access notes, not live conditions. Check Veðurstofa Íslands (vedur.is) and Vegagerðin (road.is) for current weather and road status before setting out, particularly when driving gravel mountain passes in the Westfjords or Eastfjords.

Access Notes: Parking, Paths and Field Regulations

Puffins construct burrows in soft coastal turf, excavating tunnels up to a metre deep into the cliff rim. Stepping off established paths can crush these subterranean chambers, trapping or injuring adults and chicks. At sites like Látrabjarg and Dyrhólaey, staying back from the unstable turf overhang is both an ecological mandate and a safety requirement. Turf edges often lack underlying rock and shear away under body weight without warning.

At Dyrhólaey, seasonal access restrictions are regulated by the Environment Agency of Iceland (Umhverfisstofnun) during the early breeding period (typically May to late June). The lower parking and beach access are often gated off between 19:00 and 09:00, or closed entirely, to minimize disturbance. The upper lighthouse parking typically remains accessible, though restricted to delineated trails.

At Hafnarhólmi in Borgarfjörður Eystri, conservation infrastructure is built for proximity. Raised timber walkways keep human weight off the soil while positioning your camera above burrow entrances. Do not lean out over the handrails or attempt to probe burrows with lenses or tripods.

Wind management is an operational reality. Gusts along the cliffs of Stórhöfði and Látrabjarg regularly exceed 20 metres per second. Raised carbon-fibre tripods act as sails in these conditions, transmitting micro-vibrations to long lenses. For low-angle framing, setting up a beanbag directly on the dirt path or dropping your tripod legs to ground level yields sharper files than fighting center-column wobble.

Building the Route: How Puffin Colonies Fit a Self-Drive Plan

Because puffin colonies are distributed around the periphery of the country, planning your driving legs requires realistic timing. If you are developing an itinerary using our 7-day Iceland photography route or the extended 10-day route skeleton, consider how these coastal locations integrate into your travel days.

  • Dyrhólaey: Placed cleanly on the southern Ring Road between Skógafoss and Vík. Visiting adds roughly 45 minutes of driving round-trip from Route 1, making it simple to incorporate on any South Coast run.
  • Ingólfshöfði: Located south of Skaftafell. Because the tractor crossing runs on fixed schedules, it demands a reserved 3- to 4-hour window rather than a drive-by stop.
  • Látrabjarg: Requires dedicated commitment. Driving to the western tip from the Ring Road involves multiple hours on unpaved surfaces through the southern Westfjords. It is best treated as a two-day detour paired with Dynjandi waterfall.
  • Westman Islands: Reached via the ferry terminal at Landeyjahöfn. While doable as a day trip, wind-induced ferry diversions to Þorlákshöfn can occur. An overnight stay allows shooting Stórhöfði during evening and dawn light.
  • Borgarfjörður Eystri: Positioned 70 kilometres northeast of Egilsstaðir via Route 94. The scenic drive takes approximately one hour each way. Many photographers overnight locally to work the harbour platforms at midnight.

On a 7-day loop, hitting two colonies (such as Dyrhólaey and Borgarfjörður Eystri) is realistic. On a 10- to 14-day itinerary, adding the Westman Islands or the Westfjords gives you a wide variety of cliff environments and lighting conditions.

Photographing Puffins: Field Technique That Changes the Frame

Photographing fast-flying seabirds in harsh marine light requires specific camera settings and fieldcraft. Adjust your technique based on the conditions:

  • Focal length selection: For tight portraits at Hafnarhólmi or Látrabjarg, a 300mm to 500mm lens on a full-frame body provides tight head-and-shoulders crops without crowding the subject. For wide environmental portraits showing nesting cliffs against coastal breakers, a 70–200mm zoom at f/8 captures context and habitat.
  • Shutter speed thresholds: Atlantic puffins have a high wingbeat frequency, flapping at rapid rates in coastal winds. To freeze wing tips in flight as they return with small fish, maintain a minimum shutter speed of 1/1600 s, pushing to 1/2500 s or 1/3200 s if light permits. For resting birds on the turf, 1/250 s to 1/500 s ensures sharpness while keeping ISO values low.
  • Autofocus configuration: Puffins feature stark white cheek patches surrounded by dark black crown feathers. Modern multi-point or wide-area tracking autofocus modes can struggle with this contrast edge, locking onto the back of the neck or wing edge rather than the eye. Use single-point AF or small-zone AF placed directly on the bird's eye or bill base.
  • Exposure management: Use your camera's highlight alert (zebras or blinkies). In bright or fluctuating light, underexpose slightly to safeguard delicate feather texture on the white chest. Pulling shadow detail out of dark wing covert feathers in RAW processing is cleaner than recovering blown highlight channels.
  • Fieldcraft: Move slowly, keep your silhouette low, and avoid sudden gestures. Puffins display remarkable tolerance for static photographers sitting quietly along permitted boundaries, often landing within arm's reach. Avoid using artificial flash on seabird colonies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I find puffins on an Iceland map?

The primary puffin colonies mapped in Iceland are Látrabjarg in the Westfjords, Dyrhólaey on the South Coast, Hafnarhólmi at Borgarfjörður Eystri in the East, the Westman Islands (Heimaey), and Ingólfshöfði in the Southeast. Each site offers established parking and walking paths to coastal nesting cliffs.

What is the best month to photograph puffins in Iceland?

June and July provide the best photography conditions. Birds are actively nesting, incubation shifts are regular, and in July adults return to burrows with beaks full of small fish to feed chicks. In June, the midnight sun also gives you extended evening shooting windows.

Do I need a tour to see puffins in Iceland, or can I drive myself?

You can drive yourself to Látrabjarg, Dyrhólaey, Hafnarhólmi, and the Westman Islands (via ferry) using standard roads and well-marked parking lots. Ingólfshöfði is the only major colony requiring a guided crossing, as it is reached via a tractor-drawn trailer across dangerous tidal mudflats.

Which puffin colony is closest to Reykjavík?

Dyrhólaey is the closest major colony to Reykjavík, situated roughly 175 kilometres east along Route 1 (approximately a 2-hour and 15-minute drive). The Westman Islands ferry terminal at Landeyjahöfn is also accessible from the capital in under two hours.

Can I load puffin colony coordinates into Google Maps on an iPhone?

To view custom photography waypoints on an iPhone in Google Maps, map layers must be created in Google My Maps on a desktop browser first and then accessed through the Saved maps section in the mobile app, though third-party offline apps like OsmAnd or Organic Maps handle direct file imports much more cleanly.

Getting the Coordinates Onto Your Phone Before You Fly

When planning a photo trip to Iceland, sorting out access logistics at home saves valuable field hours. Check your mapping workflow prior to departure: import your GPX, KML, or GeoJSON files into your navigation tool of choice, download your regional base maps for offline caching, and verify that parking points appear accurately.

For app-specific setups, consult our guides for Google Maps on iPhone, Organic Maps, OsmAnd, Gaia GPS, Locus Map, Google Earth, or your dedicated Garmin unit.

Iceland Photo Map is a one-time payment, not a subscription, with files purchased per map. The download link serves the current files for a year. Buying does not create an account. The files are emailed and downloadable directly. If the file does not load on your device, email within 30 days and we either get it working or refund you.

If you want the puffin colony coordinates already formatted for your app, the Complete Iceland Photo Map provides all 121 field-checked locations as GPX, KML and GeoJSON in one download. Prefer to test the format first? The free sample at /sample is five real waypoints from the catalog, in the same format as the paid files, as one GPX file. No account, no expiry, nothing to install; leaving an email is optional.