Djupavik
Djupavik is a landscape in Westfjords & Remote, Iceland — about 300 km from Reykjavik and reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Shoot it during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography, then use the GPS coordinates, parking notes, and nearby waypoints below to fold this stop into a longer photography route.
Overview
Djúpavík's old herring factory, Djúpavík, Iceland.
As a photography stop, Djupavik is a landscape in Westfjords & Remote, roughly 300 km from Reykjavik, reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Plan the shoot during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography. The downloadable Landscape map pins exact GPS coordinates, parking, and nearby waypoints so you can fold it into a wider route instead of hunting for the pull-off on arrival.
Djupavik sits inside all 62 landscape viewpoints, alongside the other spots worth routing a day around.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
An abandoned herring factory at the head of Reykjarfjörður on the Strandir coast, worked from 1935 to 1954. It was the largest concrete building in Iceland at the time — 90 m long — and the first fully automated fish factory in Europe. Two people live here year-round.
- The factory
- Operated 1935–1954; 90 m long, the largest concrete building in Iceland at the time
- What it was
- The first fully automated fish factory in Europe, with conveyor belts and purpose-built machinery
- The ship
- The former freight and passenger ship Suðurland lies alongside; it housed male workers during the factory’s operation and remains as a wreck
- Population
- About 260 in the working years, mostly seasonal. By 1985 the present owners were the only residents; as of 2010, two year-round and three summer
- The hotel
- The former women’s dormitory, keeping its original floorboards and staircase
- Where
- Head of Reykjarfjörður, Strandir; about 70 km from Hólmavík, 280 km from Ísafjörður
This is an industrial subject in a landscape catalog, and it rewards being treated that way — concrete, rust and a beached ship, with scale that only reads when something human is in the frame. A settlement of two people 70 km from the nearest town also means no services and no reason for anyone else to be in the picture, which is the opposite problem from the south coast.
SourcesDjúpavík — Wikipedia
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (65.938, -21.585). Iceland stays on UTC year-round, so these are local times.
- Summer
- Midnight sun in June — the sun does not set, so golden light runs for hours either side of midnight.
- Winter
- December: only 3 h of daylight (11:52–14:51), but the sun never climbs above 0.8° — the entire day is golden hour. Sunrise bears SSE, sunset SSW.
- Aurora
- Aurora-grade darkness Sep–Mar, peaking at 13.1 h a night in December. Not possible Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug — the sky never gets dark enough.
Bar height is daylight hours. Months marked • have enough astronomical darkness for aurora; the rest do not.
Questions & answers
Djupavik is a landscape in Westfjords & Remote, Iceland, approximately 300 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Landscape map.
The recommended season for Djupavik is Summer. For light, plan around blue hour and the first hour after sunrise; Iceland's long shoulder-season twilight extends usable conditions on either side.
Drive/Hike access. Bring weather-appropriate footwear and check conditions before setting out. The downloadable GPS map puts the waypoint on your phone; your own app routes you to it from wherever you are.
Djupavik is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.