Lindarbakki
Lindarbakki is a landscape in East Iceland, Iceland — about 675 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
It is one of only a handful of turf houses in Iceland which is still inhabited. Lindarbakki Turf House in Borgarfjörður-Eystri in eastern Iceland.
As a photography stop, Lindarbakki is a landscape in East Iceland, roughly 675 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.
Planning more than one stop? Open the landscape GPS map for Iceland to put Lindarbakki on the same offline layer as everything nearby.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
A small red turf house in Bakkagerði — about 30 m² including the anteroom, its basement dating from 1899 and most of the interior from 1934. It was a summer residence until 2019, when it was donated to the municipality.
- Age
- Basement from 1899; most of the interior from 1934
- Built from
- Turf, rocks, wood and concrete
- Size
- About 30 m² including the anteroom — one room, kitchen, bathroom and a basement holding a well
- Last year-round residents
- Jóhanna Jóhannesdóttir and her son Jóhannes Kristinsson, 1967–1973
- Then
- Bought in 1979 by Elísabet Sveinsdóttir — "Stella at Lindarbakki" — and Skúli Ingvarsson, and used as a summer residence
- Now
- Stella donated it to the municipality in 2019; it is publicly owned and no longer privately inhabited
- Where
- Bakkagerði, in Borgarfjörður eystri
Thirty square metres means the house is smaller than most photographs suggest, and scale is the thing to establish — a frame with nothing familiar in it will read as a larger building. Widely repeated descriptions still call it privately inhabited; the municipality says it has been publicly owned since 2019, which is worth knowing before deciding how close to work.
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (65.525, -13.809). Iceland stays on UTC year-round, so these are local times.
- Summer
- 22.7 h of daylight in June and the sun barely sets, dipping only 1.2° below the horizon — effectively continuous golden light through the small hours.
- Winter
- December: only 3.3 h of daylight (11:11–14:30), but the sun never climbs above 1.2° — the entire day is golden hour. Sunrise bears SSE, sunset SSW.
- Aurora
- Aurora-grade darkness Sep–Mar, peaking at 13 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
Lindarbakki is a landscape in East Iceland, Iceland, approximately 675 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Landscape map.
The recommended season for Lindarbakki 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.
Lindarbakki is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.