Raudanes Point
Raudanes Point is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland — about 594 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
Rauðanes means Point Red and it is one of the pearls in Icelandic nature.
As a photography stop, Raudanes Point is a landscape in North Iceland, roughly 594 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.
Raudanes Point is one waypoint of many — you can load all 62 landscape viewpoints before you leave signal.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
A cape in Þistilfjörður midway between Raufarhöfn and Þórshöfn, walked as a 7 km anticlockwise circle of about 2.5 hours, graded easy and marked 1 to 16. Sea stacks, arches and caves along it, with puffins nesting in the stacks.
- Where
- Þistilfjörður, midway between Raufarhöfn and Þórshöfn
- The walk
- A 7 km anticlockwise circle, about 2.5 hours, easy, with the trail marked 1 to 16
- Gluggur
- The Peekhole — a huge hole where surf carved a cave, its roof since collapsed, leaving a stone bridge across the rims
- Gatastakkur
- A lava formation on the same circuit
- Birds
- Myriads of puffins nest in the sea stacks; the birdlife on the cape is rich
- Take water
- There is no fresh water on the cape
A numbered 1-to-16 trail is unusual here and genuinely useful: the formations are findable rather than stumbled upon, so a 2.5-hour circuit can be planned against the light instead of walked hopefully. Gluggur is a collapsed sea cave rather than a standing arch, which means the bridge across it is the subject and it will not last indefinitely — the same slow change that removed Ófærufoss’s arch.
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (66.253, -15.713). 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 2.7 h of daylight (11:37–14:19), but the sun never climbs above 0.5° — 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
Raudanes Point is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland, approximately 594 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Landscape map.
The recommended season for Raudanes Point 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.
Raudanes Point is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.