Vík í Mýrdal

For centuries there was no trading place on the south coast between Eyrarbakka and Papós. Fishing boats were rowed out from the beach at Vík, but with no harbour and heavy surf, going to sea here was hard and dangerous. In 1883 the farmers of Suður-Vík and Norður-Vík in Mýrdalur joined together to order goods from Britain and sell them from their homes, and that small venture turned into a proper trading post. A shop opened, sheep were slaughtered there, and in 1903 a two-storey trading house was built, with a second soon after.

A village slowly formed around the trade. By 1905 about 80 people lived in Vík in thirteen households, and schooling had begun around the turn of the century. Brydebúð, now the oldest house in the village, had been built in 1831 in the Westman Islands and was moved to Vík in 1895. A priest was based in the village from 1911 and a doctor from 1915 — though the physician and naturalist Sveinn Pálsson had already lived here from 1809 to 1833. The church on the hill was built between 1932 and 1934.

Vík has lived throughout with the volcano above it. Katla, beneath the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, has at least twenty documented major eruptions and last erupted in 1918, longer ago than its usual quiet spell, which has led to speculation that another may come soon. A large eruption could melt enough ice to send a flood across the village, and residents know they would have to evacuate to the church, thought to be one of the few buildings that would survive. The Netflix series Katla, set in Vík, imagined the volcano's first eruption since 1918.

Vík's identity is bound up with the sea and the mountain. The beach was long the village's workplace, and a monument on the sand remembers the seamen drowned off this stormy coast. The local legend most often told is that of Reynisdrangar: two trolls trying to drag a three-masted ship ashore were caught by daybreak and turned into the needles of rock that stand off the cliffs. Later versions tell of a husband whose wife was taken by the trolls and found frozen, and who made them swear never to kill again.

Living with Katla is part of everyday culture. Residents know they may have only about fifteen minutes to reach the church at the first sign of an eruption, and visitors staying in the village's 1,400 or so rooms are briefed on the danger too. The village has its own sports club, Ungmennafélagið Katla.

As the largest settlement for some 70 kilometres around, Vík serves the farms of Vestur-Skaftafellssýsla as well as passing travellers, and its people are used to their village filling with visitors in summer. Wool is part of local tradition: the Icewear factory, formerly Víkurprjón, makes woollen goods in the village, and its outlet sells yarn, hats, gloves and sweaters.

The village had 639 residents on 1 January 2024, and the wider municipality of Mýrdalshreppur about 880. Despite that small size, Vík is an important staging post and service centre for the coastal strip between Skógar and the western edge of the Mýrdalssandur outwash plain, and for many travellers it is the only place to stock up for a long way east.

Trade and services are the main ways of making a living, serving the farmers of the district and, more and more, tourists, since the Ring Road runs through the village and many of the south coast's most visited sights are close by. Alongside the shops, cafés and guesthouses, the Icewear wool factory and the Smiðjan brewery are local employers. The village has had a doctor since 1915, a school since around 1900 and the only supermarket for a long way around.

Life follows the seasons. Summer brings coaches, campervans and long light evenings; winter brings storms off the Atlantic, heavy rain and short days. The pressure of visitor numbers on Reynisfjara, where sneaker waves have killed several people, is a constant local concern, and in February 2026 the government signalled new legislation on safety at popular tourist sites, including the beach.

Vík's kitchen is the Icelandic one, built on lamb, dairy and fish. Lambs are traditionally slaughtered in the autumn, when they are more than three months old, and trading and slaughtering sheep were among the first business the village ever did. Hangikjöt, smoked lamb, is a common food and is often served in thin slices on flatkaka, a soft brown rye flatbread. Fish in Iceland today means mostly haddock, plaice, halibut, herring and shrimp, and puffin, sometimes lightly smoked, is a traditional festive dish where it is available.

Everyday treats are the national ones: skyr, a soft yoghurt-like cheese eaten with a spoon; rúgbrauð, a dense, dark and moist rye bread; and kleina, small knotted buns of fried dough, with laufabrauð, the thin patterned leaf bread, at Christmas.

The village has a handful of cafés and restaurants for the passing trade. Halldórskaffi on Víkurbraut is one of them, and the Smiðjan brewery makes beer in the village. For self-caterers, the supermarket on Austurvegur is the place to buy food, because there are no other supermarkets nearby — something worth remembering before driving east across Mýrdalssandur.