The Westfjords: Where the Ring Road Never Goes

Most visitors to Iceland drive a loop that never touches the Westfjords at all. The ring road cuts straight past the peninsula’s base, and the coach tours follow it. That absence is the whole case for going: fewer people, longer gravel stretches, and fjord roads that switchback down to sea level and back up again with no guardrail commentary because there is no one there to give it.

Dynjandi, and the drive to it

Dynjandi is the reason to make the detour concrete rather than aspirational. It’s a tiered waterfall — wide at the top, widening further as it falls, so it looks less like a single drop and more like a staircase built for something much larger than a person. What makes it worth the hours in the car is that you walk up alongside it: a marked path climbs beside the falls, and you can stand close enough to the upper tier to feel the spray change direction with the wind. Bring a windproof layer regardless of the forecast. There’s no ticket, no café, no queue — just a car park, a path, and the falls doing what they do without an audience.

Getting there means committing to Route 60 and its gravel sections, which are slower than the map suggests. Give yourself the whole day for what looks like a half-day trip.

Ísafjörður as a base

Ísafjörður is the Westfjords’ one proper town, tucked into a hooked spit of land with mountains close on both sides. It has a working harbour, a small grid of streets you can walk in twenty minutes, and enough guesthouses and one good bakery to make it a sensible base for two or three nights rather than a one-night stop. From here, day trips to Dynjandi, the bird cliffs at Látrabjarg, or simply further fjord roads are all manageable without repacking the car.

The honest caveat

This is not a trip for anyone nervous about logistics. Roads in the Westfjords close without warning — a landslide risk, an unexpected snowfall in a month that has no business producing one — and mobile signal drops out between fjords for stretches long enough to matter if something goes wrong. Petrol stations are infrequent and not all take every card. None of this is a reason to skip the region; it’s a reason to check road.is before you leave each morning and to build slack into your itinerary rather than fixed bookings.

This is for travellers who’ve already done the south coast once and want Iceland without the tour buses — not for a first visit, and not for anyone who needs certainty about what tomorrow’s roads will look like.