Iceland and the Faroe Islands

Reykjavík: Where Iceland Begins

Reykjavík is a small capital with big energy. Geothermal water heats its colourful homes and neighbourhood pool. Mount Esja rises across the bay. Fishing boats still work the old harbour, so the North Atlantic is never far away. Wander a few blocks and you’ll find bookshops, record stores, design studios and some of the most inventive kitchens in the North. It’s creative, easy to walk and friendly enough to feel like home within a day.

Then step aboard the Ocean Victory and sail into Faxaflói Bay. Watch the city grow smaller behind you as Iceland starts to show you its long peninsulas, offshore islands and deep, jagged coastline.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula: A Wonderland

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula’s mesmerizing coastline is adored for its ever changing landscape. Referred to as “Iceland in Miniature,” the natural wonders shift from black sand beaches to volcanoes, glacier tongues, hardened lava fields, daunting mountains, otherworldly basalt columns, pounding waterfalls, to dripping caves and gaping craters. This peninsula encapsulates all of these in one incredibly condensed region of 56 miles (90 km). 

Seabirds abound for listers—be on the lookout for kittiwakes, Arctic terns and Iceland gulls. Near shore, sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, purple sandpipers, ringed plovers, red shanks populate the coast. Red-throated loons and horned grebes often delight birders too!

Orcas, minke whales and porpoises are common around Snæfellsnes Peninsula, but larger species of whales keep to deeper waters farther from the coast.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

The Westfjords: Iceland’s Wild Edge

The Westfjords show you why Iceland is best seen from the sea. Ancient volcanic plateaus drop straight into the ocean. Glaciers carved the fjords into deep channels long ago. When we sail in, you can see exactly how people have made a life here for centuries: sheltered harbours, small fishing villages, and the sea routes that linked them.

The beaches glow in gold, red and black, and the cliffs are alive with birds. Three of Iceland’s largest bird cliffs are here, including Látrabjarg, the biggest in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of guillemots pack its ledges each summer. Fulmars glide past at eye level, gannets fold their wings and dive, and puffins crowd the clifftops by the thousand.

Step ashore in these quiet communities and meet people whose families have lived beside this sea for generations.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Grímsey: Stepping Over the Arctic Circle

Most people only see the Arctic Circle as a line on a map. On Grímsey, you can walk right across it. This tiny island sits about 40 kilometres off Iceland’s north coast, and the Circle runs straight through it. It’s surrounded by rich fishing waters and steep cliffs full of seabirds.

Take a walk through the island’s small, friendly community, then head out on foot and cross the Arctic Circle. Keep an eye on the cliffs, where puffins and other seabirds nest in the thousands.

If the weather cooperates, we’ll hop into Zodiacs to see those cliffs from the water, with birds wheeling overhead and the sea all around.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Húsavík: Iceland’s Whale Capital

Húsavík started out as a fishing village on the shores of Skjálfandi Bay. Today it’s one of the best places in Iceland to see whales and learn about them. The cold, nutrient-rich water here brings in humpback and minke whales, along with dolphins, seabirds and plenty of other marine life. Scan the bay, and don’t be surprised when a tail lifts out of the water and slides back under.

Back on land, the town is full of stories about the sea. The Húsavík Whale Museum tells the story of Iceland’s long and complicated relationship with whaling, from hunting to research to conservation. It’s a history that also connects us to the Faroe Islands later in the journey, where people, whales and the ocean have their own story to tell.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

East Iceland: Fjords Beyond The Familar

East Iceland takes its time, and it invites you to do the same. Long fjords wind between layered mountains. River valleys open up to the sea. Small fishing harbours, farms and villages cling to the narrow strips of land between steep slopes and calm water. This is one of Iceland’s quietest regions, and that’s a big part of its charm.

Up in the remote highlands, keep your eyes open for reindeer. Iceland’s only wild herds live here, descendants of animals brought over from Norway in the 1700s.

The scenery is still huge, but the East rewards you for looking closely. Notice the bands of colour in the rock, the wildflowers and mosses along the shore, the waterfalls threading down the mountainsides and the seabirds overhead. Every fjord town has its own personality, shaped by the water it faces.

Slow down here, and Iceland shows you another side of itself.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Western Faroe Islands: Green Peaks in the North Atlantic

The Faroe Islands look like the edge of the world. Dark layers of ancient basalt rise straight out of the North Atlantic. Grassy green slopes climb to towering sea cliffs. Waterfalls spill off high plateaus, and narrow channels slice between the mountains and islands. In breeding season, the cliffs come alive. Puffins, fulmars, guillemots and kittiwakes pack every ledge, and the air fills with wingbeats and calls.

We’ll see the islands two ways. On foot, we’ll hike out to wide, windswept headlands with views that stretch for kilometres.

By Zodiac, we’ll ride right up to the base of the cliffs, where wind and waves have carved the rock into arches, stacks and caves. Out here in the western Faroes, you’ll see how this volcanic ground shapes everything: where the birds nest, where villages sit and how people live, surrounded by all this sea and sky.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Tórshavn: Where the Faroes Come Together

Tórshavn is one of the world’s smallest capitals, and its heart is the harbour. Start at Tinganes, a little point of land lined with red timber buildings and grassy turf roofs. Faroese leaders have been meeting here since the Viking Age, which makes it one of the oldest parliamentary sites on Earth. Then wander the narrow lanes nearby, past black-tarred houses and small gardens tucked out of the wind.

Tórshavn is also where the islands’ creative life happens. Pop into galleries, craft workshops, cafés and restaurants serving some of the most inventive food in the North. Down at the water, fishing boats and ferries come and go all day. Roads, bridges, ferries and undersea tunnels link the capital to villages across the archipelago. One tunnel even has a roundabout under the sea, lit up with art. Eighteen islands, one lively harbour town.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

At Sea: Between Two Island Worlds

As we sail back toward Iceland, take a breath and let it all sink in. You’ve now seen two island chains that were both born from volcanoes, but at very different times. The Faroes are the elders. Their basalt formed around 60 million years ago and has since been worn down into steep green mountains and narrow channels. Iceland is the youngster, and it’s still being built. Eruptions, glaciers and shifting tectonic plates are reshaping it right now.

On board, our experts share talks and easy conversation about the geology, wildlife and cultures of both places.

Out on deck, fulmars and gannets ride the wind alongside the ship. Keep watch for a whale breaking the surface. And that North Atlantic light, always changing, will keep pulling your eyes back to the horizon.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Heimaey: Where Fire Meets The Sea

Heimaey is the only inhabited island in Iceland’s Westman Islands, and it has quite a story. In 1973, Eldfell erupted without warning, forcing nearly the entire population to evacuate as lava and ash buried parts of the town. When molten rock threatened to close the harbour, islanders pumped seawater onto the advancing flows, helping preserve the sheltered waters at the heart of community life.

Today, brightly painted homes and a busy fishing harbour stand beneath the still-young volcanic cone. Lava fields reach towards the town, while Atlantic puffins return in vast numbers to breed along the surrounding cliffs. Heimaey reveals an island continually shaped by powerful natural forces and by the ingenuity of those who call it home. 

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Back to Reykjavík: Full Circle

We sail back into Reykjavík, and the circle is complete. You’ve seen volcanoes, glaciers and the sea shaping Iceland at every turn. Now the capital looks a little different. The geothermal pools, the creative streets and the busy waterfront are part of a much bigger story you carry with you: of fjords and islands, whales and puffins, and small towns that live by the sea.

After we disembark, stay a while if you can. Visit a museum or gallery, find a good lunch, browse the shops on Laugavegur, or join the locals for a soak in a neighbourhood hot pot. Iceland has a way of showing you something new every time you look. You’ll leave knowing it better, and wanting to come back.

Included Meals

Breakfast