Whale watching tours in Reykjavik

Reykjavik whale watching: the easiest half-day from Iceland's capital

Reykjavik whale watching starts a five-minute walk from your hotel: boats leave the Old Harbour in the middle of the city and reach the feeding grounds of Faxafloi Bay, Iceland's largest bay, in under an hour. There is no overnight drive or early transfer to sort out first. In peak season around 96% of tours here find a whale, and the animal doing most of the work is the minke, a compact whale whose small curved dorsal fin has a habit of rolling past the bow just a few boat-lengths out.

We walk through when to go, the species you are likely to meet in Faxafloi, where in the city the boats leave from, what a typical Reykjavik tour costs and feels like across the widest range of formats any Icelandic port offers, and how to pick between them. All prices are from the eleven tours we compare here, most bookable through Headout with free cancellation, so a date can be held now and changed later without losing anything. Short on time in Iceland? This port suits you best.

Best time for whale watching in Reykjavik

June, July and August are peak season, when Faxafloi Bay is busiest and operators report sighting rates around 96%. This is also puffin season on the islands just offshore, so it is the only stretch of the year when a combined whale-and-puffin outing makes sense, and the only window when the late-evening midnight-sun departure runs at all, since it depends on nights that barely darken.

April, May, September and October are the shoulder months, and a solid choice. Minke whales are present in the bay from April, humpback activity builds through late spring and holds into fall, and both tours and hotel rooms are easier to book than in July. For how Reykjavik's calendar compares with other Icelandic ports and destinations elsewhere, see our guide to the best time to go whale watching.

November through March is the off season for the standard day tour, but Reykjavik is the one Icelandic port with a winter option: a five-hour whale watching and northern lights cruise combo trades the summer's near-certain sighting for a shot at both a whale and the aurora on the same outing, something Husavik and Akureyri do not offer in the dark months.

What whales you'll see in Reykjavik

Faxafloi does not have the species variety of the north coast, but four cetaceans account for nearly every sighting, and the minke whale carries most of the season. Beyond the four below, Iceland's orcas turn up elsewhere around the coast; off Reykjavik they stay an occasional surprise.

Minke whale

The backbone of a Reykjavik trip and present in the bay from April onward. It is the smallest of the great whales, usually around 25 to 30 feet in Icelandic waters, and travels alone or in loose small groups rather than pods. On a still morning it can surface close enough to a drifting boat that the guide barely needs to point, a low dark back and a small hooked fin breaking the surface two or three times before it dives again.

Humpback whale

A regular visitor to Faxafloi rather than the guaranteed sighting it is further north, and the whale most likely to put on a visible show when it does appear: a breach, a tail slap, a fluke lifted clear of the water before a deep dive. Numbers in the bay build as the water warms through late spring and stay active into fall. A humpback session close to the boat tends to be the moment people talk about on the walk back into town.

White-beaked dolphin

Quick, social and often the reason cameras come out fastest. Pods can range from a handful of animals to several dozen, and they will sometimes peel off to ride the wake for a few minutes before splitting off just as fast. They are strong, active swimmers that porpoise clear of the water when moving at speed, which makes them easy to spot even at a distance.

Blue whale

The largest animal alive, and rare this far south and west. Blue whales concentrate in the deeper, colder water off Iceland's north coast far more than in Faxafloi, so a sighting here is closer to a lottery win than a plan. If one does turn up, the tell is the blow: a column of spray well above anything a minke or humpback produces, visible minutes before the animal itself surfaces.

Where Reykjavik whale watching tours leave from

Every Reykjavik whale watching tour leaves from the Old Harbour, the working waterfront a short walk from downtown hotels, restaurants and the Harpa concert hall. From the harbor mouth it is a run of well under an hour into Faxafloi, a bay roughly 50 kilometers deep and 90 kilometers wide stretching between the Reykjanes and Snaefellsnes peninsulas, big enough that the city's boats rarely cross paths with each other. Most operators ask passengers to check in at the dock about 30 minutes before departure.

• Departure: Old Harbour
• Grounds: Faxafloi Bay
• Transit: under 1 hr

Because the harbor sits inside the capital, Reykjavik also has something no other Icelandic port can offer at the same scale: three small islands, Akurey, Lundey and Engey, close enough offshore that a whale tour and a puffin colony visit fit into one outing. If your Iceland trip centers on the north coast instead, our guide to whale watching in Husavik covers Skjalfandi Bay, where humpbacks take over as the main event in high summer. For the full country picture across all three departure hubs, see our overview of whale watching in Iceland.

No other Icelandic harbor gets you from hotel breakfast to open water in under an hour.

What a Reykjavik whale watching tour is like

Reykjavik has more choice than any other Icelandic port. Eleven different tours leave from one harbor, running from a one-hour puffin cruise up to a five-hour whale-and-aurora combo. The core decision on any of them is the same: a big, stable ship with an indoor cabin and an open deck, or a small, fast RIB that trades comfort for speed and proximity.

As a rough guide, the core Reykjavik tours sit between about $111 and $140, with the puffin-only cruise the cheapest thing on the water at $68 and the RIB and combo trips topping out near $200 to $207. The whale watching and northern lights cruise, at about $207 for five hours, is what makes a Reykjavik trip work outside peak season. Ratings across the harbor's better-reviewed tours run from about 4.2 to 4.6.

How to choose the right Reykjavik whale watching tour

With eleven tours out of one harbor, the job is matching the format to your day.

• Match the format to the season first.The midnight-sun departure only runs in summer, and the northern lights combo only runs in the darker months. Pick the extra you want before you pick a date.
• Book peak dates early.June through August fills fastest, especially the smaller-capacity RIB and combo departures. Free cancellation on most listings means booking early costs nothing.
• Ship or RIB depends on who is coming.A classic ship suits families, photographers and anyone unsure about their stomach. A RIB suits a shorter, more intense trip for two able-bodied adults who do not mind getting wet.
• Stack the puffin islands if your time in the city is tight.A combo tour covers both animals in one outing. With a full day free, separate tours give each more of the guide's attention.
• Weigh ratings against price.Several tours here carry 4.2 to 4.6 ratings across dozens to well over a hundred reviews, more telling than a $10 gap between two similar listings.

Tips for whale watching in Reykjavik