Vík í Mýrdal, the village

6 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Visit South Iceland calls Vík í Mýrdal the southernmost village in Iceland and the only seaside village in the country without a harbour. It has long been an important trading post for the farmers of the south coast. Statistics Iceland counted 740 residents in the village on 1 January 2026, and about 1,030 in the municipality of Mýrdalshreppur in mid-2026. Vík is the place on this stretch of the Ring Road where you find supermarkets, restaurants, public toilets and petrol stations.

Above the village rises Reynisfjall, a 340 m tuff mountain, and below its south-facing cliff stand the Reynisdrangar sea stacks, 66 m high. Vík also lies at the centre of Katla Geopark, named after the volcano under the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap to the north.

The church on the hill

Víkurkirkja, with white walls and a red roof, stands on a hill overlooking the village and the sea; the village audio guide gives 1934 as the year it was built. The Icelandic Met Office lists Katla as the fourth most active volcanic system in the country, with at least 21 eruptions in the last 1100 years; the last one to break through the ice was in 1918.

The Katla centre in the village has a free exhibition about the volcano and the geopark, a good first stop before an ice cave or glacier tour. Our ice cave tours page covers the trips onto Mýrdalsjökull.

Reynisfjall and the sea stacks

Visit South Iceland calls a walk up Reynisfjall a local favourite, for the view over the Atlantic and the bird cliffs. A guided version starts behind the information centre and climbs to the south-facing cliff with the Reynisdrangar and the black beach directly below, about 40 minutes up. In summer puffins nest along the cliffs. The same mountain is the usual take-off point for tandem paragliders, who meet at a white house by the shore near the Skaftfellingur Museum.

Reynisfjara, at the foot of the same mountain, has basalt columns and a warning system for the waves; read our Reynisfjara page before you go. The beach in front of the village is called Víkurfjara.

The Lava Show and other things in the village

The Lava Show at Víkurbraut 5 heats real lava to about 1,100 °C and pours it into the room a few metres from the audience. The show lasts about 50 minutes, runs in summer and winter, is open to all ages and is held only in English. Arrive 15 minutes before the start. Reviews say a large part of the time is talk and film, with the lava itself flowing for a few minutes, and some parents found it long for small children. On a stormy afternoon it is the obvious indoor choice.

A stable at Smiðjuvegur 6, reached through the Orkan petrol station, takes riders from 10 years along Víkurfjara for an hour, mostly at walking pace. Katlatrack runs ziplines in Grafargil canyon, five minutes by Super Jeep from its base in Vík, for children from 8. More on both is on our pages on horse riding and kayaking, paragliding and zipline.

Weather and light

Vík is one of the wettest places on the Icelandic coast. The Met Office station in the village recorded about 2,400 mm of rain a year on average in the 1990s, and monthly mean temperatures ran from about 1 to 2 °C in winter to 11 °C in July and August. No month averaged below freezing. A branch of the Gulf Stream along the south coast keeps the winters mild, according to the Met Office, and brings more rain than in the north.

On 21 December the sun rises at 10:59 and sets at 15:29. On 21 June it is up from 03:00 to 23:35 and the nights stay bright. There is no midnight sun and no polar night here, since Vík lies well south of the Arctic Circle.

Getting here and moving on

Most visitors arrive by car on the Ring Road. Reykjavík is roughly 180 to 190 km away, about two and a half hours without stops. Driving west, the car park for the DC-3 plane wreck on Sólheimasandur is 27 km from Vík, with Sólheimajökull and Skógar a few kilometres beyond. Wind and snow change driving conditions quickly, so check umferdin.is or call 1777 before setting off. Details are on our getting to Vík page.