They’re everywhere and probably criteria for choosing our future travel destinations: Waterfalls! Everywhere. Almost!
Where there are mountains in Iceland, you’ll usually find waterfalls. Some of them became pretty famous. Others are totally underrated for whatever reason.
No matter how sparkly the snow was, it certainly had covered some waterfalls. Especially in Snaefellsness.
We already mentioned the Gulfoss at the Golden Circle. Now we want to show you other ‘Must-See’ waterfalls – all located in the south of the island!
Seljalandsfoss
Seljalandsfoss belongs to the most famous waterfalls in Iceland. You can easily reach it from the Ring Road. We passed by in the morning of our trip to Jökulsárlón and just took a photo from distance. As we were too optimistic, we thought we could manage to see it at sunset.
Well, we didn’t. Our time schedule just didn’t work out (it actually never does, if you’re planning too much)! We were just about to forget it, but when we passed by we saw it was illuminated. With a height of 66 meters, it’s the highest waterfall in Iceland’s south.
Just like the next waterfall, Seljalandsfoss is flowing down from glacier Eyjafjallajökull. You pronounce it like this: ‘Eijafjatlajoekytl‘! Now say it loud and then repeat it. It’s a crazy tongue twister.
Why do we mention this glacier? Do you remember the volcano eruption in 2010? The reason, why you couldn’t make any flights? The one that caused state of emergency? It was Eyjafjallajökull and 2010 the probably most cursed glacier on earth. The evil has a name.
Skógafoss
Not far from Seljalandsfoss, you’ll find Skógafoss. This is one of the most photographed waterfalls in Iceland. Probably because it’s also located along the Ring Road. Skógafoss is 60 meters high.
Icelanders love their sagas. Their stories start like ‘The saga says…’, which I personally really love. Skógafoss is part of those sagas:
The saga says that once the first Viking settlers hid a treasure chest in the cave behind the Skógafoss. A few years later, a little Icelandic boy found the chest. The moment, he tried to grab it, he just had the grip in his hand and the treasure chest disappeared. The end of the story (or the saga): Today you can see the grip in a museum near Reykjavik. The End!
Urriðafoss
With a height of only 6 meters, it can’t compete with the other waterfalls. But it’s 40 meters wide and very much water flows down.
Urriðafoss belongs to the underrated waterfalls. While others were well visited, there were just a handful of people at the Urriðafoss.
It’s very loud here. Though there were a lot of ice sheets, it was still flowing rapidly.
Reportedly they plan to build a water power plant down of the Urriðafoss, which means, this waterfall soon won’t exist anymore.
Do you have any other tips for waterfalls in the south of Iceland? Are there some we still don’t know?