• HOME
  • DESTINATIONS
    • DESTINATIONS A‑Z
    • EUROPE
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • DENMARK
      • FINLAND
      • GERMANY
      • GREECE
      • ICELAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • NORWAY
      • RUSSIA
      • THE NETHERLANDS
      • SWEDEN
      • UNITED KINGDOM
    • NORTH AMERICA
      • CANADA
      • USA
  • FILM REVIEWS
    • FILM REVIEWS A‑Z
    • ENGLISH FILMS
    • GERMAN FILMS
    • TV / DVD SERIES
    • BEST OF FILM LISTS
  • FILM PEOPLE
  • ABOUT
    • WORK WITH ME
filmfantravel.com
  • HOME
  • DESTINATIONS
    • DESTINATIONS A‑Z
    • EUROPE
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • DENMARK
      • FINLAND
      • GERMANY
      • GREECE
      • ICELAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • NORWAY
      • RUSSIA
      • THE NETHERLANDS
      • SWEDEN
      • UNITED KINGDOM
    • NORTH AMERICA
      • CANADA
      • USA
  • FILM REVIEWS
    • FILM REVIEWS A‑Z
    • ENGLISH FILMS
    • GERMAN FILMS
    • TV / DVD SERIES
    • BEST OF FILM LISTS
  • FILM PEOPLE
  • ABOUT
    • WORK WITH ME
Share
You are reading
Iceland Sightseeing Tip: Puffin Watching Tour from Reykjavik
Home
REYKJAVIK

Iceland Sightseeing Tip: Puffin Watching Tour from Reykjavik

June 28th, 2017 Sonja DESTINATIONS, EUROPE, ICELAND, REYKJAVIK
Iceland Sightseeing Tip: Puffin Watching Tour from Reykjavik
(Last Updated On: 14th April 2020)

In the birdwatching comedy The Big Year (2011), Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin go on an epic (and very funny) journey to watch birds in the northern United States and Alaska. If you are travelling to Iceland, birdwatching is all about the puffin – the most common bird in Iceland! To see them, all it takes is a one-hour boat ride from the capital Reykjavik… 

What is it all about?

You've probably seen them a dozen times on the cover of Iceland travel guides, postcards or other souvenirs from Iceland: The cute little seabirds with a parrot-like beak and a beautiful black and white "feather dress". That is the "Atlantic Puffin" – the national bird of Iceland.

During the summertime, the puffins breed on small islands just off Iceland's coasts. Thus, the summer season is the best time to see them.

And you don't have to go far! Specialist tour operators, such as the family-run Happy Tours Iceland, take you to the puffin-populated islands from the harbour of Iceland's capital Reykjavík in just 15 minutes!

On the puffin watching tour in Iceland

How do I get there and what's the schedule?

During the summer season (1 May to 23 August), Happy Tours offers three departures daily at 3, 5 and 7 pm.

All Happy Tours start just a short walk from Reykjavík's main harbour front right next to the “VIKIN Maritime museum”. They also offer convenient hotel pick ups, which you can book together with you ticket.

The tour will last just 1 hour. In my opinion, it's a great activity for the early evening hours, which in the summertime are still super-bright in Iceland!

Me on the puffin watching tour in Iceland

What's there to see?

Well, as you might have guessed, you are going to see puffins! This is guaranteed. How close up you will see them kind of depends a bit. The small fishing boat can obviously not get too close to the bids as we don't want to disturb them too much in their natural habitat.

If you have a camera with a long-focus lens, you can "zoom in". But Happy Tours also provides very good binoculars, which you can use to observe the puffins up and close. Rain coats are provided, too. You might need these. On a small fishing boat, water can splash into the boat at any time.

Looking for puffins on the puffin watching tour in Iceland

Our tour guides on this day were Kristey (who told us many fun facts about the birds) and her father Snorri (the Happy Captain who navigated the boat).

As we sailed away from Reykjavík's old harbour, I took some pictures of Reykjavík's "skyline", which on this sunny day looked gorgeous against the blue sky.

Skyline on the puffin watching tour in Iceland


As we approached the first puffin island, Snorri turned off the motor and we started our bird watching mission with our binoculars and cameras. In addition to puffins, there is a wealth of other seabirds that you can observe here. Kristey told us all about them.

The puffins I saw at first were pretty far away. Luckily though, when we approached another puffin island, we saw several puffins sitting on the water and there was one in particular, which was very close to our boat.

I used the chance and zoomed in with my camera. The result was my snap of the day: my very own puffin souvenir pic!

Me on the puffin watching tour in Iceland

More Happy Tours

During the summer season, Happy Tours also offers Gourmet Sea Angling and Whale Watching Tours.

During the winter season, you can hunt down the famous Northern Lights on the Northern Lights Tour.

For more info, check out the overview on the Happy Tours website!

Happy Birdwatching! 😉

Me on the puffin watching tour in Iceland

All photos by © Sonja Irani | filmfantravel.com

Disclosure: I received a complimentary ticket for the Puffin Watching Tour by Happy Tours via Tour Desk. The views expressed in this blog post, however, are entirely my own and thus reflect my personal, unbiased experience. If you book a tour through my dedicated Iceland tour booking website on TourDesk, I will receive a small affiliate fee, which I use towards running my website.

Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Sonja

Sonja

I am an ex London expat now living back in Germany. Having worked part-time in a cinema since my school days, the cinema (or in 2020 rather Netflix & co) is my second home. If you don't find me there, I am probably travelling the world in order to trace my favourite film locations and film settings. On filmfantravel.com, I combine these two passions by sharing my best tips about film-inspired travel. Join the journey on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @filmfantravel!

You may also like...
Film Fan Travel Guide to Iceland
Sonja
DESTINATIONS

Film Fan Travel Guide to Iceland

July 2nd, 2017
Iceland Sightseeing Tip: The Volcano House in Reykjavik
Sonja
DESTINATIONS

Iceland Sightseeing Tip: The Volcano House in Reykjavik

June 29th, 2017
Touring the Film Locations of Iceland's South Coast and the Glacier Lagoon Jökulsárlón
Sonja
DESTINATIONS

Touring the Film Locations of Iceland's South Coast and the Glacier Lagoon Jökulsárlón

June 29th, 2017
Join the journey!
Facebooktwitterlinkedininstagram
About Me

Hi! I'm Sonja from Bremen, Germany. I'm a full-time English to German Marketing Translator, Linguistic Reviewer and Tour Guide on a part-time mission to discover the world through movies and series.

Read more about in ABOUT.

Current Location: Bremen, Germany
Newsletter

Become a film fan on Facebook!
Facebook
Join the journey on Instagram!

filmfantravel

#MarketingTranslator #Author #TourGuide
👩🏻‍💻 MA in Tourism Destination Development 
📍Bremen, Germany 
🎬 🌎 Blogging about #filminspiredtravel at:

Sonja | Film & Travel Writer


I recently started watching ski jumping competitio
I recently started watching ski jumping competitions on TV again. This inspired me to rewatch the film “Eddie the Eagle“ (2015), which is currently on Netflix.

The film is based on the real-life story of British ski jumper Eddie Edwards. Eddie managed to take part in the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada in 1988 even though he only started training for his ski jumps at the mature age of 22. 😂🙈

The scenes for “Eddie the Eagle“ were mainly filmed at the real-life ski jumping hills in Garmisch-Patenkirchen and Oberstdorf in Bavaria, southern Germany.

I personally have not yet been to these ski jumping hills, but I have been to the ski jumping hill „Holmenkollen“ in Oslo, Norway, which is equally stunning.

Have you ever been to a ski jumping hill?

Photo 1: Scene from
“Eddie the Eagle“ (2015). Larry Horricks - © TM & 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
Photo 2: © Sonja Irani - FilmFanTravel.com

#eddietheeagle #netflix #filminspiredtravel #filmlocations #movielocations #skijumping #holmenkollen #oslo #norway #visitoslo #dreamchasersnorway #lovescandinavia #visitnorway #bestofscandinavia #dreamynorway #norwaytravel #norwaytrip #onlyinnorway

Christmas is almost over and although many things 
Christmas is almost over and although many things have been different this year, some things never change... Such as our favourite Christmas movies that we can watch over and over again... and that make us dream about future travel destinations! 😉 💭 

One of my favourite Christmas series to look forward to this year was the second season of the Norwegian romcom series “Home for Christmas” (OT: Hjem til jul) with @idaelisebroch_official and @felixsandman! The series was released on Netflix on 18 December 2020. 

When I was working as a tour guide in Norway this summer, I was lucky enough to pass by Røros - the UNESCO world heritage town that served as the setting and main film location for the series! 

Read more about the series and its film location Røros on my blog FilmFanTravel.com(link in my bio above)! 

Which Christmas movie has inspired your upcoming travels? 

Photo 1: Scene from “Home for Christmas” (2019-) filmed in Røros, Norway. © Netflix. Photo 2: Me at the same street in Røros, Norway in August 2020. © Sonja Irani / FilmFanTravel.com

#destinationroros #destinasjonrøros  #netflix #netflixshows #norway #roros #homeforchristmasnetflix #hjemtiljul #dreamchasersnorway #traveleurope #filminspiredtravel #filmlocation #filmlocations #movielocations #lovescandinavia #norway #visitnorway #bestofscandinavia #dreamynorway #norwaytravel #norwaytrip #onlyinnorway #rorørosregionen #godjul @visitnorway

Just like American Marketing Manager Emily in the 
Just like American Marketing Manager Emily in the new Netflix series “Emily in Paris”, I followed almost every fashion trend back in 2007. 😂🤷🏻‍♀️Here I am in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a massive “link chain necklace”. Hey, it was fashionable at the time, okay? InStyle magazine said so! 😂🙈

Writing my newest film review about the American girl who makes the big move to Paris (link currently in bio), I realised that it has been exactly 10 years since my last visit to the city of love in 2010. So I really would like to go back in 2021.

Who else was inspired to put Paris on their post-pandemic travel list by watching “Emily in Paris”?

Photo 1: Scene from “Emily in Paris” (2020-). © Netflix. Photo 2: © Sonja Irani / FilmFanTravel.com

#emilyinparis #netflix #netflixshows #paris #france #citytrip #traveleurope #filminspiredtravel #filmlocation #filmlocations #movielocations #lilycollins #thisisparis #visitparis #ig_paris #parisianlife #hello_france #parisjetaime #parislife #exploreparis

Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland in full autumn b
Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland in full autumn bloom back in October 2016.

The castle’s unique attraction is to kiss the famous Blarney stone on top of the castle. What’s more... you apparently get the gift of eloquence afterwards. The catch: You have to lean over backwards - head first - to reach it! Apart from that, kissing a stone that millions others have kissed before is not exactly in line with the current Covid hygiene rules... 😂

As far as I know Blarney Castle itself has not yet been used as a filming location, but the website states that it’s open for bookings for TV and movie crews. Maybe something to look forward to in the year 1 or 2 AC (After Corona). 😂🙈 Let’s hope so because with Ireland being the main film location of major TV and movie productions such as “Game of Thrones”, “Star Wars” and “Vikings”, there is much to discover for film fans! 🤗
-
#blarneycastleandgardens #autumn #autumnleaves #filminspiredtravel #ireland #loveireland #irelandtravel #discoverireland #map_of_europe #visitireland #instaireland #irland #irish_daily #daily_ireland #images_ireland  #castle #castlesineurope #castlesinfall #colorsinfall #castlesofireland #autumncolours


Load More…


Follow on Instagram


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • IMPRINT
  • PRIVACY POLICY
© Sonja Irani 2021. All rights reserved.