In the Faroe Islands, Nature Rewards Patience
The wind was ferocious as I stepped out from where I’d been sheltering behind the old stone church on Viðoy, the northernmost of the Faroe Islands. I stumbled as if I were on the deck of a ship. The mountains in the distance—part of Borðoy, another island in the chain of six known as the Northern Isles—emerged directly out of the sea, sheer cliffs and crags jutting skyward, the water at their base made white by the wind.
This is a normal day in the Faroes, where the weather is so dramatic that in Saksun, a fairytale village on the island of Streymoy, I experienced rain, wind, fog, and sunshine all at once. The collection of 18 islands between Scotland and Iceland is a self-governing region of Denmark, and the 54,000 people who live there have their own language, parliament, and culture distinct from the Danes. Tourists, drawn to the colossal cliffs and vast fjords, will encounter a people who end a day of hard work in abysmal weather with sauna, slow dinners, or dancing: all of which makes up for the Faroese version of the Danish hygge.
I’d planned to see the Faroe’s jagged mountains and brightly colored pockets of homes by foot on old village footpaths, hiking routes upon which the paths are blanketed by squishy peat. They are only discernible by the foot-high wooden markers driven into the ground between tall stone cairns. These routes served as the only connection between various settlements before the islanders started building tunnels in earnest in the 1960s, both through mountains and under the sea between isles. Now, road trips are a common way to link together these tiny villages.
Life slows down in the Faroe Islands' tiny villages like Tjornuvik (pictured) on the island of Streymoy.
As the Faroes become increasingly popular with international travelers—a trickle of visitors has turned into more of a cascade in recent years, particularly since 2023—there is a greater need for creatively expanding infrastructure, while prioritizing the needs and lifestyle of locals. The Faroese are essentially asking themselves: How can we invite visitors into the home we love, without losing what we love about it?
I hoped to find out. In April, my husband and I flew into the airport on Vágar, the third-largest island, with a plan to drive to the Northern Isles before slowly making our way back through Eysturoy and Streymoy. It was a route that would allow us to also travel through those undersea tunnels, while also being conscious of the number of pricey tolls we’d rack up from using them. We hoped to also tap into the Faroese rhythm of daily life. What would it mean to take cues from the people who know these wild landscapes best?
On our first day, we beelined for the Visit North tourism office in Klaksvík, a small city of brightly colored houses on a spit of land between the open ocean and a sheltered bay of fishing boats. Reni Heimustovu, who staffs the front desk, smiled when we asked about hiking that day. “Last time someone wanted to go hiking in weather like this, we told them, ‘Choose life!’” she laughed knowingly. Outside, the long grass was blown flat on the surrounding mountains.
And so we learned our first lessons of traveling in the Faroes: One must always be adaptable.
We climbed back into the car, and ditched the hike, instead driving along a muddy road toward Klakkur Viewpoint, below which the sea yawned expansively. In scenic, rural parts of the islands, which describes just about everywhere in the Faroes, a source of tension with rising tourist numbers has come from the fact that visitors aren’t always prepared for sheep on the road. There are so many of the animals here, that in 2016, locals used their ovine population to map areas not yet canvassed by Google Maps’ cars; famously, the Faroes have more sheep than people, and their wavy wool provides a living for many locals. New signage on roads like these gently reminds visitors which grazing lands are off limits to hiking and sightseeing: the sheep have the right of way.
Sheep, whose wooly coats provide a living for many locals, outnumber people on the Faroes—and road trippers are reminded that the animals retain the right of way.
From the viewpoint, we admired the conical mountain at the end of Kunoy island. The lowlands in view were just starting to hint at the green that would cover everything around us in a few months, even though the mountaintops were still dusted with powdered-sugar snow. It’s no wonder the Faroese respond to the quickly changing seasons and weather with a duality of their own: At the Klaksvík public pool that afternoon, the smell of sauna cedar drifted over outdoor hot tubs and a cold plunge, where young and old stoically dunked themselves into wooden tubs of frigid water.
Later, on Eysturoy, we were drawn to a floating sauna, set in a tiny black hut on a dock in the fishing harbor, from which we watched the rain dimple the freezing sea outside while overheating in the steam and cedar; outside, an instructor and a group of children rowed into our view via a traditional Faroese rowboat. Though they hadn’t yet mastered the art of synchronization, using oars longer than they were tall, we watched as they bravely faltered out into the fjord in their long, open boat.
It was only when we reached our guesthouse that evening that our host Lilja Víká revealed, over a spread of sour rye bread and curried fish, that by summer these same kids would be skimming smoothly along the water in their brightly colored crafts for races and festivals. This cultural context and knowledge sharing is another way the Faroese hope to approach mindful tourism: Through Heimablídni, or home hospitality, where visitors can pay to join locals for dinner in their homes. The name is rooted in a centuries-old tradition—the act of inviting guests out of the cold, and in for a meal—though it has become easier to access through a central tourism website, and is now offered to international guests on nearly every Faroe island. Local guesthouses, likewise, are a more intimate offering than hotels, and aim to both generate tourism dollars while allowing points of interaction.
As we chatted with Víká about Eurovision and local musicians, the sounds of a metal folk band’s cover of Faroese folk ballads surged out of her tiny phone speakers. She began to perform a dance across her heated flooring. “The Faroese chain dance does something for the body,” she said. “You stomp on the floor when you dance; it helps you get rid of aggression.” As the rain pelted the roof, I wondered if the islands themselves partook in the tradition.
In Tórshavn, the Faroes capital, art galleries, creative residencies, and coffee shops offer plenty to explore—even when the rain pelts down.
Our last stop in Tórshavn, the Faroe’s petite capital city, was marked by yet more wind and water. Our plan was to take a ferry to hike on Nólsoy, another island across the bay. But in Paname Cafe that morning, I overheard a local man say, “I can’t do anything in this shitty weather; I’m just going to sit here and drink tea.” As a traveler, I am driven by the opposite instinct. But looking out the window, it only made sense to do as the Faroese do. Still in our hiking boots, we poked along the waterfront, walked down the narrow cobbled streets of the old town, and chatted with artists at Steinprent Galleries who do work in lithography (that is, printing with stones).
It can be challenging to let the climate dictate your day—to do less when there is more to do. But the Faroes were quick in forcing me to notice the things that I might not have otherwise. In the rain, waterfalls like Fossá swelled over the cliff's edge, turning from a cascading stream to a sheet of driving water. In Fuglafjørður, a village at the end of a fjord, the clouds gathered over the mountains in the far distance, black and spilling over the crags as we stood in pale sunlit grass below. And in the surfing village Tjørnuvík, the distant sea stacks called the Giant and the Witch were illuminated by dozens of sun shafts, spotlights only made remarkable by the clouds. It was breathtaking, even if it wasn’t what we’d planned.
