Viðey Island: Ferry Prices, Schedules And What's Actually Free

Viðey island sits in the bay a short ferry ride from the city, and it plays a useful trick on the Reykjavik budget: the island itself costs nothing, and only the crossing does. That split makes it one of the few outings here where you can predict your spending to the krona before you leave. This guide sets out the verified ferry prices, the seasonal schedule, and what a free day on the island actually looks like, plus how it fits alongside the free walking tours that cover the mainland side.

Is Viðey Island Free To Visit?

Yes, in the specific sense that matters: the island charges no admission, no entrance fee and no ticket of any kind, so every path, shoreline and view on Viðey is free once you have landed. The catch is the crossing. The Elding ferry is a paid service, at 2,500 ISK for an adult, 1,250 ISK for a child aged 7 to 17, and free for children 6 and under.

That structure is worth stating plainly because so many lists blur it. Viðey is not a paid attraction with a free element, like Hallgrímskirkja where the tower lift costs 1,500 ISK. It is the reverse: a genuinely free place reached by a paid boat. If you are building a budget day, the ferry is your only fixed line item, and it is a predictable one.

The ferry operator Elding publishes the current fares and schedule on its own ferry prices page, and that is the page to check before you travel, because sailing times shift with the season. The figures above are the operator's published adult and child fares.

Here is the fare structure as published:

For scale, an adult return crossing costs less than a single adult ticket to the Whales of Iceland exhibition at 4,000 ISK, and roughly the same as one adult swim at a city pool plus a coffee. It is a modest, knowable cost attached to an otherwise free day. Compare it also with the Flybus from Keflavik Airport, which charges 3,999 ISK one way just to reach the city: the island ferry is the cheaper of the two boat-and-bus journeys most visitors take.

How Do You Get To Viðey Island?

You take the Elding ferry, and the schedule is seasonal: it sails every day in summer but only on weekends through the winter, so the day of the week you choose matters more than the weather. The crossing is short, the fares are fixed at 2,500 ISK per adult and free for children 6 and under, and there is no other public route to the island.

The summer service runs daily, which makes Viðey an easy spontaneous add-on: you decide in the morning, you sail the same day. The winter service drops to weekends only, and that single fact catches out a lot of off-season visitors who arrive midweek expecting a boat. If your trip falls between November and April, plan the island for a Saturday or Sunday, and check the operator's schedule page for exact departure times before you commit, because winter sailings are also more exposed to weather cancellations.

The seasonal rhythm pairs well with the rest of a winter itinerary. The mainland side of a cold-weather visit is covered in our guide to free things to do in Reykjavik in winter, from the Winter Lights Festival to the free Museum Night that runs inside it, and a weekend Viðey crossing slots neatly alongside those.

A few practical notes follow from the schedule. Bookend your day: the island rewards a slow loop rather than a rushed dash, so take an early sailing if the weather is kind. Dress for the shoreline, not the city center, because the island is exposed to the bay wind even on days when Laugavegur feels calm. And carry cash or a card for the ferry itself, since the island's freedom does not extend to the boat.

Getting to the departure point is cheap too. A single adult fare on the Strætó capital-area buses is 690 ISK, valid for 75 minutes with transfers, and children 11 and under ride free, so even the journey to the jetty stays small. If you are driving instead, note that city center parking runs 660 ISK per hour in the P1 zone during paid hours, which can quietly exceed your ferry fare if you linger.

What Can You Do On Viðey For Free?

Everything on the island is free once you land: the walking paths, the shoreline, the views back across the bay to Reykjavik, and the open grassland are all public and unticketed. There is no gate, no admission desk and no attraction on the island that charges, so your only spending decision was made at the ferry jetty.

The island is small enough to walk end to end and varied enough to fill a few hours. The paths cross grassland and low shoreline, and the crossing itself gives you the best free panorama of the city you will get anywhere in this guide: Reykjavik's skyline, with Hallgrímskirkja's tower rising over the harbor, seen from the water. That view alone is the reason many visitors make the trip.

Because the island is quiet and unstructured, it suits travelers who like a self-guided pace. But if you want a narrated version of the city you are looking back at, the free walking tours cover it well, and there are exactly two English-language options in Reykjavik:

Both are tip-based, pay what you want, so neither has a fixed price. The long-running option is the CityWalk free tour, listed on freetour.com, rated 9.6 out of 10 across 6,683 freetour.com reviews. It runs daily at 10:30 and 13:30, lasts about two hours, and meets in front of the Parliament building on Austurvöllur square, finishing at City Hall.

A natural plan is to take the morning CityWalk walk, eat something cheap near the harbor, then sail to Viðey on an afternoon crossing. The walk covers Parliament, Laugavegur, Tjörnin pond and Rainbow Street, with Harpa and Hallgrímskirkja seen from a distance, which means the island trip adds the close-up harbor and water view the walk cannot give you.

Is Viðey A Good Outing With Kids?

Yes, and the fare structure helps: children 6 and under sail free, children 7 to 17 pay 1,250 ISK, and everything on the island is open, free and safe to roam, so a family day costs two adult fares plus whatever the kids eat. The short crossing, the open space and the shoreline make it one of the more child-friendly free destinations in the Reykjavik area.

Compare that with the city's paid family options and the arithmetic is kind. The Reykjavik Family Park and Zoo charges adults 2,800 ISK and children 6 to 17 at 1,600 ISK, while the public pools, cheap as they are, charge adults 1,500 ISK and children 10 to 17 at 400 ISK under the tariff in force since May 2026. A Viðey picnic day undercuts all of them, and unlike a pool or a zoo it has no closing time to race against, only the ferry schedule.

If the weather turns and the sailing is cancelled, the mainland has strong free fallbacks for children. The biggest one is a rule rather than a place: every major paid museum in the city, including the Reykjavik Art Museum, the National Museum, the National Gallery, the Settlement Exhibition and the Árbær open-air museum, admits visitors under 18 free of charge. That means a rainy-day museum stop costs a family only the adult tickets, at 2,550 ISK each at the Art Museum or 3,300 ISK at the National Museum, with every child walking in beside you at zero. It is the single most useful money rule in the city for traveling families, and almost nobody arrives knowing it.

How Much Does A Viðey Day Cost Compared To Other Reykjavik Outings?

A solo adult spends 2,500 ISK on the ferry and nothing else, making a Viðey day one of the cheapest structured outings in the Reykjavik area, cheaper than a pool swim plus a coffee, and far cheaper than any ticketed attraction. A family of two adults and two young children pays 5,000 ISK total, since under-7s sail free.

Put the island beside the city's other options and the picture is clear. The Reykjavik City Card, which many visitors buy expecting savings, costs 6,100 ISK for 24 hours, and it is a paid product: anything it unlocks is not free. The observation deck at Perlan cannot be bought separately at all, and the Hallgrímskirkja tower charges adults 1,500 ISK. Viðey undercuts all of these while delivering something none of them can, which is open space and a sea crossing.

One warning on the pass: if a list tells you something is "free with the City Card", it is describing a paid product. The card's own pricing is 6,100 ISK for 24 hours, 8,500 ISK for 48 hours and 10,500 ISK for 72 hours, so it only pays off if you are visiting several ticketed museums in a tight window. For a Viðey-style day built on free places, skip it entirely, because the card covers none of the ferry and none of the island.

When Is The Best Time To Visit Viðey?

Summer, if you want flexibility, because the ferry sails daily then and you can go whenever the weather cooperates; winter, if your trip is built around a weekend, because the service drops to Saturdays and Sundays only. Late spring through early autumn gives you the daily schedule plus long daylight, with the midnight sun pushing sunset past midnight in June.

The seasonal contrast is sharp. In summer the island is a spontaneous option: you wake up, see clear sky, and sail. Around the June solstice the sun barely sets, with 21 hours and 23 minutes of daylight on 21 June, so an evening crossing is entirely practical and the light on the water is at its best. In winter the weekend-only schedule forces planning, but the island's emptiness has its own appeal, and the city's free winter festivals, including the Winter Lights Festival in early February, fill the weekdays the ferry does not.

Weather is the real variable, more than season. Sailings can be cancelled in rough conditions, so treat the operator's schedule page as the day-of authority and have a mainland backup ready. The good news is that the backup can stay free: Tjörnin pond and the surrounding park cost nothing, and our Tjörnin pond guide covers the loop most visitors walk. One of the free walking routes passes through here: Spanish-Language Legends Walk.

Should You Combine Viðey With A Free Walking Tour?

Yes, it is the strongest free-first combination in the city: take a tip-based walking tour of the center in the morning, then sail to the island in the afternoon, and your total fixed cost is one ferry fare. CityWalk's daily 10:30 tour ends near City Hall, which puts you within a short walk of the harbor district where your sailing plans begin.

The pairing works because the two experiences do not overlap. The walk gives you history, streets and stories; the island gives you silence, open land and the view from the water. For the morning slot you have two English-language walks to choose between, and one Spanish-language option if that suits your group better.

The smaller GuruWalk option, Sweet Streets, meets at the Harpa concert hall, which is itself free to enter and worth a look before or after, as our Harpa concert hall guide explains. Note the practicalities: Sweet Streets takes cash tips only, so bring kronur, and both GuruWalk walks need a minimum of five people to run, which matters in the off-season when bookings thin out.

The Spanish-language option is the newest listing in the city, created in late August 2026, and it has no reviews yet on its GuruWalk page. It meets at the Arnarhóll statue and runs about two hours, and the same walk is also listed on freetour.com under the same operator, so do not count them as two separate tours.

What Else Is Free Near The Ferry Departure Point?

The harbor district around the departure side is one of the densest free zones in the city: the Old Harbour and Grandi waterfront walks cost nothing, the Sun Voyager sculpture sits on the shore road, and the Þúfa mound gives a full 360-degree view of the bay, all before you board. Budget an hour either side of your sailing for them.

The Old Harbour quays are free to walk year-round, fishing boats and all, and the Reykjavik Old Harbour guide maps the route. The Sun Voyager, the steel boat-shaped sculpture on the Sæbraut shore road, is an unfenced public artwork you can visit at any hour, and it faces the very bay you are about to cross. There is no viewing fee, no fence and no queue, just the sculpture and the water, which is exactly why it anchors so many Reykjavik itineraries.

Back in the center, the square where the CityWalk tour begins is itself a free public space worth a pause. Austurvöllur is a public square and park in front of the Parliament building, and on a fine day it fills with locals and visitors doing precisely what it costs nothing to do: sitting on the grass, watching the city go by. It is also the meeting point for the dominant free walk in town, so if you time it right you can watch the morning tour assemble before wandering down to the harbor yourself.

If your sailing is delayed or you simply have time to fill, three more mainland freebies sit within walking distance of the harbor. The Reykjavik City Library charges nothing to enter and browse, even though a borrowing card costs 3,300 ISK a year. The city's street art scene, with more than 160 mapped works, is entirely free to hunt down, and the city's own mapping project says plainly that you do not have to pay to enjoy it. And Tjörnin pond, a short walk inland, remains one of the simplest free things to do in Reykjavik, an open park loop that costs nothing at any hour of the year.

How Does Viðey Fit Into A Full Free-First Reykjavik Day?

Easily, and it is often the highlight: a realistic day pairs a morning free walking tour, a free harbor walk, an afternoon Viðey crossing and an evening of free public space, with the ferry fare as the only money that changes hands. Two adults can do the whole day for 5,000 ISK, and a solo traveler for 2,500 ISK, with every other element free.

The shape of the day matters more than the individual pieces. Start at Austurvöllur for the 10:30 CityWalk departure, which finishes near City Hall after two hours and about two kilometers of walking. From there, drift through the free harbor district, past the Sun Voyager and the Þúfa mound, and pick up an afternoon sailing. On the island, walk the paths, eat what you brought, and take the view of the skyline back across the water. Return in the evening light, and if the season is right, end the day aurora-watching from one of the city's free public viewpoints, since the northern lights season runs September to April.

If you would rather have a guide for the city half of that day, the two English-language walks below are the ones to compare, both tip-based and both bookable on their listings:

Viðey rewards exactly the kind of traveler this whole site is written for: someone who wants the city's open, public, unticketed side rather than its queue. The island is the largest fully free destination in the immediate Reykjavik area, and the ferry fare is the single honest cost attached to it. For more of the same thinking across the city, start with Free Things To Do In Reykjavik and build outward.

Common Questions About Viðey Island