ABANDONED FARMS IN ICELAND: PLACES WHERE TIME HAS NOT STOPPED. IT HAS ONLY SLOWED DOWN
There are houses you pass without giving them a second glance. And then there are those that make you instinctively take your foot off the accelerator. Lonely buildings scattered among lava fields, beneath glaciers or on the shores of deep fjords. Peeling windows, moss-covered roofs, rusted sheets of metal that let out a quiet metallic groan whenever the wind blows. No one around. Only the wind, seabirds and endless space.
At first glance, they look like sets from an old film. But when you stop and get out of the car, you begin to notice the details.
A rusted plough leaning against a wall. A child's shoe overgrown with grass. An old door that the wind pushes open just enough to reveal a dark room where nothing has changed for decades.
And suddenly, you realize something strange.
These are not ruins.
They were someone's homes.
Just a few decades ago, people here would rise before dawn, milk cows, mend fishing nets, bake bread, laugh, argue, raise children and sit down together at the table in the evening.
Today, all that remains is silence.
In Iceland, there is a single word for places like these – eyðbýli. It means an abandoned farmstead.
It is a simple word, yet it contains thousands of human stories.
AN ISLAND PEOPLE NEVER FULLY CONQUERED
When most people think of Iceland, they picture waterfalls, glaciers, volcanoes or geothermal pools. Few realize that for most of its history, this island was one of the hardest places in Europe for ordinary people to make a living.
Every farm was a small world of its own.
The nearest neighbor might have been several kilometers away. Winter lasted for months, storms arrived without warning, and a single failed harvest or lost herd could spell disaster for an entire family.
And yet people endured here for centuries.
That is precisely why abandoned farms are so powerful.
They are not reminders of an ancient civilization. They are reminders of people who, only a few generations ago, managed to survive in places where it is difficult for us today to imagine everyday life.
WHERE HISTORY ENDS AND LEGENDS BEGIN
Iceland is a strange country. Even today, in the 21st century, stories more than a thousand years old survive alongside modern roads and geothermal power plants.
According to the Icelandic sagas and folk traditions, the landscape is never completely empty.
In lava fields, beneath solitary boulders or inside green hills, there are said to live the huldufólk – the Hidden People.
They are not ghosts. Nor are they fairytale elves. They are beings who, according to tradition, share Iceland with humans but usually remain invisible.
Perhaps that is why many Icelanders are still reluctant to disturb certain prominent boulders or rock formations. Not because they are afraid, but because they believe the landscape deserves respect.
When you stand in front of an abandoned farm in the middle of the mist, you begin to understand why such stories came into being.
The wind rushes through empty windows, old beams creak softly. And the silence is so deep that you instinctively lower your voice.
Not because you have heard something, but because you feel that the silence should not be disturbed.
ICELAND HIDES THOUSANDS OF ABANDONED FARMSTEADS
There are not merely dozens or hundreds of abandoned farms in Iceland.
There are thousands.
The University of Iceland is conducting an extensive research project mapping approximately 5,000 historical farmsteads, some of whose histories reach back to the first settlers in the 9th century.
Archaeologists, historians and geographers are trying to establish not only where people lived, but also why they eventually abandoned their homes.
Every farm has a different story.
Some were destroyed by a single volcanic eruption. Others were gradually swallowed by erosion or changing climatic conditions.
Still others ceased to make sense when farming practices changed or younger generations left in search of an easier life in the towns and cities.
Abandoning a farm was therefore rarely a single dramatic event.
More often, it was a long process of decision-making, during which people tried to survive one more winter.
And then one more.
Until eventually came the day when the door was closed for the last time.
THE LAST GENERATION THAT STILL STAYS
Perhaps the best way to understand why Icelandic farms are gradually disappearing is not to listen to historians, but to someone who still lives on one.
Several years ago, a friend and I were driving through southern Iceland. We were heading from Vík toward Reykjavík when the weather changed within minutes into something Iceland does remarkably well.
The rain wasn't falling.
It was attacking.
Strong winds drove the drops almost horizontally across the road. The sky disappeared behind a grey curtain, and for a moment the landscape around us became a place where you could understand why Iceland had such a reputation as a harsh land for centuries.
A young man was hitchhiking by the roadside. He was completely soaked.
When we stopped, he quickly got into the car and tried to warm himself. He told us he was from one of the nearby farms and was heading to Reykjavík.
During the drive, I remarked that this was exactly the kind of weather I loved about Iceland. Within minutes, you could experience almost everything – rain, mist, wind, sunshine and even a snowstorm.
I expected him to laugh.
Instead, he paused for a moment and then said something I have never forgotten.
“This is exactly what I hate about Iceland.”
For me, the moment was an adventure.
For him, it was everyday life.
He explained that when you live on a farm, weather is not an interesting natural phenomenon. It is a force that decides what you will do.
Not you.
The weather decides.
One day you cannot go anywhere because of the rain. The next day, because of the wind. Then comes fog that hides everything around you. A few hours later, half a meter of snow may fall.
But the animals still need looking after, work cannot wait, and nature does not care whether you are in the mood.
The young man told me then that he could not imagine his future on the farm. He did not want to spend his entire life fighting the weather and living far from other people.
As soon as he could, he wanted to move to Reykjavík.
To the city.
To a world where you can at least have some say in planning your own life.
That was when I realized that abandoned farms in Iceland are not merely stories from the past.
The story is still unfolding.
Every generation has to decide again whether to stay or leave.
Some stay because of tradition. Others because of their connection to the landscape where they were born.
And some day, someone closes the door just as people did before them.
Not because they did not love the place, but because the world around them had changed.
WHEN THE VOLCANO DIDN'T DESTROY THE FARM. UNCERTAINTY DID
When people talk about abandoned farms in Iceland, most imagine one thing – a volcano.
And it is hardly surprising.
On an island sitting on the boundary between two tectonic plates, a single eruption can transform the landscape beyond recognition within hours.
Lava can swallow pastures, ash can destroy crops, and glacial rivers can turn into devastating floods.
But reality was often far more complicated.
Very few families woke up one morning and decided they had to abandon their home immediately.
More often, it was a long struggle with nature that lasted for years.
One bad winter followed another. Fields produced less than they once had. Wind carried away fertile soil, herds grew weaker, and the distance to the nearest neighbors seemed to grow greater every year.
Eventually came a decision that must have been painful.
To leave.
Not because people wanted to.
But because there was no other choice.
THE VALLEY BURIED BY HEKLA
One of the best-known examples is Þjórsárdalur, a broad valley in southern Iceland surrounded by mountains and regarded for centuries as one of the country's most fertile areas.
Today, it is peaceful. Pastures are broken only by branches of the river, while the silhouette of the volcano Hekla rises on the horizon.
Medieval Europeans called Hekla the Gateway to Hell.
Standing here in good weather, it is difficult to believe that entire settlements once disappeared from this landscape.
In 1104, after a long period of dormancy, Hekla erupted.
A huge column of ash rose above the landscape, carried by the wind across the surrounding region. Fields disappeared beneath layers of volcanic material, and life in the valley changed dramatically in a very short time.
For decades, it was believed that around twenty farms in the area had been abandoned at that time.
Modern archaeology, however, has revealed a much more interesting picture.
Research shows that people did not disappear from the area immediately. Even after the eruption, they continued to graze livestock, cultivate parts of the land and adapt to the new conditions.
It was only later centuries, further eruptions and gradually deteriorating living conditions that led to the valley becoming truly depopulated.
It is a reminder that history is rarely black and white.
A catastrophe does not always arrive in a single moment.
Sometimes it comes slowly.
A LANDSCAPE CHANGED BY GLACIER AND FIRE
An even more dramatic fate befell southeast Iceland.
In 1362, a volcano hidden beneath the Öræfajökull glacier erupted.
The eruption ranks among the most powerful in Iceland's history and transformed the entire region.
It was not just ash.
The heat melted enormous quantities of glacial ice, sending powerful jökulhlaups – glacial outburst floods – rushing down from the mountains and sweeping away everything in their path.
Homes, pastures, bridges and the entire infrastructure of that world.
The area, once known as Litlahérað, acquired a new name after the disaster – Öræfi, meaning wilderness or barren land.
The name alone tells the story better than lengthy chronicles ever could.
Archaeological research indicates that by 1500, at least eleven farms in the area had been abandoned.
Other farmsteads gradually disappeared over the following centuries.
Nature had reminded people that it would always have the final word.
WHEN DISASTER NEVER CAME
You may be surprised to learn that most abandoned Icelandic farms did not disappear because of a single dramatic event.
They did not burn down.
They were not buried by lava.
They were not swept away by floods.
They simply stopped making sense.
Fewer and fewer people remained on remote farms. Young generations moved to towns and cities, where employment offered greater security than farming a few hectares of land.
Roads connected previously isolated regions with the rest of the country. Agriculture modernized, and small farms began to lose their economic viability.
It was a quiet departure.
No explosions.
No newspaper headlines.
Just one last loaded vehicle, a locked door and a glance back at the place where someone had spent their entire life.
Perhaps these stories are the saddest of all.
Because there is no dramatic ending.
Only a slow acceptance that the world has changed.
And that the home that once belonged to you no longer has a place in it.
ABANDONED FARMS IN ICELAND: HOUSES TIME HAS BEGUN TO CONSUME
Once people left, Icelandic nature took over.
It did not do so violently.
It only needed a few winters.
The wind began lifting the metal roofs. Rain penetrated the wooden walls. Frost widened tiny cracks year after year, while moss slowly swallowed the stone walls.
In Iceland, houses do not collapse quickly.
They seem to quietly return to the landscape.
As if, after decades, the island were taking back what people had only borrowed from it for a while.
DAGVERÐARÁ: THE HOUSE THAT OUTLIVED ITS INHABITANTS
On the southern coast of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula stands an unassuming house.
There is no tourist trail leading to it. No buses stop here. No crowds of visitors gather around it.
Most people drive past without realizing that they are passing a place that was, for many decades, something more than just a farm.
Its name was Dagverðará.
This is where I went during one of my journeys through Iceland.
When I got out of the car, the silence surprised me.
Only the wind pressed against the walls of the old house, while the distant cries of gulls drifted in from the sea.
Everything else seemed to have stopped.
Places like this make you slow down.
Not because they are spectacular.
But because you begin to imagine the life that once unfolded here.
Mornings when the animals had to be fed before sunrise.
Days when the entire farm had to submit to the weather.
Evenings when the family sat together while a storm raged outside.
Today, it is difficult to believe that all of this ended only a few decades ago.
The farm ceased operating in 1957 and is still recorded as an inhabited place as late as 1971. Since then, the house has slowly been giving in to Icelandic weather. And yet it does not feel dead. It feels more as if it were still waiting.
Waiting for someone to return who never will.
THE PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES HAVE ALMOST DISAPPEARED
Dagverðará was not merely a point on a map.
It was a home.
People such as Helga Halldórsdóttir and Hallgrímur Ólafsson lived here.
They were not remembered solely as farmers. Local sources note that both wrote poetry, and that their daughter Aðalheiður inherited their poetic sensibility.
It is strange to think about that here.
Today, most visitors see peeling plaster, rusted metal and broken windows.
Very few would imagine that poems may once have been written in these rooms.
That birthdays were celebrated here. That someone may have sat by the window in the evening, waiting for the others to return from the pastures.
Houses do not lose only their roofs.
They gradually lose their memories, too.
A VERSE FROM THE HÁVAMÁL THAT CAPTURES THE HARSHNESS OF LIFE IN ICELAND
Elds er þörf, þeims inn er kominnok á kné kalinn;matar ok váða er manni þörf,þeim er hefir um fjall farit.
Glanz & Gravur
A free English translation:
Fire is needed by one who has come in,cold to the knees. Food and clothing are needed by the travelerwho has crossed the mountains.
This stanza is approximately 800–1,000 years old and reflects one of the most important values of the old Icelanders – hospitality toward someone arriving after a difficult journey.
THE PLACE I PREFERRED TO LEAVE UNNAMED
During one of my journeys, I came across another farm.
I do not remember its name.
And perhaps that is for the best.
It stood away from the main roads, as if it had decided to disappear from the map on its own.
The wind pushed open damaged doors, and inside were things their owners had probably once considered important: a broken sewing machine, a wooden bed, fishing nets, ropes and an old picture.
Nothing of great value.
And yet it was precisely these ordinary objects that felt the most powerful.
They were evidence that this had been a place where people had lived until relatively recently.
To this day, I have never been able to determine with certainty which farm it was.
I went through old maps, aerial photographs and historical databases.
Several possibilities exist, but I have no certainty.
And the longer I think about it, the less it bothers me.
Perhaps some places deserve to keep their secrets.
Not because they should remain hidden, but because they remind us how many stories simply disappear from history.
No chronicles remain.
No photographs.
Only a house.
And silence.
WHEN PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT ENOUGH
Whenever I photograph or film places like these, I realize one thing.
A camera captures only what we can see.
Old walls.
Broken windows.
Rusting roofs.
But it can never capture the most important things.
What it felt like when the house was lit for the first time.
What fresh bread smelled like.
What conversations took place around the dinner table.
How many children left here for school for the first time.
How many people never came back.
Perhaps that is why abandoned farms often attract me more than Iceland's famous waterfalls.
A waterfall remains essentially the same.
A house changes every year.
And with every winter, the last traces of the people who once lived there slowly disappear.
VIÐBORÐSSEL: HISTORY HIDDEN BESIDE THE MAIN ROAD
I discovered another abandoned farmstead in the Mýrar area of southeast Iceland.
Its name is Viðborðssel. There is something almost ironic about it.
Just a few dozen meters away runs the Ring Road, Route 1, along which hundreds of thousands of tourists travel every year.
People are heading toward glaciers, waterfalls and glacial lagoons.
Few of them notice that just a short distance from the road stands a silent reminder of a time when people did not travel through Iceland in search of experiences.
They traveled because they had to survive.
Today, the Ring Road is a symbol of freedom.
Once, the greatest freedom was simply being able to stay where you were for another winter.
That is precisely why Viðborðssel feels so powerful. It does not demand attention.
It simply stands there, quietly reminding us how easily human stories can disappear from the landscape if no one decides to tell them.
About the Author
Iceland has fascinated me for many years. Over the course of numerous journeys across the island, I have driven tens of thousands of kilometers, experienced storms that changed travel plans within minutes, and witnessed days when choosing the right route meant discovering places that most visitors never see. I documented many of these experiences in my documentary film Island in the North.
Through this website, I share practical travel advice, up-to-date information, and firsthand experiences from the field to help others explore Iceland more safely and gain a deeper understanding of its unique landscapes and ever-changing nature.
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