Puffin Express is the wonderfully descriptive name of a boat tour from Special Tours. You’ll see puffins, and you’ll get to see them quickly!
The boat leaves from the old harbor in Reykjavik, as do most boat tours that leave from Reykjavik. Here’s your boat:
As soon as you leave the pier, you’ll start getting some spectacular views of Reykjavik. The concert hall Harpa:
The sculpture that you can walk on called Þúfa (pronounced Thufa):
And, as you move further from Reykjavik, a nice view looking back to the city:
It’s just a few more minutes to the island where the puffins are, which is called Akurey. Here’s the Express part; the island is only 3 kilometers (2 miles) or so from Reykjavik. The lower red star shows where you start from, and the higher red star shows where you end up.
There are tons of puffins here, at least during the summer. Puffins spend most of the year out in the ocean; they only come back to their burrows over the summer to raise their baby puffling. No one knows exactly when the puffins will come and go for the season, though May through late August seems like a safe bet.
Special Tours jokes that they have a 99%+ success rate: Every single tour will see puffins, until the puffins leave for the season. Then one single tour will see no puffins (and get a refund!) and then there are no further tours for the year. So unless you’re on that one August tour that discovers the puffins have left, you’ll see puffins!
Lots of puffins.
So many puffins!
The downside of a boat tour like this is that you’re not getting super close to the puffins. The first puffing picture above is a little misleading; that’s the result of a decent zoom lens and a decent bit of luck. But you’ll see tons of puffins flying overhead, hanging out in the water, and walking around on the island. The guide will provide you with binoculars for a closer view.
The tour takes about an hour total; roughly 20 minutes each way to travel to and from the island, and 20 or so minutes of puffin watching. Tours leave 5 times a day in May, and 7 times a day from June through August. See the Tour web site for the specifics.
Tickets cost 5990 ISK for adults, 2995 for kids 7-15, and free for kids 6 and under. (Kids will need to wear life jackets during the tour.) That’s not especially cheap by itself– you could go whale watching with Special Tours and get a trip that’s 3 times longer for less than twice the price.
One significant benefit offered by Special Tours is a dramatic discount to the Whales of Iceland Museum. If you take any tour (whale watching, sea angling, or this puffin tour) you get admission to Whales of Iceland for 500 ISK.
The museum’s regular price is 2900 ISK for adults, so 500 ISK is a hefty discount. The Puffin Express is the cheapest tour Special Tours offers, and you end up saving 40% of the boat ride cost on the museum admission. Add that in and the price of the Puffin Express becomes a very good deal.
The Puffin Express is a good starter boat tour option. You’re only on the boat for an hour, and for most of that time you can either see Reykjavik or see puffins. There’s not much time to be bored if you’re worried about that. And it’s not a very rough ride, though that depends on the weather. But the first part of the trip is protected by Reykjavik harbor, and the rest is still pretty close to land.
If you are very prone to seasickness, you should check at the Special Tours booth on the Old Harbor. They should have a sign indicating water conditions today. Here’s an example; sorry for the glare:
If the conditions aren’t Good, you should be able to reschedule.
The Puffin Express is a fun trip, and a good value if you go see the Whales of Iceland museum as well. It’s a fun way to spend an hour in Reykjavik, and a great starter boat ride for kids.
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