Iceland Travel GuideLOCAL TRAVEL AGENCY IN ICELAND
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Iceland Travel GuideLOCAL TRAVEL AGENCY IN ICELAND
My trip
Talk to a local
Guðrúnarlaug hot spring is a small, round, stone-lined pool at Laugar in Sælingsdalur, about 20 km north of Búðardalur in West Iceland. It is about 167 km and roughly 2.5 hours from Reykjavík. The water is around 37–40°C, the pool is free, open all year, and most people spend 30–45 minutes there.
Iceland has hot water under almost every valley, and you can find a pool to soak in wherever you travel. Some have been turned into large spas. Guðrúnarlaug is the opposite: a small pool on a grassy hillside in the Dalir district, far from the busy routes and very close to nature.
The pool is round and lined with large, smooth stones, which makes bathing easy. It holds about six people comfortably. The water comes from the hot springs in the hill behind and usually sits around 37–40°C. Beside it stands a low turf-roofed hut where you can change.
From the water you look out over Sælingsdalur to the mountains across the valley, with the green and white hotel building at Laugar just below you. Green grass grows right up to the rim of the pool.
Bathing here goes back about a thousand years. The original pool was buried by a landslide in 1869 and lay lost for about 140 years. In 2009 a new pool was built close by, in the style of the old one, and it has been open ever since.
Nobody runs the pool. It is out in the open, there is no attendant, and it is seldom cleaned, so expect some algae on the stones. It is still well worth the dip, and because it is off the main tourist routes it rarely feels crowded.
The Icelandic sagas are a big part of the country's culture, and this pool belongs to one of the best known. It is named after Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, the central figure of Laxdæla saga, who grew up at Laugar in Sælingsdalur about a thousand years ago. The saga says she spent a lot of time at the hot pool here, and that Kjartan Ólafsson often came to the pool to talk with her.
It was at the pool that Guðrún met Gestur Oddleifsson, a chieftain from the Westfjords known for his wisdom and his gift for reading dreams. She told him four dreams that had troubled her. Gestur explained that each dream stood for a husband: she would marry four times, and she would lose each man in turn.
So it went. Her first marriage ended in divorce, her second husband drowned, her third, Bolli, was killed in the feud that followed the death of Kjartan Ólafsson, the man she is said to have loved, and her fourth drowned in Breiðafjörður. Asked in old age which man she had loved most, she gave the saga's most famous answer: "To him I was worst whom I loved most."
After the death of Bolli, Guðrún swapped farms with the chieftain Snorri goði Þorgrímsson and moved to Helgafell on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. She ended her life there as a nun, said to be the first in Iceland. A stone at Helgafell marks what is believed to be her grave, close to the church.
The pool she knew was buried under a landslide in 1869. It stayed lost for about 140 years, until it was rebuilt in 2009 so that visitors can bathe in roughly the same spot Guðrún is said to have used.
The whole drive is about 167 km and takes around 2.5 hours from Reykjavík without stops. Búðardalur is the last place for fuel and food before the pool.
Guðrúnarlaug is a simple, unmanaged pool. Knowing what is there, and what is not, makes the visit better.
Rinse off before you get in if you can, do not use soap or shampoo in the pool, and take all rubbish with you.
Laugar means hot springs, and the hot water under the hillside is the reason people have lived here since saga times. A boarding school for the district stood here for much of the 20th century, and its buildings later became a summer hotel, right below the pool.
Besides Guðrúnarlaug there is a campsite and an outdoor swimming pool, Sælingsdalslaug, with hot tubs. That is the place to go if you want showers and a proper changing room. Opening times vary by season, so check locally before you count on it.
Sælingsdalur is also a good valley for a short walk, and the Dalir district around it is saga country: Eiríksstaðir, the home of Erik the Red, is a short drive south of Búðardalur.
A small turf-roofed changing hut only, with no showers, toilets, café or shop at the pool. The campsite and swimming pool at Laugar, just below, have toilets and showers when open.
You can stay right by the pool: the hotel in the old school buildings at Laugar and the campsite next to it are a few minutes' walk away in summer, so you can go up for a soak whenever you like. Check that they are open for your dates. Búðardalur has guesthouses and is the closest village base.
Yes, there is no entrance fee and no booking. It is open day and night.
Around 37–40°C, a comfortable bathing temperature. It can feel cooler in strong wind.
Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, the leading character in Laxdæla saga, who grew up at Laugar and is said to have bathed at this spring around a thousand years ago.
Follow Route 60 through Búðardalur towards Hólmavík for about 16 km, turn left onto Road 589 and drive about 3 km to Laugar. The pool is on the hillside behind the buildings.
About 167 km, around 2 hours 30 minutes by car.
Yes, a small turf-roofed hut, but no showers or toilets at the pool.
No. Almost all the roads are paved, so an ordinary car is fine in normal conditions.
No. The old pool was buried by a landslide in 1869. The one you bathe in was built in 2009 close to the original site and in the same style.
