This issue features a Björk interview. Normally, that would put Björk on our cover. Every time she has been so kind as to grant us an interview, which is more often than you’d think (thanks Björk!) we’ve put her on the cover. But this time aro...

For an event designed to celebrate substantial gains of acceptance in the past decade, the organisers of Reykjavík Pride remain positive while making final preparations for the event. This remains even in the face of recent backlash, most recently i...

Welcome to Iceland at a time of extreme international interest. While this issue is on the streets, this nation will be all over movie theatres, serving as Hell during Elliot Page’s excellent rants at Odysseus. We’ll also be, I assume, in travel ...

In this episode we sit down with Þorbjörg Þorvaldsdóttir, a linguist and seasoned municipal politician, to discuss the controversial decision to dismantle the Reykjavík Human Rights Office last June 25. Þorbjörg explains the vital role the off...

A few years ago, the most popular summer song on Icelandic radio was a slow lo-fi track with indie vibes by the band Hipsumhaps, that drew up a charming picture of an idyllic, cosy, and traditional Icelandic life, camping in nature, enjoying hot coco...

On the last cover of this magazine, Issue 10, 2026, we printed an image of a French tourist, caught in the act of illegal off-road driving in the Icelandic Highlands. The accompanying article covered how three French tourists, in two Land Rover Defen...

Shortly before midnight on July 31, 2026, the anti-whaling ship Bandero was boarded by the Icelandic coast guard and police. The vessel had been in Icelandic waters on and off for a little over a month shadowing whaling ships. Their goal: to frustrat...

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s in-house economists have been looking worried lately. They’re missing meals and are easily spooked, cringing at sudden shifts in the wind. It’s all inflation and Straits of Hormuzes with them. Recently they took the l...

Verslunarmannahelgi falls on the first weekend of August. It is the biggest travel weekend of the Icelandic year. Everyone is camping or at a festival or both. Þjóðhátíð in Vestmannaeyjar, Neistaflug in Neskaupstaður, Ein með öllu in Akureyr...

A half-dozen dates in Ireland and Amsterdam, internationally famous Alok Vaid-Menon chose Reykjavík and the opening night of Reykjavík Pride at Tjarnarbíó for the final performance of their show “Hairy Situation”.

You know the rules. Name that sheep. Tell us the name of this specific sheep. Email us at sheep@grapevine.is. If you get the right name, and you’re in Iceland, you win a hot dog, made in part with sheep. One guess per email address please. Not in I...

“If I could, I would do no interviews. All musicians are probably like that. They would just prefer to let the work talk,” says Björk, settling with her matcha latte into a chair in an empty greenhouse, Reykjavík’s skyline looming against the...

Some of you may be familiar with that piece of fan fiction known as Hamlet, Will Shakespeare’s rewrite of the classic Amlóða Saga. But reimaginings, sequels and spin-offs have been a part of literature from the beginning. The Odyssey takes a rela...

Few phrases in the Icelandic tongue can be as breezily delivered as “þetta er gjöf en ekki gjald,” a phrase one could translate as “it’s a gift rather than a price,” meaning that this particular thing is so cheap it’s basically free. Yo...

At 24:00 on July 31, 2026, the Iceland Coast Guard and Special Forces boarded the protest boat Bandero, taking control of the large vessel. According to the Coast Guard, the Bandero entered Icelandic waters at 18:00 on July 30. “This is the biggest...

It became known colloquially as the þjóðvegahátíðin, or “highway festival”, of 1994. On June 17 that year, tens of thousands rushed to celebrate 50 years of Icelandic independence at Þingvallahátíðin in the Þingvellir national park. Or...

Asking Trump for EU permission The Centre Party’s (Miðflokkurinn) fight for Icelandic sovereignty against foreign influence took a rather interesting turn recently, when MP Ingibjörg Davíðsdóttir bemoaned the fact that the government had not m...

The powerful and playful minimalism of Karin Sander makes artworks that exceed themselves, turning the museum into a playground.

A lost American sparrow brings birders to Miðdalur and raises questions about what makes a bird truly wild.

During the recent municipal elections, we noticed that some of the great local civic accomplishments weren’t celebrated — or seemingly even noticed. For example, the local libraries. Throughout the summer, we’ll highlight the more notable progr...

Two women — one armed with a hi-def video camera — and a child visited the Secret Lagoon (Gamla Laugin in Icelandic) in March 2015. Nothing particularly unusual about such an excursion to Iceland’s oldest geothermal pool in the small village of...

In Reykjavík it is impossible to escape the trendy artisanal bakeries, which seem to pop up all over the place constantly, the latest being the excellent 280 bakarí on Klapparstígur. There you can pick up sourdough bread, designer pastries and spe...

Broken telephones, computer keyboards and answering machines hang from the ceiling above the main stage. Unspooled cassette tapes and old CDs decorate the walls of the smaller stage, and don’t even get me started on the gallery space, which could b...

The devils of downtown Reykjavík rock have teamed up with art pop legend Barði Jóhannsson from the band Bang Gang to produce a stressfully sexy EP.

As the biggest English-language newspaper on this particular North Atlantic rock we share some responsibility for giving foreigners the wrong impression about Icelandic culture. Namely we’ve implied that Iceland has a culture. It’s more useful to...

On July 2, Iceland competed in the World Cup. Not the FIFA World Cup underway in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. No, Iceland competed in the Basketball World Cup at Laugardalshöllin. Still riding a mental high that my beloved New York Knicks won the NB...

The biggest problem with cemeteries is that there aren’t any bars, so although they are often beautiful, serene and great for a hang, you can’t buy a cold beer. Except in Reykjavík where there is an old cemetery that has two bars. On the corner ...

I had no idea any of this existed. Sigur Rós had built some kind of sound installation in an Oxford basement, and I was apparently the last to know. I was in London for Climate Action Week, the largest independent climate gathering in Europe, 75,000...

It was the summer of 2003 and I, then editor of Grapevine, was walking through town with 58-year-old Megas, best known as Iceland’s leading lyricist. He, somewhat ill-kempt, was trailing beside a bicycle on which he held with one hand a box of old ...

“Unsurprisingly the first generation living on the gravel (Reykjavík) is doing badly, it freaks out over all their options and then sinks to the bottom of misery.” This is a terrible translation of the final verse of Reykjavík’s unofficial an...

Walk into almost any souvenir shop in Iceland and you will find the same familiar symbols staring back at you: Thor’s hammer necklaces, rune sets, Viking amulets, and books on Norse religion. Popular culture has created an image of pagan Scandinavi...

You don’t always know how things will turn out. Will this be the best July of my sad little life? Will she say yes? Where are my keys? You may be wondering the answers to such questions, but if you’re from the southern US of A or a British lass o...

Our PM: The armed influencer and Trump buddy It’s been a big couple of weeks for Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir. After a rough spell for the government and a heated EU campaign, she was in need of a win and boy, did she get a win. Following...

You know the rules. Name that sheep. Tell us the name of this specific sheep. Email us at sheep@grapevine.is. If you get the right name, and you’re in Iceland, you win a hot dog, made in part with sheep. One guess per email address please. Not in I...

“I think that the French should know about this, and I think that hopefully they will also get reprimanded when they get back to France. If there is something about this in the French media, then it’s very important that people understand, it’s...

There was a time when we got frequent questions from tourists about how to be a better visitor. People wanted to know key Icelandic phrases. They wanted to know if it would be truly impolite to tip. They wanted to know the most responsible places to ...

Iceland became independent with U.S. support in 1944. Half a century earlier, the idea of a powerless, tiny nation becoming an independent democracy would have made no sense and had little or no precedent. As a nation, Iceland entered into the so-cal...

This issue’s cover story is about tourists who brought two rugged Land Rover Defenders and used them to deface Iceland’s nature by driving off-road in a national park. They got busted, but because Icelandic law is so lenient, they got off with pa...

As we noted in last issue’s feature, Vesturbær was Iceland’s first planned suburb, complete with a pool and a market with neon lights. Vesturbæjarlaug continues to be our Best Of Reykjavík panel’s number one choice for favourite pool, which,...

We’ve got a list of our favourite 80 Icelandic releases of 2026 so far, and we’re doing our best to write them up. We’ll get them out to you as time allows.

A new series of paintings by Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson uses familiar Icelandic flora and fauna to make the viewer question what they are looking at.

English words regularly make inroads into the Icelandic language, loan words like “basically” and even unwieldy (but useful) phrases such as “þetta meikar sens” (this makes sense) are mouthed without as much as a blush by young and old alike...

During nearly 14 years of birding, I’ve heard conversations that would sound completely deranged to anyone passing by. I’ve heard grown adults discussing “great tits”, arguing over the “jizz” of a bird, celebrating a “continuing sibe”...

The country doesn’t announce it. There was a letter somewhere in there. Official and undramatic, the way the most important things in Iceland usually are. No ceremony. A letter told me I was a citizen now, which isn’t the same as a nation decidin...

A short ferry ride from Reykjavík carries you across a stretch of water to an island that feels surprisingly distant from the city skyline behind it. Visitors come to walk through its peaceful surroundings, perhaps to visit the old church and admire...

The Reykjavík Grapevine's Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin journalist Aðalsteinn Kjartansson, and Grapevine friend and ...

If you choose to brave the roads west and risk the once-in-a-century congestion, you would be well-advised to make the trip about more than the two-minute eclipse. The longest time on offer is the two minutes, 13 seconds at the Látrabjarg promontory...

Magnús Þór Jónsson, the poet and singer who went by the name Megas, died July 6, 2026, at 81 years old. Megas has an extremely complicated history. We will work to cover his career as soon as possible. This article from the archive, by Valur Gunn...

For generations, Vitastígur sported stunning views of Faxaflói bay and Reykjavík’s mountain Esja. But that was then. Now anyone walking the old downtown street is greeted by the most hideous blight in the neighbourhood. A bleak, monstrous, 17-st...

The Reykjavík Grapevine, worried about the state of the global economy, has commissioned a series of articles on the subtle art of business. The idea is to give you, dear reader, a leg up so that even you may join the ranks of the super-wealthy.