A Long Weekend in Reykjavik: Offbeat Plan
Three days is enough to add the city’s weird undercurrent to the icons: a weekend flea market, a museum devoted to a single organ, and a pond stroll between the two, all still inside 101 Reykjavik with no Golden Circle detour. Chasing the Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon too? See Reykjavik as an Iceland base and its 3 day itinerary instead.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Landing in 101, Hallgrímskirkja, and a Kaffibarinn happy hour |
| 2 | A laundromat cafe, Old Harbour whale watching, and Grandi |
| 3 | Kolaportið flea market, the penis museum, and Tjörnin pond |
Book these before you go
- Compare downtown Reykjavik hotel rates , since 101 saves the daily Flybus commute
- Reserve a whale-watching trip out of the Old Harbour, especially for a July-August weekend
- Book a Reykjavik food walk through Grandi if you’d rather not wing the chocolate-factory-and-street-art crawl
Day 1: Landing in 101
Fly into Keflavík and take the Flybus (ISK 3,999 one way, about 45 minutes to the BSÍ terminal; there’s no railway anywhere in Iceland, so this or a taxi is genuinely the only way in). Walk from 101 Reykjavik to Skólavörðustígur, the rainbow-painted street that dead-ends at Hallgrímskirkja. The tower is ISK 1,500, walk-up only since same-day purchase is the only way it’s sold; the nave itself is free. Work down Laugavegur toward the harbour, then close with a hot dog from Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur (ISK 880 solo, ISK 1,330 combo) and a happy-hour beer at Kaffibarinn, drafts from ISK 1,050 after 3pm.
Day 2: A laundromat, the harbour, and Grandi
Start at the Laundromat Cafe on Austurstræti, a working coin laundry with a bookshop and a full brunch menu built around it. Walk to the Old Harbour for the free Sun Voyager sculpture and the whale-watching trip you booked above, 3-3.5 hours out into Faxaflói bay. Push west into Grandi for the Omnom chocolate factory and the street art covering the old fish-processing warehouses, then finish at Harpa’s free glass-facade lobby, or add the ISK 5,200 backstage tour if the concert hall itself interests you.
Day 3: The flea market, the penis museum, and a pond
Is Kolaportið open every day? No. Reykjavik’s flea market runs Saturday and Sunday only, 11:00 to 17:00, in a warehouse by the Old Harbour, and entry is free; you pay only for what you buy. If day 3 lands on a weekday, swap the morning for the National Museum of Iceland instead and save Kolaportið for a return trip.
From the harbour, walk to the Icelandic Phallological Museum: hundreds of preserved penis specimens from nearly every mammal in Iceland, ISK 2,750 admission, kids 13 and under free, open 10am-7pm daily with an attached café that takes its own joke seriously. Spend the afternoon at Tjörnin, the pond in the middle of downtown, then the Reykjavik Art Museum’s Hafnarhús building before a last dinner back on Laugavegur.
Is 3 days enough to sample the weird side of Reykjavik? Enough for five of the city’s nine unusual picks, not enough for the pools or the beach at Nauthólsvík. Our full guide lists all nine if this trip leaves you wanting the rest, and the 4 day version adds a pool afternoon and Perlan without touching what’s already planned here.
Leave the cash at home; Iceland is heavily cashless, and even Kolaportið’s smaller vendors mostly prefer a card over a fistful of krónur. Ask for tap water at every meal instead of bottled, it’s free, safe, and geothermally warm on the hot side of the tap, and skip the tip: it’s built into every price on this list already.