What should I avoid in Vestmannaeyjar?

The ferry is where most first visits to Vestmannaeyjar go wrong. Herjólfur crosses from Landeyjahöfn in about 35 to 40 minutes, but that harbour silts up and closes in swell, and sailings then shift to Þorlákshöfn, a crossing that takes close to three hours on open North Atlantic water, with the lounge tending to smell of diesel and coffee by the halfway point. Check the operator's sailing notice the morning you travel, before you leave Reykjavík. Car spaces on summer sailings can sell out weeks ahead, so book the vehicle deck early or leave the car at Landeyjahöfn and walk on. Heimaey's town is roughly 20 minutes on foot from end to end.

Skip the Reykjavík day trip. Landeyjahöfn is roughly a two-hour drive each way, which leaves you maybe four hours on Heimaey and a very long day at the wheel on a same-day return. One night on Heimaey is the right answer. Don't squeeze Seljalandsfoss into the drive down either, tempting as it is with the turnoff so close to Route 1: the path behind the falls soaks you to the skin, Gljufrafoss sits a further 500 metres or so along the cliff, and the stop likely eats an hour. Do both on the way back to Reykjavík, when no sailing depends on it and wet jeans don't have to sit through a ferry crossing.

Heimaklettur, at 283 metres, is the climb to skip in bad weather. The route uses fixed ladders and chains, then steep sheep-grazed grass that turns slick as soap in rain. Today's reading was 8.8°C under overcast skies, with wind pulling the feel down to 5.3°C, and that is a mild October day here. Walk up Eldfell instead: the red cone rose during the eruption that began on 23 January 1973, the scoria crunches underfoot like cinders, and the ground still feels warm in places if you push a hand into it. Stórhöfði, on the southern tip, is among the windiest spots in Europe, so grip the car door with two hands there. At Elephant Rock, stay back from the turf edge. The cliff is undercut, and the elephant's profile reads better from a boat or from the golf course side anyway.

If puffins are the reason you're coming, time it right: the colonies around Stórhöfði fill from about May to mid-August, and by October the burrows are empty. The first weekend of August is another date to approach carefully. Þjóðhátíð packs Herjólfsdalur with well over 10,000 people on an island of roughly 4,500, and ferry seats and beds sell out months ahead, so steer clear unless the festival itself is your goal. The stave church at Skansinn deserves a word of calibration too: it is a Norwegian gift dating from 2000, black tarred timber that tends to smell of pitch on a mild day, and not a medieval survivor. Heimaey has no touts or taxi hustles to speak of, and TTDI scores solo-traveler safety at 9.2/10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index). The harbour does smell of fish meal when the plants are running. Cards work everywhere at about 122 ISK to the US dollar, so there is no reason to stop at the cash exchange desk at Keflavík.