The Faroes went from obscure to heavily photographed in about a decade, and the islands are still working out what to do about it. The response so far has been a system of landowner fees, marked routes and, on a handful of walks, compulsory guides.
Visitors sometimes read this as a tourist trap. It is not, and understanding why makes the fees considerably easier to pay. Almost every hillside in the Faroes is privately owned and actively grazed under a system of shared land rights that dates back centuries. The turf on those hillsides is thin, sits on peat, and does not recover from being walked on by thousands of people in a summer. A path that was a sheep track in 2014 is a metre-wide scar now. The money funds boardwalks, drainage and repair, and the guide requirement on the most fragile routes exists to keep people on one line rather than spread across a slope.
How access works now
The islands have no general right to roam of the Scandinavian kind. Hiking on uncultivated land is broadly tolerated, but the landowner's permission is what makes it legal, and on the popular routes that permission now comes with a charge.
Several of the best-known walks operate this way — the Kallur lighthouse ridge on Kalsoy, the Sørvágsvatn and Trælanípa route above the lake, the Saksun valley, Slættaratindur in season, and a number of others. Fees are typically in the low hundreds of Danish kroner per person, sometimes with a guide included, sometimes not. Payment is usually made at a hut or barrier at the trailhead, or online in advance for the routes that cap numbers.
What is worth knowing is that this list changes. Routes are added, occasionally closed for a season to let ground recover, and the arrangements at individual trailheads are revised year to year. Check the current position shortly before you travel rather than relying on a guidebook or a blog post from two summers ago, and be prepared for a walk you had planned to be unavailable.
Where a guide is compulsory, it is compulsory. Walking up anyway is trespass, it is noticed immediately in a place this small, and it is the behaviour that gets routes closed entirely.
Planning around the weather
This is the part that determines whether a Faroese week works, and it has nothing to do with fees.
Fog arrives without warning and sits for hours. A viewpoint that is the reason you came can be entirely invisible on Tuesday and perfectly clear on Thursday, and neither day will have looked different in the forecast a week out. The islands also have a pronounced local effect: it is common for one island to be in cloud while the next one along is in sun.
Two rules make the difference.
- Decide each morning, not in advance. Look at the forecast at breakfast, then choose which island to drive to. The tunnel network makes most of the country reachable within an hour or two from Tórshavn, so this is a real option rather than a theoretical one.
- Build spare days. A five-day trip with one fixed plan per day will lose two of them. A five-day trip with three targets and the flexibility to reorder them will get all three.
Book accommodation centrally rather than moving every night for the same reason. A base in Tórshavn or near the airport at Sørvágur lets you chase the weather; a booking on Viðoy for Wednesday means being on Viðoy on Wednesday regardless of what Wednesday looks like.
What the walking is actually like
Faroese paths are frequently not paths. Many routes follow the old *gøtur*, the historic walking routes between settlements, marked by cairns rather than by a worn line on the ground, and in poor visibility the cairns are the only navigation available.
The ground is boggy for much of the year. Waterproof boots with ankle support are the minimum, and gaiters are more useful here than in most of northern Europe. Streams that are a step across in the morning can be genuinely difficult after a day of rain.
Carry a map and a compass, or a phone with offline mapping and a battery pack, and know how to use whichever you have brought. Mobile coverage exists in the villages and is patchy on the hills.
Walks worth the trip
Sørvágsvatn and Trælanípa. The optical illusion route: a lake that appears from one angle to sit high above the ocean, when in fact it is only a few dozen metres up. Easy going, around two hours return, fee payable at the trailhead. Continue past the classic viewpoint to Bøsdalafossur, where the lake falls straight into the sea, and to Trælanípa itself.
Kallur lighthouse, Kalsoy. Short but exposed, along a green ridge to a small lighthouse with the northern islands laid out on both sides. Requires the ferry from Klaksvík and, currently, a guide. The ferry is small and vehicle space is limited in summer.
Villingadalsfjall, Viðoy. A serious ascent to the third-highest point in the islands, with the best views north to Enniberg, one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Steep, unmarked in places, and a poor choice in cloud.
Slættaratindur. The highest point in the Faroes and, in clear weather, surprisingly straightforward from the road pass between Eiði and Gjógv — a steep but short ascent with no scrambling. In cloud it is a navigation exercise.
Saksun to Tjørnuvík. An old postal route over the ridge between two of the most photographed villages in the country, about four hours one way, and one of the few long walks here that goes somewhere rather than out and back.
Gásadalur. Barely a walk at all now that the tunnel exists, but the waterfall dropping off the cliff beside the village is the image most people arrive with, and the old path over the mountain is still there for anyone who wants to earn it.
Practical notes
Getting around. A hire car is close to essential. The sub-sea tunnels connecting the main islands are tolled automatically through the rental agreement, and the ferries to the smaller islands take vehicles but have limited capacity in summer.
When to go. June to August has the longest days, the puffins, and the most reliable ferry and bus schedules. May and September are quieter with a real chance of good weather. Winter is dark, wild and genuinely beautiful, but most of the hill walking is off the table.
Sheep. They are everywhere, including on the roads, and they have right of way in practice if not in law. During lambing in spring, some routes are closed or discouraged, and dogs are not welcome on grazing land at any time.
Cost. The Faroes are expensive, in line with Denmark and Iceland. The fees for the walks are a small line in a trip budget dominated by flights, car hire and food.
For the islands generally, see the Faroe Islands destination guide.
