Iceland's geothermal pools out in the countryside

Iceland's bathing culture does not stop at the ring road, and this list stays with the pools that need a drive, a track or a river crossing to reach. Some are concrete tubs sunk into a farm field, one is a nineteenth-century swimming pool, one is a hole in the ground with no changing room at all. Each entry says how you get there, what the water is actually like, and what the place does and does not provide.

Places in this collection

• Landbrotalaug — A man-made hot pot at the eastern end of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, tiny enough that two people is a crowd, with a larger and muddier pool…
• Secret Lagoon — Iceland's oldest swimming pool, in use since 1891 and known to Icelanders for most of that time simply as Gamla Laugin, the old pool. The w…
• Laugarás Lagoon — The newest bathing site on the Golden Circle, built near the bank of the Hvítá in the small village of Laugarás rather than in a town. It i…
• Hoffell — A cluster of small tubs set in beds of rock on a farm about 20 kilometres west of Höfn, fed by geothermal water and looking out at the moun…
• Landmannalaugar — The hot pool sits at the edge of the campsite in Fjallabak Nature Reserve, where a warm stream meets cold water and bathers move upstream o…

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