In order to visit the Faroe Islands you have to really want to get here.  522 miles east of Norway and 431 miles west of Iceland, this windswept Danish outpost is the embodiment of remote.  Sheep have free reign here and (more than once) we were stopped dead in our tracks to let them pass on the highway.

The same goes for horses, geese, dogs…if an animal lives here, it’s allowed to roam freely (so it goes without saying to DRIVE WITH CAUTION, especially when exiting tunnels!).

Almost completely devoid of trees, the Faroe Islands are a blindingly green collection of 18 islands, many interconnected by a network of undersea tunnels.  It’s super-easy to get almost anywhere accessible by road in under 2 hours.  The longest drive we had was 1.5 hours (from Torshavn to Gjogv).  There are some destinations a bit farther out in the Nordoyggjar region apparently worth seeing (note a hike on Vidoy that we wanted to do but we ran out of time), but in general, you can expect to spend no more than a few hours driving a day during your visit.

Other islands (including Mykines) are accessible via ferry or helicopter and will most likely require an entire day dedicated to visiting.  Check out our guide to Mykines HERE.

I mention the driving thing because we came into this trip hot off the heels of our last visit to Iceland, where it can literally take you a full 7-hour-day to go from one destination to another.  When we first started planning our trip to the Faroe Islands, we assumed we’d need to book hotels in various regions of the country in order to access it all. 

NOT THE CASE IN THE FAROE ISLANDS. You can pick one spot and keep camp there and happily see most of what the Faroe Islands has to offer by doing day-trips.

The small nature of the islands (and tiny population—the 2018 World Population Review census accounts for 49,489 residents) is what makes the Faroe Islands such a unique and charming place to visit.  No matter what time of year, you will see SIGNIFICANTLY smaller crowds compared to Iceland.  In the four days we were in the Faroe Islands, we encountered fewer than a dozen native English speakers.  The largest crowds we saw were of Faroese descent  (we visited in the heart of the summer during St. Olaf’s Day celebrations—a popular holiday that brings all Faroese together into the heart of Torshavn for 3 days in July) and that was literally only during the holiday.  The rest of the time, every place we stopped was sleepy, still and populated by nature.

Read More About the Faroe Islands: