Svinafelljukul is a special glacier that looks almost like a surface of another planet. Interestingly, this is where the movie ‘Interstellar‘ shot Dr.Mann’s planet! The site might be a bit neglected by tourists as two other more famous trails Svartifoss and Skaftafell are just nearby!

Location

On my day 11, I had a crazy itinerary driving from Seydisfjordur all the way to Vik (!) Point F is where Jukulsarlon is, and the first red marker after point F is Skaftafell.

Right before you see Skaftafell you’d see some impressive glacier even in distance. And that, is actually Svinafelljukul.

Svinafelljukul (very special!)

The glacier is where many people take their glacier hiking tours.

But for regular visitors, there will be a point where you’d see no road and it’d be just too dangerous to go ahead (unless you know rock climbing and can jump for a certain distance).  This was more or less my stop.

Like most places in Iceland, there’s no fences and you are on your own to be careful and safe.

When I was thinking what would happen if I died here and nobody knew, I found out that there were two young germans who died/went missing here. Very sad. Again, there’s nothing you have to die to see.

And my final destination of this crazy day was Skaftafell. Now looking back, I should have stayed here for the night even though I have to pay extra for camping (The camping card doesn’t work in this campsite…the nearest and decent campsite is in Vik) 

Skaftafell 

I didn’t have enough time for checking out Svartifoss, where I would go next time hopefully. And it’s a nice walk to see Skaftafell glacier. The path is flat and easy.

Although personally Skaftafell is less special than Svinafelljukul.

I don’t know if I’m being biased…  but this looked just ‘okay’ to me. Haha!

The information center at Skaftafell has free toilets and wi-fi. I think if you don’t need to rush, you can spend more time here to visit Svartifoss and many longer treks from here too!