7-Day Itinerary for Exploring the Faroe Islands

Eighteen islands, one underwater roundabout, and a road network that connects almost all of it without a single ferry crossing required for most of the trip. The Faroes finished the Sandoy subsea tunnel in December 2023, which means the itinerary below barely touches a boat except where the sea is genuinely the only way in.

Day 1: Arrival at Vágar Airport & Gásadalur

Land at Vágar Airport and pick up your rental car immediately, public transport here is thin and a car is close to mandatory for this itinerary. Drive the short distance to Gásadalur, a village of about a dozen residents that was accessible only by a steep hour-and-a-half cliff path until a single-lane tunnel opened in 2004. The tunnel itself is unlit end to end, keep your headlights on. From the Gásadalur parking area it is a two-minute walk to Múlafossur waterfall, which drops more than 30 metres directly into the Atlantic and is the single most photographed spot in the country for good reason. Stay near Sørvágur or Miðvágur on Vágar for easy access back to the airport area later in the week.

Day 2: Sørvágur & Mykines

Spend the morning in Sørvágur itself, a working fishing village with an old church and none of the polish of a purpose-built tourist stop. In the afternoon, take the passenger ferry out to Mykines, the westernmost inhabited island and the country’s best-known puffin colony, reachable only by boat or a seasonal helicopter, no road or tunnel reaches it. The crossing runs about 45 minutes and the boat carries roughly 50 people, so summer sailings sell out days or weeks ahead, book before you land in the Faroes if you want a guaranteed seat. A mandatory hiking fee applies to walk out to the puffin cliffs, roughly 400 DKK if paid online in advance, more if paid on arrival. Note that the path out to the Mykines lighthouse on the small holm beyond the main island is closed for the entire 2026 season, so do not plan around reaching it. Puffin season runs roughly May through August, with mid-June to mid-August the most reliable window, and the ferry itself cancels in rough weather often enough that you should never schedule Mykines for your last full day in the country.

Day 3: Streymoy - Tórshavn, Kirkjubøur & Tjørnuvík

Head to Tórshavn, the capital, and walk the Tinganes peninsula, the old parliament seat with turf-roofed wooden buildings that has functioned as a government site for over a thousand years. The National Museum and the Nordic House both reward an hour each. In the afternoon, drive south to Kirkjubøur to see the unfinished 13th-century Magnus Cathedral and the Roykstovan farmhouse, parts of which date back roughly 900 years and are still lived in by the same family line. In the evening, cross to the north side of Streymoy to Tjørnuvík, a black and red sand beach framed by the Risin og Kellingin sea stacks just offshore, best seen in the low evening light.

Day 4: Eysturoy - Gjógv, Klaksvík & the Undersea Roundabout

Drive to Eysturoy via the Eysturoy tunnel, 11.4 kilometres long and home to the world’s first underwater roundabout, a genuinely strange thing to drive through and worth the toll on its own. In Gjógv, walk down to the natural gorge harbour that gives the village its name and its most photographed feature. Continue to Klaksvík on Borðoy, the country’s second-largest town and a real working fishing port rather than a preserved-for-tourists version of one, with its own striking modern church. The subsea tunnels charge a toll, expect roughly 75 DKK one way for the Eysturoy and Sandoy tunnels if paying without a local subscription, cheaper for the older Vágar and Norðoy tunnels.

Day 5: Vestmanna Bird Cliffs

Book the boat tour to the Vestmanna bird cliffs, which departs from Vestmanna village on the northwest coast of Streymoy, not from Tórshavn itself despite some tours picking up passengers there. The trip runs about two hours and gets you close to nesting guillemots, fulmars, and puffins along dramatic sea cliffs and grassy stacks, weather allowing, expect to pay in the 40 to 65 euro range. Tours run only May through September, outside that window the cliffs are still there but nobody is running boats. Spend the rest of the day around western Streymoy or head back toward Tórshavn for dinner, the harbourside restaurants here do better seafood than most of what you will find further out on the smaller islands.

Day 6: Suðuroy

Suðuroy is the southernmost island and the one part of this itinerary that still requires a ferry, a roughly two-hour crossing from Tórshavn, since no tunnel reaches this far south yet. Visit Sumba at the island’s southern tip for dramatic coastal cliffs and old turf-roofed houses, then head to Vágseiði and the coastal path near Fámjin, a village with fewer visitors than almost anywhere else covered in this itinerary and a strong claim to some of the best sea-stack scenery in the country. Suðuroy rewards slowness, this is not a place to rush between five named stops in an afternoon, pick two and actually walk the coastline.

Day 7: Departure from Vágar Airport

Ferry or fly back to Vágar depending on how your Suðuroy day worked out, return your rental car, and use any spare hours for a last look at Sørvágsvatn, the large lake that appears to hang above the ocean from certain viewpoints near Miðvágur, one of the more photographed landscapes in the country and only a short detour from the airport road.

Important Information for Tourists

Visa Requirements: Citizens of the Schengen area, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most other visa-exempt-for-Schengen countries can enter the Faroe Islands visa-free for up to 30 days, though the Faroes are not themselves part of Schengen or the EU, so check your specific nationality’s rule rather than assuming Schengen coverage applies automatically.

Currency: The Faroese króna is pegged one-to-one with the Danish krone and the two are used interchangeably; cards are accepted almost everywhere, including small village shops, but keep some cash for the Mykines hiking fee if paying on arrival.

Language: Faroese is the official language, Danish is taught in schools and widely understood, and English gets you through nearly every tourist interaction without difficulty.

Weather and driving: Weather changes fast and without warning, pack real waterproofs rather than a light rain jacket. Fog closes mountain roads and cancels ferries and the Mykines boat with little notice, so build at least one buffer day into the back half of any Faroese itinerary, ideally around whichever day involves a boat crossing.