HOFN, ICELAND
I made a mistake in Hofn.
After checking into our hotel and I stepped out into the mid-afternoon sunlight to see what the place was all about.
I got to a 'main' road pretty quickly and my options were simple: Left towards the water, or right, towards the mountains. I can walk along the water after dinner, I thought to myself. Decision made, I’m goin’ right. Man, was that… not right.
I wound up in more 'industrial' side of town, passing through the boat harbor and a neighborhood of small warehouses. It was nothing unpleasant, nothing in Iceland was so far. It was just kind of… bleak. I was starting to lose sight of the mountains and I had only taken a single picture thus far when I decided to cut across the street to a gas station. The only person I had seen on my walk was a child repeatedly kicking a soccer ball into the wall in a small schoolyard.
This place kinda sucks. I thought to myself. That was a first for Iceland, which was so far the coolest place I’d ever been. As I got closer to the gas station I started to involuntarily squinch my face. What the F*** is that smell? Oh my God. All the doors are propped open: front, back and restroom, and there's a man mopping the floor. Is this guy cleaning up a murder scene? Where the victim also shit himself? It’s the single worst assualt on any of my five senses in my entire life. He says hello in English, but I literally couldn’t speak back to him so I give a nod. I grabbed a few items including some great NA’s (they were EVERYWHERE in Iceland, even the craziest most remote spots, there’d be like some random peach Gose NA that I would kill a human for in Myrtle bar ) and checked out as fast as I could. Thank god for that Visa tap and go.
Counting the NA’s as a small win, although probably not worth betraying my nose like that, I decided to double-down and keep towards the mountains a little longer. I made it as far as the Hofn Cottages, but never found a breathtaking view of the mountains that loomed in the horizon behind them. I Snap my best friends to tell them that I’m in the most boring town in the world, then turned around and headed back to the hotel.
When I met up with the group for dinner and everyone is literally RAVING about this town. The recreation, the picturesque shoreline, the sweeping golf course in the mountains. THE SWEEPING WHAT!? I think to myself. I just spent two hours walking to the world’s shittiest smelling gas station. I’ll never get a chance to come back to this town in my life. WHY DID I GO RIGHT!?
A sweeping panorama of Hofn, Iceland at around 10pm. Shoulda gone left.
I used this image for the month of July in my 2024 Iceland calendar which was a big hit (thank you everyone!)
The midnight sun shining on a docked boat in the harbor. Hofn is known for it’s fishing, and world famous for it’s langoustine, which was to die for.
About 30 minutes into my walk through Hofn the only picture I had taken so far was of a Mercedes garbage truck with fancy tassel eyebrows.
Taken just before midnight, this was one of the few times and places in Iceland where we actually saw and enjoyed the sunset. It was only dark 3-4 hours every night and only became a beautiful bluish hue, never actually getting pitch dark. Combine that with the long day’s hikes wiping us out, we didn’t see many sunsets (I can only recall seeing three on a ten day trip.)
Hofn Cottages. The first word in the flowers says 'Velkomin' which is obviously Welcome. I can’t make out the rest, but I would assume as a college educated man that the rest would be 'to Hofn'. I did not learn a ton of Icelandic ahead of the trip, it being one of the hardest and least-used languages in the northern hemisphere - spoken almost entirely by natives - but I did learn a bit while there. 'Opid' (open) and 'Lokad' (closed) were probably the most helpful: stores, restrooms, trails, roads, etc. Don’t ask for a restroom though, they’re called water closets or WC’s in Europe and [some] places will charge you to use it!
Low laying clouds/fog behind the town, creating a the illusion of a mountain floating in the sky.
keep it simple, stupid
If you look closely that is a golf course in the distance with the most majestic backdrop I could ever imagine behind it. After dinner my aunt and I walked the same shoreline trail as the gentleman pictured. Better late than never.
Composition kinda sucks but I loved the vibe of this one.
Goodnight Hofn! I’m sorry I called you boring!