07 The North Atlantic Faroe Islands
The Faroe Weather Week
Seven days on eighteen islands where the forecast is a guess by lunchtime — one base, no fixed plan, and a party that agrees in advance to let the weather choose.
- Duration
- 7 days
- Party
- 2 to 6
- Season
- Late August to mid September
- From, per person
- £11,800
The route
- Vágar
- Gásadalur
- Mykines
- Tórshavn
- Kalsoy
- Gjógv
The Faroes are eighteen islands halfway between Shetland and Iceland, and the weather there changes on a timescale best measured in minutes. Most visitors build a day-by-day itinerary and spend the week watching it fall apart. This journey does not have one. It has a base, a list, and a man who has lived on Vágar all his life deciding each evening which item on the list the next day can hold.
The list
Nine things, and a party of six will usually do five or six of them: the boat to Mykines and its puffin slopes; the Kallur lighthouse on Kalsoy; the gorge harbour at Gjógv; a morning on a sheep farm at Bøur during the autumn gathering; the Gásadalur waterfall walk; Tórshavn’s old Tinganes quarter; a long table in a hjallur, the slatted shed where mutton hangs to ferment; the Sørvágsvatn cliff walk; and a sea-kayak morning if, and only if, the swell is under a metre.
Who it is for
It suits people who have travelled a lot and are a little tired of itineraries. It suits couples and small groups of friends — it is the only journey we run for a party of two. It does not suit anyone who has come specifically for Mykines, because the Mykines boat sails roughly one day in three, and we will not take a booking conditional on it.
Why not the helicopter
The Atlantic Airways helicopter service is subsidised, cheap, and exists so that people who live on Mykines and Svínoy can get to a doctor. In summer it fills with visitors. We decided in 2019 not to put any party on it, and Óli agreed before we had finished the sentence.
Day by day
The shape of it
Day 1
Vágar
Land at the airport, drive fifteen minutes, and that is the travelling done. One base for the whole week.
Days 2–6
Wherever the weather is
Five days with a list of nine outings — Mykines by boat, Kalsoy's lighthouse, the Gjógv gorge, a sheep farm, a long table in Tórshavn — and Óli picks each one the evening before.
Day 7
Vágar
Out on the afternoon flight. If Mykines has not happened yet and the sea is calm, we try it that morning.
What the price covers
Included
What £11,800 buys
- Six nights in one house above the harbour at Sørvágur, with a cook
- Óli Joensen for all seven days, and his boat when the sea allows
- Every ferry, tunnel toll and helicopter-free crossing
- A heimablídni dinner — a meal in a family's own home
- Waterproofs that are actually waterproof, on loan for the week
Not included
And, pointedly, what it doesn't
- Flights to Vágar, usually via Copenhagen or Edinburgh
- The government helicopter. It is for islanders. We do not book seats on it.
- A promise of Mykines — the boat runs perhaps one day in three
- A daily itinerary in advance, which is the entire idea