Stokksnes (Vestrahorn)

Stokksnes is the detour that photographers build an East Iceland day around and everyone else can do in an hour. The turn is on the Ring Road a few minutes east of the Höfn junction, just before the Almannaskarð tunnel; a gravel road leads out along the headland to a café on private land, and the beach and dunes with the Vestrahorn ridge behind them are beyond a barrier.

The practical line, from the landowners' site today: access is by paid ticket, "1.100 kr. per person" according to the FAQ (the footer says 1,200, so expect either), free for children under 16, bought at the Viking Café between 07:30 and 22:00 or at a self-service kiosk outside those hours. Each ticket is valid once; guests of the on-site guesthouse and campsite go free. The fee also covers the film-set Viking village. Toilets at the café; no fuel, and Höfn is the nearest shop.

Time: an hour for the beach and lagoon, two if you walk the dunes to the old radar station. Quiet early and late; the mid-afternoon arrivals are the Höfn hotel crowd. In winter the road drifts and the wind on the headland is severe, so a low tide at dawn on a still day is the planner's target.

Safety: the beach faces open ocean with the same surge as the rest of the south coast, so keep off the wet sand at the surf line; the sand is soft enough to bog a 2wd, so park at the café and walk.