As a child I was gripped by Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea fantasy novels. Long before JK Rowling dreamt up Hogwarts, Le Guin placed a school for wizards at the centre of a sprawling archipelago. She created an unforgiving but enveloping world shaped as much by its rough landscape as by magic — cruel seas battering craggy shores, fishermen menaced by barbarian invaders who come out of the mist.
The Faroe Islands in the northeast Atlantic Ocean feel like a real-world version of Earthsea. This scattering of 18 green islands, belonging to Denmark, rise out of the sea like the backs of sleeping giants. Flying into the most westerly of the large islands, Vagar, I half expected to see Le Guin’s magnificent dragons escorting us in.
Fantasy had been a bit lacking in the yearly trips I take with three of my closest friends. We’ve known each other since we were 13 and after university pledged to take annual city breaks to blow off steam and, ideally, learn something interesting about places new to us all (so not Rome, Paris or Magaluf). We’ve collected offbeat destinations including Utrecht, Porto, Kotor, Brno and Lübeck.
Yet as we hit our forties and group banter turned to the subjects of back pain, PSA tests and how much Calpol can knock out a toddler, we wondered if the concept needed a reboot. First of all, we were knackered and a bit of hygge close to the Arctic Circle seemed welcome. Second, a flood of influencers and “experts’ guides” had dulled the spontaneity in cities, even in the less well known. So we took a timeout from tick-box holidaying to recover our mojo in the Nordic wilderness.
Visit Faroe Islands’s new driving tour has 30 different destination options
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The Faroese folk had a further solution. Launched in July, the Visit Faroe Islands tourist board’s Self-Navigating Car Adventures promise to “take away all elements of choice”. The video trailer called it “Personal — yet decision-free”. We’d be among the very first handful of tourists on the Faroes to try it.
The reality was perhaps not quite as sci-fi as the premise. The vehicle was a gaudy Google-branded hire car, and self-navigating didn’t mean self-driving. The small print revealed: “travellers rent a car and opt into a curated route.” A device in the car generates its own internet signal, and syncs with Google Maps on your device to navigate to the next, mystery spot. And you don’t know where you’re going next until you get there.
There are 30 destinations currently loaded into the system, with possible single-day experiences such as “a hike followed by a dip at a remote outdoor pool”, a church “perched over Europe’s tallest sea cliffs”, or “golden fish and chips” with a coast view.
What you need to know
Where is it? The 18 Faroe Islands are in the North Atlantic between Scotland, Norway and Iceland, and belong to DenmarkWho will love it? Adventure seekers who don’t mind a coolcationInsider tip Torshavn has a clutch of top-class restaurants, but their opening hours are inconsistent. Book early and shrewdly. And don’t be seduced by long hours of daylight — bars are open but you won’t find anywhere serving food after 9.30pm
• Things to know before visiting the Faroe Islands
Good snacks and epic views
Perhaps it was bad luck but we got none of these during our day and a half of roaming. No dip was suggested, and for lunch our robot proposed we stop at a petrol station for a hot dog — actually, this is a typical Faroese activity (I recommend the mysterious moss-coloured sauce). Rather than have us eat in the car park, though, the nav directed us down a wiggly single-track road that culminated in a lovely grassy viewpoint beside a fjord; perfect for our alfresco bite.
Neil, second from right, and his friends tucking into their roadside lunch
We were impressed by the system: a slick, thought-provoking alternative to an over-timetabled holiday. It’s a pragmatic choice too — only so many of the Faroes’ 50,000 people can be involved in helping tourists, and cafés and shops outside the capital, Torshavn, keep limited and erratic hours.
But we mixed and matched it with our own choices. On a day of glorious sunshine and temperatures of 22C — apparently almost a Faroese record — the car took us to the appealing village of Kvivik. Fermenting fish hung in houses’ doorways and there were evocative excavations of a Viking farm to scramble over, though one of us fell into a river.
Kvivik is nestled in a valley on Streymoy
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• Best things to do in the Faroe Islands
The islands are connected by underwater tunnels
Partly to give time to let Thomas’s shorts dry out in the boot, we then overrode the droid’s instructions and set off to the village of Gjogv on the island of Eysturoy, using one of the tunnels that link the archipelago. It took in a celebrated undersea roundabout, which features art and a soundscape installation you tune into via your car radio.
Gjogv, right at the northern tip of the island, is spectacular, like the Hebrides on steroids. While sun-dazzled families were splashing in the sea, we took a steep cliff path to search for puffins. The seabirds were being shy, but there were gannets, and views out to the island of Kalsoy that were Earthsea-perfect. The chap manning the local café sold us Tunnock’s teacakes, explaining that the Faroese first got hooked on British confectionery brought over by the Scottish soldiers who occupied the islands during the Second World War.
Gjogv is named after the 200-metre sea-filled gorge that runs out to the sea
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A bit of spa time might have been welcome at this point, but the sauna of our hotel in Torshavn (the Foroyar — smart, modernist, slightly antiseptic) wasn’t open, so instead we drove to another of the Faroes’ newest attractions, the Saunadypp, or sea sauna (also on Eysturoy), a simple wooden cabin opening directly onto the Skalafjordur fjord (75 minutes’ private hire for up to 12 from £145; saunadypp.fo). Set on a village’s tarmac quayside and with no staff on site, it’s not a luxury experience, but if you do brave it, and the dip in North Atlantic waters, remember a towel and, for goodness sake, hose the salt off yourself before you go back into the steam to avoid a distinctly unrelaxing bout of stinging.
There are other ways in which the Faroes are promoting a more DIY, personal approach to tourism. Heimablidni, loosely translated as home hospitality, brings tourists and locals together in a “supper club” where you pay for a home-cooked meal with local hosts. We tried it at the southern tip of Eysturoy where we were welcomed by Harriet Olafsdottir and her husband, John, plus many sheep, rabbits and rare-breed Faroese horses, onto their farm.
A smart room at the Foroyar hotel
The menu was intended to introduce us to Faroese staples and began with the most celebrated/reviled dish, fermented lamb — but Harriet, like every good Faroese citizen, makes her own version in her farm’s drying shed, and had prepped and sliced it rather like saucisson or prosciutto. If you can ignore the faint tang of ammonia, the sheer blast of umami is rather moreish. A vegetable soup followed, and excellent roast lamb (farmer’s own), creamy potatoes, then a traditional rhubarb cake (simple lunches from £25pp, byolafsdottir.com).
The chat was just as enjoyable as the food. Cans of Faroese beer gave way to excellent Italian wine and we learnt a lot about life on the edge of Europe, including the country’s increasingly diffident relationship with bossy Denmark, which takes ultimate responsibility for the Faroes’ security and foreign affairs. Harriet and John are more anglophile, preferring British TV dramas to Danish noir, although neither had heard of Martin Clunes when the Doc Martin actor visited them for a travel documentary. I was reminded of what island life is really like when I asked for the fruitiest Faroese insults and they carefully responded that it’s unwise to swear at anyone when chances are you will see them at the supermarket or petrol station within the week.
Dining out in the capital Torshavn
Our final night is back to civilisation. For all that the Faroes are a back-to-basics sort of place, Torshavn is becoming renowned for its restaurants, particularly one cluster in the old town all under the same management. The true gourmand would build a trip around these (some are fancier than others) but all pride themselves on a local, fresh, Faroese take on Nordic cuisine. At brasserie-style Aarstova, our Aberdonian waiter served a subtle fish soup followed by sharing platters of monkfish and juicy lamb (three courses £45; aarstova.fo).
Aarstova is a cosy restaurant located in the heart of the Torshavn
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From there it was just a few steps to the pub, the Danish-run Mikkeller, where most of the city seems to cram in to drink craft beers and play board games while the sun sets at around 11pm at that time of year — July — and we stayed almost until it rose again at about 3am. Our uphill walk back to the hotel was more arduous than on previous nights — can’t think why — but as day broke, the mist slowly cleared and the ocean glittered again, we all agreed that, even without dragons, these strange islands had us bewitched.
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Neil Fisher was a guest of Visit Faroes (visitfaroeislands.com), and Hotel Foroyar, which has B&B doubles from £162 (hotelforoyar.fo). A day’s car hire from £116 (62n.fo). Fly to the Faroe Islands
