Field Notes · Island
The Faroe weather problem
Rain every second day, fog on the tops in minutes, a ferry to the puffins that sails or does not. The Faroes are the place where a plan is a list of alternatives, and A Thousand Trips was built partly to explain why.
The Faroe Islands sit in the North Atlantic at 62 degrees north where the warm water from the south meets the cold air from the north, and the result is weather that does not settle. The Climate Simulator shows fourteen rain days in June and twenty-two in January, and the number undersells the character: the rain arrives in showers that move across the islands in twenty minutes, followed by sun, followed by fog on the tops, followed by wind that closes the cliff walks. A day here contains all the weather.
The plan as a list of alternatives
The traditional itinerary, one place per day, fails in the Faroes because the place is often in cloud when you arrive. The plan that works has two entries for every day: a cliff walk or a boat for the clear hours, and a village, a tunnel, a museum or a drive for the wet ones, with the decision made at breakfast from the window and the forecast. The famous places are all short walks from a road, which makes this easier than it sounds: the hanging lake at Sørvágsvatn is forty minutes from the car park, Gásadalur is a viewpoint by the road, and Gjógv is a village with a gorge you can see from the café.
The ferry and the helicopter
Mykines, with the puffins, is the best day and the least reliable. The ferry sails in summer on most days and not on all; it sells out weeks ahead; and when the swell rises it does not go. The subsidised helicopter is the alternative, cheaper than the ferry and one of the finest views in the country, and it too depends on the fog. A Thousand Trips models a five-day trip in June with Mykines on day two and a buffer on day five, and the completion rate for the puffins is a little over half with the buffer and about one in five without. The islands are where the buffer day earns its keep.
The cliffs
The danger in the Faroes is not the weather; it is the combination of the weather and the edge. The grass runs to the cliff and the cliff is undercut, and people arrive underdressed, walk to a wet edge and lean out for the photograph. The villages now charge for the walks and mark them, and the fee is the best deal in the country. The rule is a step back from where the picture wants you.
Why go, then
Because the weather is the beauty. The light that comes after a shower over Kalsoy, the fog lifting off the sea stacks, the wind that flattens the grass on Slættaratindur: a dry, still Faroes would be a different and lesser place. The trip that works accepts that, books the extra day and decides at breakfast.
Questions people ask
Is there a dry month?
No. June has the fewest rain days at fourteen and the longest light; it is the best month and it rains every second day.
Will the Mykines ferry sail?
In summer, on most days, but not all; it sells out and the helicopter is the alternative when it flies. Book the ferry before the flight and hold a second day for it.
