There is a road in Iceland that most people never take.

Forty five minutes north of Reykjavík, the main road splits. One direction leads into a tunnel beneath the water. The other follows the edge of a fjord for 62 kilometres, past mountains and waterfalls and a silence that most of Iceland's tourists never find. In 1998, when the tunnel opened, the fjord road became optional. Almost overnight, one of the most dramatic stretches of landscape in the country became somewhere only locals and the genuinely curious bother with.

That fjord is Hvaljörður. Whale Fjord. And at the far end of it, on the edge of the North Atlantic, sit eight natural pools of geothermal water that have been named by Time Out as one the best thing to do in the world.

It is where every Wooom retreat begins.

A thousand years of history in eight pools

The Hvammsvík estate has been inhabited for over a thousand years. The first recorded settler was a Viking named Hvamm Þórir, who arrived around AD 900. His settlement is documented in Landnámabók, the Icelandic Book of Settlers, one of the oldest written records of the Norse world. He chose this particular spot for reasons that are still obvious today: a natural harbour, geothermal water rising from the ground, and the particular protected quality of a fjord that faces the ocean but holds off its worst moods.

Viking settlers in Iceland worshipped Thor, Odin and Freyja, and built Hofs, sacred temples, for their rituals. Hvammsvík had one. The estate has recently added a new Temple, designed as a place that welcomes all faiths, built on the same ground where those early ceremonies took place. The past and the present sit easily alongside each other here.

A Viking settled here in AD 900. He chose this spot for the natural harbour, the geothermal spring and the particular shelter of the fjord. A thousand years later, the reasons feel just as obvious.

Then came the war.

During World War II, Hvalfjörður was requisitioned by the Allied forces as their naval headquarters in Iceland. The estate at Hvammsvík became a military base. At the height of operations, nearly 40,000 soldiers were stationed in the fjord, with over 200 ships anchored in its waters. The fjord, so quiet now, once carried the weight of a war. After the war, the fjord returned to silence. The tunnel in 1998 made it more silent still. And then, in 2022, the family opened the hot springs to the public for the first time. The world noticed fairly quickly.

What Hvammsvík actually is

It is not the Blue Lagoon. That needs saying, because the Blue Lagoon is the reference point most people carry when they think of Icelandic hot springs, and Hvammsvík is its opposite in almost every way.

The Blue Lagoon is engineered and polished. It is beautiful and it delivers exactly what it promises. Hvammsvík is raw. Eight pools cut into the rock on the edge of the North Atlantic shoreline, fed by geothermal water rising from 1,400 metres beneath the ground and by the tides of the Atlantic itself. At high tide, the lowest pools merge with the ocean. The water level and temperature change throughout the day. The pool you are sitting in at noon is different from the pool you are sitting in at sunset.

At high tide, the lowest pools merge with the ocean. The water level and temperature change throughout the day. Nothing here is fixed. Everything moves with the tide.

The temperatures range from around ten degrees in the ocean pools to forty two degrees in the original geothermal spring furthest from the water's edge. Most people work their way up through the pools and spend longest in the hottest one, which is also the most ancient, the one that has been here since long before any of the structures around it.

Harbor seals surface in the fjord regularly. White tailed eagles are present in Hvalfjörður. The estate spans 1,200 acres along the fjord shoreline. The mountains rise on both sides of the water. The steam from the pools rises into air that smells of salt and cold stone.

In winter, when the sky is clear, the northern lights appear above the pools. The image of warm water, cold air, and green light moving across the sky above Hvalfjörður is one that people who have seen it tend to describe as singular.

Practical information

Hvammsvík is 45 minutes from Reykjavík. Take Route 1 north and turn right onto Route 47 before the Hvalfjördur Tunnel. Do not take the tunnel. Book in advance as capacity is intentionally limited. Open daily. Temperatures in the pools range from ocean cold to 42 degrees. Stormur Bistro on site serves light Nordic dishes.

The fjord nobody takes

The drive to Hvammsvík is itself part of the experience, and it is the thing that most guides forget to mention.

Hvalfjörður stretches 62 kilometres inland. The road around it passes through landscape that has almost no tourist infrastructure precisely because the tunnel made it unnecessary to come here. No coach stops. No designated viewpoints with car parks and cafes. Just the road, the water, the mountains and the occasional farm.

The fjord is named for a whale. The legend says a farmer was cursed and transformed into one, and that the whale's enormous body is what shaped the fjord as it settled into the land. Iceland does not distinguish cleanly between myth and history. Both live in the same landscape. Both feel equally present in Hvalfjörður, which is eerie and beautiful and quieter than anywhere forty five minutes from a capital city has any right to be.

The folklore goes further. Hvammsvík is home to Staupasteinn, a three metre rock formation said to be one of Iceland's best known elf dwellings. Stories of hidden people have shaped how Icelanders have moved through this land for centuries. Whether you believe in elves or not, there is something about Hvalfjörður that makes the scepticism feel slightly less solid than it did when you left Reykjavík.

Iceland does not distinguish cleanly between myth and history. Both live in the same landscape. Both feel equally present in Hvalfjörður.

Why Wooom begins here

When we designed the Wooom retreat, we knew that arrival mattered. Not just where you were going, but how you got there. The transition from daily life to Kleif Farm needed to be gradual, not sudden. The couple who step off a plane in Reykjavík and arrives at the farmhouse are still carrying the week. The couple who has spent two hours in warm water beside the North Atlantic, watching the steam rise and the seals surface and the mountains on both sides of the fjord, has already begun to arrive somewhere different.

That is why we stop at Hvammsvík on the way to Kleif Farm. Not as a tourist attraction to tick off. As a threshold. A place that does something to people before the retreat has even formally begun.

The pools at Hvammsvík are warm in the way that only geothermal water can be — a deep, mineral warmth that is felt in the body rather than just on the surface. The cold air above the water. The smell of the fjord. The particular quality of doing nothing with good reason, with the mountains there, with the person beside you, with nowhere to be for the rest of the day.

In 1,100 years of recorded history on this spot, people have been finding reasons to stay. We think you will understand why the moment you arrive.