Heading to Iceland? For something a little extra, dedicate a day to the Westman Islands, just off the South Coast. When the weather is good, you can take a ferry to Vestmannaeyjar (the only town) on Heimaey (the only inhabited island).
The ferry is cheap and fun ($13 for the 40-minute ride, typically four per day, each way), and from the dock, you can visit all the in-town sights on foot. The 1.5-hour self-guided walk in the Rick Steves Iceland guidebook will give you an excellent overview of Vestmannaeyjar — and a fun, two-hour bus tour of Heimaey includes all the island’s highlights.
This is an offbeat destination — with puffins, windy bluffs, a folk museum, a little mountain that was created by a volcanic eruption in 1973, and a fascinating museum built around a home that was buried in lava. (The eruption destroyed a third of the town, drove away a third of the island’s population, and made the island almost a third bigger.)
