Four grounding experiences in the Faroe Islands

I went kayaking with a young couple on day three of exploring the Faroe Islands (a small archipelago in the North Atlantic midway between Iceland, Scotland and Norway), and they said something that I was struggling to pinpoint my entire stay. “We just feel so calm,” they said. I agreed. The Faroe Islands are, on the surface, incredibly beautiful. The gasp-inducing views never cease, and as you drive from island to island (in underwater tunnels), you are continually confronted with bold and verdant landscapes. 

However, these views are not vastly different from one bend to another. Sure, there are certain rock formations in the sea that dramatically speak to the power of the ocean to shape sculptures from stone, but you wouldn’t be wrong if, at some point, you looked up and said, is it me, or is this roughly the same view as yesterday? And yet, that’s almost the most intrinsic part of this experience. The way the unchanging environment becomes a comforting presence, assuredly leading you to the experience of peace. 

While I think this can be achieved through whatever means you choose to visit the Faroe Islands, these four experiences felt like invitations not just to slow down, but to become intimate with a place that is quiet, calm and immensely powerful, exactly the way I imagine peace to feel. 

Book a mystery tour

The mystery tour is an app-based navigation experience created by Visit Faroe Islands. It's ingenious. You rent a car and are given a QR code that takes you to a website. Initially, you’re given a directive: don’t deviate from the path the app sets for you. There are typically five stops on one full day of experiences, and you are given one at a time. Once your device triggers that you’ve gotten to the recommended stop, it will allow you to press next, revealing the next destination. Karin Visith, a sommelier at Roks in Tórshavn, said to me, “I think Faroese people should do it.”

Before you start panicking, take a deep breath. It's romantic the way it’s set up. As if the Faroe Islands themselves have invited you on the most thoughtful date you could imagine. A date designed to surprise and delight, but also to reveal little bits of itself along the way, slowly and assuredly seducing you until you’ve given over all sense that you ever knew what was best (not in all things, just here, in this place).  

The experience was created because, as in so many beguiling places, tourists kept flocking to the same small village, the same dramatic coastline, the same small bakery. And the truth is, the Faroe Islands are one incredible vista after another. One charming little town after another, and allowing the Islands to introduce themselves to you makes the experience far more intimate, far more Faroese than you could ever imagine. 

On my two days of mystery adventures, there were stops where I didn’t see another person. Just me and the vast sea, the sharp edges of verdant cliffs and a smattering of sheep. On one stop, there was a clear invitation to swim in the North Atlantic. A ladder that disappeared into the kelp. I considered for a full five minutes whether or not I could go naked. I didn’t have to. I had a swimsuit and a little pack towel. There was a bathroom for me to change. But there was something alluring about the possibility of a naked swim in the North Atlantic that I just couldn’t shake, a vestige of a former me who wouldn’t have hesitated. 

And this is what you’ll find on the mystery tour. Invitations. One after another, they fill your day, and you get to decide how you encounter them. Do I climb to the top of this bluff as suggested? Huffing and puffing against the wind and the burning in my thighs. The answer is yes, you do, or I did. Along the way, I saw a Faroese family, three sons, a mom and a dad urging their overexcited boys up the increasingly steep hill. I saw a mother and her daughter, clearly regulars to this trail, getting in their workout. They warned me of the wind. It's not too far, they said, be careful of the wind, they said. I like it, I answered. They laughed at me. As if I didn’t know what was in store. I didn’t. It was more powerful than I expected at the top, but it was worth it. The kind of wind that blows the cobwebs from your lungs and brain and leaves you not breathless (too obvious) but clear. 

I can’t choose a favorite stop on the tour. Was it the sushi place in Runavik? Etika, I highly recommend. Or was it the post-sushi walk I took around Lake Toftavan? I loved these two experiences together. Not far from one another, they felt like the perfect pairing. Lake Toftavatn is protected from the ubiquitous and constantly grazing sheep, so the tiny sub-alpine lichens and mosses are allowed to grow, giving pink pops of color to the endless green glow. 

Sample the tasting menus in Tórvshan

When you first start dating someone and they invite you over to cook for you, it's like a window into their creativity, generosity and what they’re like when relaxing at home. Sampling the tasting menus at three of Tórvshan’s most celebrated restaurants felt like being invited in, offered flavors and pairings with such earnest excitement that you couldn’t help but love it. I imagined the chefs behind the wall, watching the customers and delighting in every sigh and exclamation of wonder.  

Paz was awarded two Michelin stars in 2025 and offers a 16-course tasting menu with wine pairings filled with items farmed and foraged exclusively from the Faroe Islands. My favorite was the snails in wild coriander oil topped with Faroese flowers. It was bright, fresh and tasted of a sweet sunny day. It's a small restaurant with an open kitchen, so the atmosphere felt elegant but relaxed, upscale but never stuffy. 

Roks, the restaurant I mentioned earlier, is housed in a traditional building with a turf roof. It's rustic and casual, but no less delicious. They have divers to gather urchins every day and wine pairings from Visith, who spends her mornings discussing Faroese food with artists. 

And finally, I went to Katrina Christiansen. Housed in a building that has stood since the 18th century, maybe longer, and been home to many Faroese people who’ve made local history books. The design and details echo this long history, filled with art, repurposed furniture layered in a way that reflects all the different iterations of this one little house. And the food was deeply Faroese. Lamb and salmon, and gorgeous bread that I chose to pair with the beer offering. I picked the beer because each of the choices was brewed on the Faroe Islands, and a couple were brewed specifically for Katarina Christansen. My favorite was the fizzy raspberry beer paired with a whipped cream and dried berry dessert.  

Go plein air painting with Pól Skarðenni

There is perhaps no other experience of a place more intimate than making art in it and of it. Pól Skarðenni is a Faroese plein air painter. He’s soft spoken, encouraging and an incredible artist. Pól took me (and he’ll do the same for you) in his van to Oyndarfjørður to paint for the day. The locations will change with the weather and your own requests, if you have them. Pól set up two easels, showed me how to prep my canvas, filled my palette with color, and pointed out mistakes I was making all along the way. It was wonderful. 

I spent the day noticing the pops of yellow in the grass, the way the stripes of rock on the bluffs were more purple than brown. I contemplated the living roof of the little white church and the shape of the stream that cut through town. At midday, he served coffee and homemade buns with cheese and jam (also homemade). Throughout the day, friends and neighbors stopped by to ask what we were doing, admire our progress, and praise the artist. I don’t speak any word of Faroese, but the conversations were lovely to listen to. Congenial, interested. Creativity does not feel like a pulse in the Faroe Islands, but like a stream. It meanders and watches and flows through the islands, hydrating everyone. 

Kayak the fjords

On my last full day in the Faroe Islands, I went kayaking with Sea Kayak Faroe Islands, run by Sigurð Davidsen and his partner, Vanya. While kayaking only thrives during the very short summer season, it is available in the Faroes. Davidsen knows every coastline and every swell. And he knows where the caves are. I’ve paddled through crystal clear lakes and oceans. I’ve paddled among icebergs and whales, but I’ve never paddled into a sea cave in a North Atlantic cliff. 

The sea in the fjords is calmer than in open water, but as we paddled toward the ocean, the waves gathered, forcing me to focus more on my paddling. I felt a wave of fear and did a bit of box breathing to ensure that my body remained relaxed, flowing with the swells instead of fighting against them. But the same was not true in the caves. The water calmed. Small red and green lichens grew across the rock, tiny ribbons of color threaded through the dark. Inside, there was an eerie glow that dimmed the farther back we went. The acoustics were cathedral-like. At one point, Vanya sang a Faroese ballad, her voice filling the cave, accompanied by the reverberations of the ocean deep in the earth. 

We sat in awe at something at once so powerful and so peaceful. This is what it means to accept, to sink into the flow of life and rise to meet it, with art, with wonder, with the sense that we are guests who have been invited in. 

Sarah Stocking was a guest of Visit Faroe Islands. Lonely Planet does not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.