Skógar Folk Museum
Skógar Museum (Skógasafn) is one of Iceland's most celebrated regional museums, sitting directly beside Skógafoss waterfall on the South Coast. It holds over 18,000 artefacts spread across three sections: a folk museum, an open-air village of reconstructed turf houses and historical buildings, and a technical museum covering transport and communication. The collection was built over decades by local historian Þórður Tómasson, who founded the museum in 1949 and curated it until his passing in 2022 at the age of 100.
Three Museums in One, Built by One Man Over Seven Decades
Þórður Tómasson founded Skógar Museum in 1949 as a small collection in a school basement, driven by a determination to preserve the material culture of the South Coast before it disappeared. Over the following 73 years he steadily expanded it into one of the most comprehensive regional museums in Iceland, personally curating exhibits on fishing, agriculture, textiles, natural history, and daily life from the Viking Age onward. The indoor Folk Museum holds more than 15,000 artefacts displayed across three floors, including traditional national costumes, fishing equipment, household tools, old Bibles and personal belongings, and the centrepiece of the fisheries section: the eight-oared fishing boat Pétursey, built in 1855 and in active use until 1946. The South Coast's lack of natural harbours meant boats had to be launched directly into the open North Atlantic surf, and the museum tells this story in detail.
The Open-Air Museum is a reconstructed village of turf houses and historical buildings gathered from across southern Iceland, showing different periods of Icelandic architectural history. Turf construction was the standard building method in Iceland from the Settlement era until the mid-20th century, and the collection here includes a cowshed dating to 1880, a storehouse from 1830, and a traditional baðstofa, the communal living and sleeping room that was the heart of Icelandic farm life. The Technical Museum documents the development of transport and communication in Iceland during the 19th and 20th centuries, including early motor vehicles, farm machinery, and telecommunications equipment. A café and souvenir shop are on site.
Skógar Museum is located in the village of Skógar on Route 1, directly beside Skógafoss waterfall, about 150 kilometres east of Reykjavik and 30 kilometres west of Vík. Entry covers all three sections. The museum is open year-round with extended summer hours, typically 9am to 6pm from June to August. Check skogasafn.is for current admission prices and opening times. The museum is an easy addition to any South Coast day trip and pairs naturally with Skógafoss, the Fimmvörðuháls trailhead, and the nearby Sólheimajökull glacier.
