Hallormsstaðarskógur Forest

This was in my opinion the prettiest place in all of Iceland. I am not sure why so many Icelanders think their island has anything to be ashamed of when it comes to their reforestation efforts throughout the island. This truly is one of their success stories. It was a beautiful day when we were there. Bright blue sunny skies and quite warm. The trees were beautiful and tall and the lake was gorgeous. The creek running through the forest was quite nice and I enjoyed sitting by it surrounding by the warmth and the trees and listening to the total quietness of the area. Highway 1 is completely paved now to the area if you are traveling from the north and is worth going to spend a few days. Lovely area.

Tall trees in a forest where you would not expect one to be.

In my opinion, this is one of the prettiest places in Iceland and one of the least visited. The forest is beautiful. There is a crystal clear creek that runs into the lake and when we were there, it was bright blue skies and warm (around 70 degrees). I actually got a sun burn while hiking in the forest. To me, it was one of the highlights of visiting Iceland.

Yeah I guess this is one of the places where the general advice “If you get lost in an Icelandic forest, stand up” doesn’t apply :)
(Icelanders are notorious for calling any grouping of a couple of bushes a forest)

This is a nice place and well worth visiting. It’s Icelands biggest forest and has the countries highest trees. It has quite some natural birch and mountain ash but a lot of the forest has been planted. Planting started in 1903. The forest is watched over and kept. The keepers also keep an arboretum of around 70 tree species.

Services:
There is a camping spot and a hotel in the area along with some basic services. More services can be reached in the town of Egilsstaðir some 27 km away.

Watch out for the local dragon – Lagarfljótsormurinn.