Húsavík, Iceland's Whale Watching Capital

Description: Iceland has three main whale watching ports. Reykjavik is the convenient one, with year round tours from the Old Harbour into Faxafloi Bay. Akureyri offers calmer sheltered water in the Eyjafjordur fjord. But Husavik is the whale watching capital: the nutrient rich waters of Skjalfandi Bay draw the greatest variety of whales, with whale sightings all but guaranteed in summer and Iceland's best chance of blue whales from mid June to mid July. Tours have run here since 1995, the longest of any Icelandic port. From April to October humpbacks feed here in numbers, alongside minke whales, white beaked dolphins, and harbor porpoises. I saw humpback and minke whales here on a boat tour out of the harbor. The town also hosts geothermal sea baths and the Husavik Whale Museum, a small museum with skeletons of almost every whale species including the blue whale and the narwhal. Between the boats, the baths, and the museum, Husavik easily fills a day on a north Iceland road trip.