Where are the Faroe Islands? Six months ago I had no idea what, or where, the Faroe Islands were. They're a group of 18 islands (technically a volcanic archipelago) in the middle of the Norwegian Sea, just between Iceland, Norway, and Scotland. Sort of like a mini Hawaii in the Atlantic. The islands are legally under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Denmark, though they have their own government, are not part of the EU, and have a closer connection to Icelandic and Norwegian culture. In fact, it was Norwegian Vikings who took power over the islands around the end of the first millenium, before which it was sparsely populated by Irishmen for a few hundred years. It's a joke that the seasick Vikings couldn't make it all the way to Iceland or Greenland, and so they just stayed on the Faroes to fish and raise sheep. The idea When looking for a travel destination for my weeklong travel break, I wanted a place with unspoiled nature. I thought about Greenland, Svalbard, Norway, and Iceland, but when reading about the Faroe Islands over Christmas, something sparked in me. I got really excited about going, although I thought it might be a crazy idea to go there alone during late winter. I shelved the idea for a while. After being in Copenhagen for a few weeks, I decided to take the leap and buy my plane ticket. Suddenly it became real, and I was excited enough to figure out the logistics of the trip: booking rooms on Airbnb, renting a car, and reading up on the hikes the islands have to offer. If you decide to take to the Faroe Islands, which I highly recommend if you like to experience rugged nature, then there are a few things I learned, sometimes the hard way, during my journey that might help you. Staying in a Faroese home Airbnb is where it's at. I would not have gotten a good feel of Faroese culture if I didn't rent rooms from Faroese people. I stayed in two places during my trip: two nights in the capital city of Tórshavn, and two nights in the northeastern village of Norðragøta. Although the dramatic nature was my biggest selling point for going, the best part of my trip was was drinking coffee and chatting with my Faroese hosts. In Norðragøta, my host was the founder of G! Festival, which is the largest music festival in the Faroe Islands and happens each summer near his home. Jón had great wisdom to share, and told me stories about Faroese weather, history, and politics. He also pointed me towards a few great Faroese music artists, which came in handy on the drive. See the section at the bottom of this post for more on Faroese music. In Tórshavn, I stayed with an architect who was a delight to chat with over a big pot of coffee. In the morning, I saw her leave and figured she was going to work, but then she came back with a bag full of fresh rolls and breakfast food. We had a nice conversation over breakfast. Like many Faroese people, she spent a good amount of time in Denmark where she studied and worked in Copenhagen for over 20 years. Articulating the difference between the Faroes and Denmark, she used the word "dramatic" to describe the Faroese landscape and culture. It's hard to reduce something as complex as culture to a single word. Nevertheless, the roughness of the cliffs, the waterfalls turned upside down by the wind, and the timbre of Eivør's electronic folk ballads did evoke intense feelings. Johanna is planning to move to a small city soon where she's thinking of building her own house with a shipping container. I hope she does and that she rents a room there. Renting a car and getting around Most of the cars in Europe have manual transmissions, including Faroe Islands. Manuals are not the only option but they're the gentlest on the wallet and it made the trip even more of an adventure to get experience with a manual. The road systems in the Faroes underwent a recent expansion, so even remote villages are well connected with nice roads. There are a few things that made it different, though. Some of the smaller roads and tunnels are one lane but allow two-way traffic. How is this possible? asked the frightened Zade as a truck approached him in a tunnel. You see, there are passing places every ~100 meters, where you pull over to yield to the cars with right of way. Right of way is typically well marked by signs before the tunnel, but you should always yield to large vehicles, since they are too large to pull over. Additionally, uphill traffic has right of way. Failing to find first gear several times was an exercise in coping with embarrassment, but all in all, I think renting a car was well worth it. I got to see so much more of the islands than I would have otherwise. The public transportation system is surprisingly extensive, but the buses between villages simply don't come frequently enough during the winter to give you much freedom. The weather There's a saying that if you want to don't like the weather while you're on the Faroe Islands, just wait twenty minutes and the weather will change. This is barely an exaggeration. I saw rain, snow, freezing rain, fog, and wind, oh the wind... The Faroe Islands greeted me with 40mph winds. My rain jacket whipped like a flag in a hurricane. The rain droplets literally stung my face. I stumbled with each gust. The wind was not nearly this bad the whole time, but gusts on the mountains could frequently get up to 20 meters/second at this time of year, even if just for a few seconds. The winds are not nearly so bad in the summer. It's a great idea to download the app called Windy. It gives very accurate local hourly forecasts for wind speeds and gusts, along with temperature and tides. Definitely download the app and check your destinations before heading out just so you know what to expect. Make sure to also bring layers. The Faroe Islands never really get too cold; in late February it was normally around 2 to 5 degrees C (high 30s Fahrenheit). But layers are good because the wind chill can be brutal at times, while sometimes you might want to shed layers during a long hike. One more pro tip: waterproof gear. My waterproof rain jacket and backpack cover were life savers on hikes. Make sure you also have waterproof shoes or boots. I underestimated the importance of this, and within the first kilometer of my hike, my hiking boots were completely saturated with cool (luckily not cold) water. Eating Faroese Food The most famous of Faroese restaurants is called KOKS. It just got a Michelin star recently. Unfortunately KOKS is closed on Monday when I was there, so I wasn't able to make it. But that was no reason to be sad. There's a group of four restaurants in the heart of Tórshavn that each articulate Faroese cuisine in different ways. Ræst, for example, features traditional dried and fermented lamb and fish. I heard that the food is the most authentic of all restaurants here, but that some of the pungent flavors can be hard to get used to. Try Barbara to get full from the world-renowned Faroese fish. Aarstova prepares Faroese foods using a French cooking tradition. I went to Aarstova since it was the only one I could reserve a dinner for one on a Monday night. They each have online booking. I started my five course meal with a gin and tonic. It started out with While Aarstova was great, it's not something I could eat every day. A five course meal costs 750DKK, around $100. For day to day eating, I bought ingredients at a grocery store. They had some great smoked salmon which I put on top of rugbrød, Danish rye bread. I took these sandwiches with me on drives, and also took some chocolate, granola, and a thermos of hot tea with me on hikes. Listening to Faroese music Each July the Faroe Islands has its largest music festival in the town of Gota. I was fortunate enough to stay with the founder and chair of the G! Festival at his home in Gota for two nights. He introduced me to some of the Faroe's best artists, including Eivør. I downloaded her album and then played it on repeat as I drove around the islands. She started out singing more traditional Faroese and Icelandic ballads, then transitioned to a more modern pop vibe, singing in English. Last year she came out with two albums, Bridges and Slør. The latter is a mesmerizing album where she reconnects with her folk roots, singing only in Faroese yet incorporating a dark electronic feel. She describes the recurring themes of this album to be "wanderlust and the longing for freedom," making it the right kind of music to soak in as you wind around the dramatic rocky slopes, passing waterfalls and rough blue seas. How to get 4G LTE literally everywhere, affordably.
I sat next to a Faroese man named Hans on the plane. No big surprise that he was Faroese - I was one of the only non-Faroese people onboard. He could tell that I was obviously not a local- perhaps because he had never seen me before, or perhaps because of the broken Danish I used to respond to the Faroese flight attendant. We got to talking, and he asked the names of my hosts and quickly searched them on Facebook. "Oh yeah, I know Jón... Oh yeah, I know Terji." With just 50,000 people on the Faroe Islands, the people are quite well connected. It was really helpful to talk to Hans before touching down and being on my own. He works for a telecom company in the Faroes, and he convinced me to buy a SIM card. I was a bit skeptical since he has vested interests in Faroese telecom, but it was actually great advice. A Faroese SIM card costs a mere 100 DKK (about $15) with 1GB data and more than enough talk and text preloaded. This is great value for money, considering my Danish service with TDC would have cost a whopping 18DKK per Megabyte for data roaming. In fact, during my first few minutes after touching down on the islands, I used my phone to load a webpage in an attempt to quickly teach myself to drive a manual car. My phone loaded 6MB of data, costing me about $15 for that one web page... So yeah, buying an SIM card is totally worth it, especially because the 4G LTE coverage is impeccable on the islands. While hiking at the top of one of the highest peaks on the islands, I could still send Snapchats.
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