By car around the Faroe Islands

Is it easy and safe to drive in the Faroe Islands? Is it the best means of getting around the Islands? However, is there an alternative? You’ll read about all this plus a bit about rules, safety and the most beautiful scenic routes in this post.

After our first stay in the Canary Islands, I wrote, as it later turned out, a much-anticipated post entitled.“Whether and how to drive a car in Tenerife?“. Fact, driving a car in the mountainous areas of mainly Tenerife is not the easiest thing to do. It is not as easy in Madeira or the Azores.

However, without scaring you so much anymore, it is not that difficult at all. Fact,dramatic view type views, high-angle driving and 180-degree turns do their job, but if we are prepared for it, it is a pleasure itself :)

So what’s it like in the Faroe Islands? After all, we have a lot of hills here, hard-to-reach towns…. But let’s start one step at a time :)

Table of contents

A car in the Faroe Islands?

Are we sure we need a car during our stay in the Faroe Islands? It is known, everyone likes something different…. However, our only recommendation is: yes, rent a car! A must! Despite the fact that this rental is terribly expensive (just like in Iceland).

In short: you can wander around on public and intercity transportation or hire drivers/taxis, but then you won’t get everywhere and/or depend on others. This is hardly conducive to admiring beautiful views and going where you want and when you want (especially given the rapidly changing weather conditions). We value independence and the ability to move quickly from point A to point B.

Interestingly, driving around the Faroe Islands, we didn’t see any hitchhikers. Perhaps there are so few tourists that we didn’t run into any :)

You can read more about the pros and cons of renting a car here.

Tunnels and bridges in the Faroe Islands

As we wrote earlier in a practical post about prices in the Faroe Islands, some tunnels have tolls. However, this is not what I want to mention here, but the difficulty of overcoming them :)

Numerous tunnels (and there are as many as 20 here, and more are under construction) and bridges (a mere three) are among the attractions in the Faroe Islands. I don’t mean the main roads, of course, or those toll tunnels between the main islands, which are just wide, comfortable, although sometimes too long (more than 6 km) ;)

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We’re talking about tunnels and bridges, which are often the only way to reach the tiny settlements on the edges of the islands. We’re also talking about tunnels and bridges that have only one lane and you have to pass each other.

Imagine: you are driving through a tunnel, there is no lighting. On the sides you have walls, so that you barely hook them with your mirrors (no finished walls there – just plain rock). You have already traveled 1 km, but you still have 1 km left to go. And suddenly a truck comes at you from the opposite direction ;) What to do? Back off? No!

In each tunnel, every 100 meters or so, there are passing places marked with the letter “M”. It is a place where you can calmly fit your car to let a truck or other car coming from the opposite direction pass if you are the one who has no priority.

And who has priority? Priority is given to those who do not have a passing place on their right. That is, if you have such passing places on your right, you must give way to priority. The only exception to this rule is when a larger vehicle (truck, bus) is coming from the opposite direction. Then we always give way :)

Anyway, I recommend you to read the following manual showing how to drive safely in the Faroe Islands, which also very coolly explains how to behave in tunnels:

source: lv.fo

We also recommend a great video on the same principles:

Sheep on the roads

What you can also see from the instructions above is that you should be very careful about sheep on the roads. They have absolute priority. And importantly, they are incalculable ;) Let this be confirmed by the fact that in the Faroe Islands there is a special police unit established to deal only with accidents involving sheep.
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In other words, if you see sheep lying politely by the side of the road, and you will see such sights at every turn, it does not mean that they will lie like that all the time ;) More than once it happened to us that this sheep suddenly stood up and wanted to necessarily take a closer look at our front license plate or front hubcaps.

So it’s worth driving quietly, with caution, and enjoying the beautiful views.

Road safety

Before going to the Faroe Islands, we read somewhere that car accidents are non-existent here. This is not entirely true, because according to statistics, 445 accidents and 4 deaths were recorded here in 2014. However, compared to 2000, when there were 1,281 such accidents, one can see the difference
^[source].
. Unfortunately, we don’t know how many of these accidents are close encounters with sheep ;)

Unlike in Iceland, or other regions of the world, most of the roads here are paved. Even such roads that lead to the smallest towns. The fact that often these roads are narrow, sometimes without barriers, but it is always clean and beautiful asphalt.

For us, the one and only gravel road happened once, when we drove to Múla, which is an abandoned town on the island of Borðoy. Although the road itself was literally straight, you could feel the thrill ;)

It is also common to find inland, paved roads about 3 meters wide, the width of one car. In this case, as in the tunnel, there are passing places about every 100 meters. The rules are also like a tunnel. Priority is given to those who do not have passes on the right or larger (in the sense of a truck, coach, etc. :-)).

Sometimes there are also strong serpentines, sometimes also without barriers. But they are a definite far cry from the roads of at least Madeira or Tenerife…. Well, except maybe for this one small episode:

Recommended scenic routes in the Faroe Islands

And finally the best tidbit ;) Below you will find our recommended scenic routes, roads that you absolutely must take while in the Faroe Islands. Of course, a lot depends on the weather and visibility (because fog and 100-meter visibility are unlikely to help).

Nevertheless, if you don’t hit nice weather, and you don’t have far to go to a particular section, it’s worth trying your luck again. We made several such approaches to one of the episodes. Yes, it was worth it! :)

Below you will find the points with a brief description of them, why they are worthwhile, and a map with all these routes (random order).

Route 1: A simple, easy road to Vestmanna, with views of Vagar Island and Vestmanna itself.
Route 2: The so-called “old road,” contrary to its name, is just as wide and comfortable as the “new road,” but has the advantage of leading about 300 meters higher giving amazing views. It’s worth taking a short turn to the village of Norðradalur for equally beautiful views (although the road is not so straight anymore ;))
Route 3: The only road in the valley, gives us amazing views. The road is narrow, but very easy to traverse.
Route 4: The best awaits us at the end, which is the view of Tjørnuvík.
Route 5: It leads from an unusually located soccer field, through the area around the highest peak in the Faroe Islands, Slættaratindur, to two picturesque shoreline villages typical of Faroe (including Gjógv, where you’ll find puffins, among other things).
Route 6: Cliff views and, if the weather is nice, a super view from the stopping point to Kalsoy Island.
Route 7: A narrow, winding, but very easy road at the tip of the island with a nice view of the lake and surrounding islands.
Route 8: The only unpaved road we had the opportunity to drive. At the end of it you will find an abandoned village, although it does not look like one ;)
Route 9: In truth, this route staggers in a circle, but somehow Google Maps still doesn’t see a tunnel there. Nice views of the hills on both sides of the road.

And the promised map:

Summary

Answering the questions asked at the very beginning: yes! Driving in the Faroe Islands is safe, reasonably easy. It certainly provides a lot of positive emotions. Not only after a ride through the one-lane tunnel, but also after a simple drive along one of the beautiful scenic routes we recommend to you above.

Is there an alternative to a car in the Faroe Islands? And why look for it ;) Nothing but to get in the car (preferably with a panoramic window on the roof :-)) and enjoy driving on Faroese roads.