2 person Studio
Sleeps 2The smallest of the studios: board formed concrete, a kitchen along one wall, and a window onto the fields running down to the sea.
From €250 a nightCheck dates
Studio apartments in a converted 1940s garage on a working family farm, under Eyjafjallajökull on the south coast of Iceland.
Book a studioBooking here comes straight to the farm and carries no booking fee. If you would rather use a channel you already have an account with:Booking.comAirbnbEmail us instead
Where it is
Most people doing the south coast spend half the day driving back on themselves. From here you do not. The two famous waterfalls are about ten kilometres in either direction, and the rest of the coast is a short run east or west.
Keep scrolling to drive the coast
Around the farm
The farm
Siggi's family have farmed at Varmahlíð for at least two hundred years. The garage his grandfather built in the 1940s stopped being a garage a long time ago, so it became apartments instead. The cowhouse beside it milked cows until 2000 and was rebuilt over the winter of 2016.
The area is called Undir Eyjafjöllum, under the mountains. The range and the glacier take the cold northerly off you and the sun comes in from the south. It is also, honestly, one of the windiest corners of Iceland in autumn, which is a fine thing to listen to from inside a thick walled house.
Life at Varmahlíð
The premises
Everything sits within a hundred metres: the studios behind their painted doors, the hay tower, the hot tub, and your parking spot right outside.
Studios for two, three or four guests, each behind its own painted door. Ten in all, split between this building and the one by the old house.
Have a lookThe tower over the old barn, made into a room of its own. Sleeps four, and there is only one of it.
Have a lookStill a working farm. The barn, the tractors, and in season the sheep.
Outside the main building and open to everyone staying here. Sea on the horizon, sky overhead.
Have a lookFree, and never more than a few steps from your door.
Anna and Siggi's own house. Someone is usually home on a working farm.
The 4 bedroom villa stands on its own along the cliffs, with its own hot tub.
Have a lookMore of the studios, for two, three or four guests, next to the old house. Ten in all across the two buildings.
Have a lookThe apartments
Each one is a self contained studio with its own kitchen and bathroom, behind its own painted door. The walls are the original board formed concrete, left exactly as it was poured.
Sleeps 22 person Studio
Sleeps 33 person Studio
Sleeps 44 person Studio – Sofabed / Twin Bed
Sleeps 4The Haytower
Sleeps 44 Bedroom VillaThe smallest of the studios: board formed concrete, a kitchen along one wall, and a window onto the fields running down to the sea.
The same poured concrete and a little more floor, with room for a third bed without anyone climbing over anyone.
The largest of the studios, with a full kitchen and a cowhide on the floor. The fourth bed is a sofabed or a twin, depending on the room.
The tall white building above the yard: red ridged corrugated iron, its own door, and a boardwalk running up into the slope behind it.
A whole house to yourselves: four bedrooms, a dining table that seats everyone at once, a living room facing the sea, and a laundry of its own. The same board-formed concrete inside, under the same green cliffs.
Good to know
Straight out of the mountain and better than anything you can buy. Fill your bottle before you leave. Buying water in Iceland is a waste of money.
Open, no password, unlimited.
Any time before noon. If you have already settled up you can just go, leave the key in the door, and you do not need to lock it.
It happens in winter. Come over to the house. There is always something on the stove or in the freezer.
Hotel Anna is 3 km and Gamla Fjósið 2 km. The mini market at Heimamenn, 6 km east, does coffee in the morning and a cheap lunch.
This is the windiest corner of Iceland in autumn and winter. It sounds far more dramatic from inside than it is. Hurry in and listen to it.
The hot tub
The hot tub stands outside the main building, and it is for everyone staying here — studios and villa alike. The sea on the horizon, an old tractor for company, and in winter you soak with one eye on the sky.
Finding us
One warning about the satnav. There is another Varmahlíð in the north of the country, and it is five hours away. If that is where you are being sent, it has found the wrong one.