Seljavallalaug is a small but lovely swimming pool, fed by a natural hot spring on the edge of the highlands. Nestled in the mountains — or rather on a mountainside — the little pool is extremely photogenic, which has made it one of the most popular spots on Iceland’s south coast in recent years.
Curtain up for Seljavallalaug…
Seljavallalaug – Location and How to Get There
The small open-air pool lies pretty much right off the Ring Road, on road 242 in the south of the country, between the waterfalls Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss. So it’s a perfect spot for a little stopover. By car you can get to a small parking lot with a few wooden huts. From here you follow the river up into the mountains, staying on the left side of the river.
The hike takes about 15 minutes and you should bring reasonably sturdy shoes. The path is neither strenuous nor complicated, but it does lead over some rocks, and especially when it’s wet you could quickly end up with soaked feet in sneakers.
Bathing Tips & Cleanliness at Seljavallalaug
Once you arrive at the pool, you’ll find changing rooms at its northern end. Unfortunately, this is where you can see particularly well how many people visit this hot pot and how little they care about preserving this place. Pictures say more than a thousand words:
So first of all, a request: Be a responsible tourist and take everything you bring here back home with you. I’d be happy if you went one step further, like I did, and helped keep this place clean: bring a bag and tidy up a little before you leave. That’s voluntary, of course, and I can understand anyone who doesn’t want to touch the stuff: I simply pushed a few things into a bag with a stick.
There’s an interesting effect: the dirtier something is, the more people feel entitled not only to leave it that way, but to care even less about cleanliness. That’s why homeowners in big cities and companies like the railways go to great lengths to remove graffiti as quickly as possible. By leaving this place cleaner than you found it, you help preserve it in the long run!
Apart from this request, I of course also have a tip for bathing: bring a plastic bag and flip flops! This applies to every hot pot in Iceland, and this strategy is a real lifesaver: not only can you put your towel in the bag and leave it right next to the hot pot without having to worry about rain. You can also slip into your flip flops right after bathing and walk to the changing rooms in them, no matter how dirty the floor is.
By the way, I didn’t use the changing rooms, for obvious reasons. I’m afraid that being prepared to not be able to use them is a tip I have to give as well.
The History of the Seljavallalaug Swimming Pool
The little pool was built in 1923 and back then mainly served schoolchildren from the region who were learning to swim. The Icelander Bjorn Andrésson Berjaneskoti built the pool together with the local youth club and taught the kids to swim in what was, until 1936, the largest swimming pool in the country.
By the way, the pool you can swim in today is a different one. It was built in 1990 and lies much closer to the road. From here you can reach the old pool in about half an hour, but it is no longer maintained.
In 2010, when the volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted, the entire pool filled up with volcanic ash, and volunteers had to remove it with excavators and other heavy equipment. Today there’s no trace of it left — even between the pool and the river you won’t see any little piles of ash or anything like that.
Preservation and Maintenance of Seljavallalaug
The pool is maintained by the region’s youth community, on a voluntary basis. Since the pool has grown so much in popularity, that has obviously become nearly impossible, and it’s not just the changing rooms that suffer. In recent years, the theory has come up every now and then that the water in the pool contains germs and is no longer suitable for bathing. Since there is neither regular maintenance nor a lifeguard here, that will probably always remain speculation.
There’s a donation box at the changing rooms: to be honest, I consider that questionable practice, simply because many people don’t have cash on them when they come here.
Starting next year (2019), I will be donating part of this blog’s income to projects dedicated to preserving hot springs and other sights like this one. For that, however, I’ll be looking for partners in the Icelandic tourism industry: it can’t be right that companies earn millions from bus tours, rental cars, flights and so on, exploiting the country without contributing to its preservation! Maintaining a pool like Seljavallalaug would be petty cash for most of these companies, so we can’t keep passing the buck to the evil tourists (without taking action ourselves).
Conclusion: Seljavallalaug
The Seljavallalaug swimming pool on Iceland’s south coast is without a doubt one of the most beautiful in the whole country. At the same time, it is a sad testament to how carelessness can slowly but surely destroy a wonderful place.
I was here for the first — and probably the last — time in October 2017: as long as both sides, Icelanders and tourists, don’t take more responsibility for preserving this great sight, I don’t want to be part of the problem and would rather stay away. If I do come back, it will be with gloves — the kind you find at the diesel pump at gas stations — and garbage bags 🙂
Have fun in Iceland!
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