Making the most of the city’s abundant piping hot water, Reykjavik’s swimming pools are well worth a visit. Even if it means conquering your fear of nudity first.
Low levels of chlorine at all 16 of Reykjavik’s pools means there’s no nasty bleach-like smell while you bathe, but high levels of hygiene mean you have to wash yourself naked before getting in.
Yes, naked.
It’s not up for debate. And if you’re not sure where exactly you’re supposed to be scrubbing, you can always refer to the classic Icelandic Naked Androgynous Diagram, as pictured here.
This comes as a surprise to most gymnophobic tourists, who wouldn’t dare bare their bottoms in front of others, never mind soap their genitalia in a shower-room full of strangers. Icelanders, on the other hand, have no such hang-ups about the human body, and happily stroll around starkers in the changing-rooms while the visitors dart about with strategically-held bottles of shampoo.
The thing to remember is this: the only person who cares what you look like naked is you.
If anybody’s going to stare at anything then it’s somebody trying to wash their bits with their swimsuit on. And—contrary to most tourist publications—not everybody in Iceland is a leggy, 6 foot 4 blonde (barring the President of the Republic, of course).
So don’t worry about coming out of there with an inferiority complex; there are just as many wobbly bits in Reykjavik as there are in Reading. Well, per capita at least.
Nearly all the pools are open-air, and relaxing in a 40°C “hot-pot” while the snow falls gently on your face is a sure-fire way to cure the classic Reykjavik hangover (next to a carton of kókomjolk of course), making all that public nudity worth it in the end.
Sixteen pools in total (that’s practically one for every Icelander), here’s our top five:
Árbæjarlaug
Hill-top pool with a great view of Reykjavik in the distance. Also boasts an indoor domed area, just in case it starts to rain.
Sundlaug Seltjarnarness
A recently renovated salt-water pool on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula, which means even less chlorine than usual.
Sundhöll Reykjavíkur
An indoor pool, but worth visiting just for the genius 1930’s locker system. They don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Sundlaug Vesturbæjar
Dubbed “the gay pool”, though (disappointingly) for no apparent reason, Vesturbæjarlaug has the best hot-pots and steam-room in town.
Laugardalslaug
With an Olympic-sized swimming pool, visit Laugardalslaug if it’s the swimming part you’re really interested in.
5 Comments
I have a VERY large swimming costume but didn’t get to use it on my trips to Iceland, too scared of the changing rooms!
But that swimming pool scene in ‘101 Reykjavik’ where the youthful hero de-bags the large lady comes to mind, she must have braved the showers.
please tell me that the sexes are separated.
A friend of mine (Spanish like me) went to Laudardalslaug some days before I did. When he came home he was really shocked by the “experience”. He told me about it, so when I went through the swimming-pool routine for the first time it was less shocking than it would have been if I hadn’t known anything about it beforehand. Though it still was strange for me (even though I had used common changing rooms in Spain when I was a child).
Then it just takes a couple of times to get used to it. Really, nobody’s looking and nobody cares.
To Mary: Yes, sexes are separated :).
Having travelled through my teenage years with my best friend who then moved to Iceland, I was very surprised to find that after years of undressing and changing at school and at sleepovers together, that no longer did she employ the art of carefully and covertly, changing beneath the clothes she was already wearing and standing in a corner, with her back to me, modesty firmly intact, not a square inch of flesh on show. However, after a few months of regular swimming in Iceland, here she was flinging her clothes off, right in front of me, and soaping herself in places that I wasn’t sure cheap swimming pool soap should even be used, whilst chatting to me about some project at work!
When she noticed my quizzical and bemused expression, she told me that if I didn’t do the same, a woman would come by and beat me with a stick! I wasn’t taking any chances.
It’s only a bit embarrassing for us Brits the first time you experience it, after that, it comes as second nature and it’s obviously preferable to being beaten by a woman with a stick or being stared at for being the odd one out, trying to clean the imperative places, whilst struggling with the elasticity of your swimming costume.
Very entertaining reading - this article should be handed out to all newcomers!
I find the writing and comments on this site refreshingly honest and always liberally laced with humour. This is how I keep an eye on what’s going on in Reykyavik when I’m back home in UK.
See you again in the spring :-))
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