Vík í Mýrdal — usually just called Vik — is a small village on Iceland's south coast, roughly 180km from Reykjavik. It sits beneath the Mýrdalsjökull glacier and the notoriously volatile Katla volcano, which lends the landscape a dramatic, slightly uneasy quality. Most people stop here as part of the Ring Road, and for good reason: the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, just west of town, is one of the most striking stretches of coastline in the country.
The village itself is tiny — a few hundred people, a church on the hill, and a handful of guesthouses and shops. What draws visitors is the setting: Reynisfjara beach with its towering basalt columns, the Reynisdrangar sea stacks rising from the surf, and the Dyrhólaey promontory to the west with its puffin colonies. The Mýrdalsjökull glacier, covering the volatile Katla volcano, looms over everything to the north. The waves at Reynisfjara deserve genuine respect; the North Atlantic here is cold and powerful, and every year people underestimate it.