A View From The North: Sundlaug Showdown

Are new lagoons muddying the waters for our traditional swimming pools?

If you’re tempted to get into hot water in the northern town of Akureyri, you have two quite different facilities to choose from.

The first is Sundlaug Akureyrar: a classic Icelandic swimming pool complex. Run by the local municipality, its roots go back to 1897 when locals first dammed a stream to bathe, later adding geothermally heated spring water to make the experience a little less bracing.

These days the sundlaug boasts four hot tubs, three swimming pools, two wading pools and a cold tub for that heart-stopping plunge after you’ve been in the steam bath. Add some massive plastic tubular water slides, and you’ve got a wonderland of splashy geothermal fun for the whole family.

Sundlaug Akureyrar is the kind of civic facility that UNESCO had in mind last December when they added Icelandic swimming pool culture to their — take a deep breath here — Representative List Of The Intangible Cultural Heritage Of Humanity. It’s essentially a community centre: parents teach their kids to swim, older residents use it to maintain social connections, and the general townsfolk use the hot pots as a forum to discuss the issues of the day.

Your other option is Forest Lagoon: the newbie contender. This luxurious facility literally sprang up after workmen encountered hot spring water as they were digging a road tunnel through the Vaðlaheiði mountain. As Icelandic entrepreneurs are never slow on the uptake, soon a conglomerate of businessfolk had conceived an upmarket mountainside bathing facility among the trees, with a view across the fjord.

Forest Lagoon opened in 2022, enticing visitors with warm waters, cold beers from swim-up bars, and a cool bistro for that post-dip burger. It’s part of the recent rise of high-end geothermal baths which also saw Laugarás Lagoon open last October in south Iceland, and north Iceland’s Earth Lagoon undergo a substantial upgrade at the start of this year.

Friends, foes or a bit of both?

So are Sundlaug Akureyrar and Forest Lagoon engaged in a water fight for the same clientele? Or are they operating in two distinct markets — budget bathing and luxury lagooning? Pálína Dagný Guðnadóttir, who manages business operations for Sundlaug Akureyrar, sees the duality of the situation quite clearly.

“We do see them as competitors,” she says of Forest Lagoon. “But in another sense, they are also partners.”

That partnership might be neither overt nor deliberate, but Pálína recognises that a rising tide lifts all boats.

“People come to Iceland to see the northern lights and seek out the lagoons,” she says. “There are all these swimming pools which don’t really do a lot of marketing, but the lagoons are marketing themselves and making a good job of it. People are just realising that there is a cheaper way to do it.”

Cheaper is right; adult admission of 1.400 ISK to Sundlaug Akureyrar is less than a fifth of the cost of basic entrance to Forest Lagoon. But as Pálína points out, the sundlaug is run as a civic service to promote a healthy community, not as a revenue generator. In fact, the bulk of its running costs are met by Akureyri council.

Photo by John Pearson

Bullish business

Tomas Popelka looks after marketing for Forest Lagoon, and views the relationship between his upmarket facility and the sundlaug across the fjord slightly differently to Pálína.

“Even though it’s the same thing,” Tomas says, referring to the act of soaking in hot water, “it’s such a different product. I don’t think we would see them as a competitor. I don’t think the sundlaug is taking any business from us, and I don’t think we are taking any business from them.”

It’s been a good few years for Forest Lagoon. Thanks to some 180,000 visitors through the turnstiles last year, revenue rose from 1 billion ISK in 2024 to 1.2 billion in 2025 — enough to give confidence in a substantial expansion of the business. In September last year they extended the lagoon to increase capacity, and have now embarked on a major building project to add a spa and a four-star hotel, both with private access to a further lagoon extension.

Ice bath challenge

For Sundlaug Akureyrar, however, ideas for future development are less bullish. The number of users is healthy — 435,000 in 2025, which is nearly 22 times the population of the town. But despite that, Pálína says that there is very little long-term planning for the sundlaug, partly due to politics regarding the use of public money.

Some sundlaug customers are pushing for facilities such as expensive Finnish-style dry saunas and ice baths — ideas perhaps more at home in the more upmarket lagoons. Even the sale of alcohol has been mooted: “I don’t think that will ever happen,” Pálína says. Given the health-focused ethos of sundlaug culture, it would be interesting to see UNESCO’s reaction to the introduction of boozing.

Perhaps it’s best if Iceland’s lagoons and sundlaug facilities follow the lead set in Akureyri, respecting each other’s cultural boundaries and peacefully coexisting at arm’s length.

John Pearson is an Akureyri-based writer and photographer. You can follow his work at johnpearson.co.