Unexpected and charming stop ! A lot of items, "messy" rooms, outdoor and indoor... A must see if you want to understand more about Iceland and history.
We made a stop here during our Reykjavik Excursions South Shore Adventure day trip. It was a pleasant surprise! It is such a cute little place and the guide was so knowledgeable and made the hour long stop very enjoyable!
We stopped here as part of our South Shore Adventure through re.is and it's the only museum we visited on this trip. The young woman (petite, short blonde hair) was an exceptional museum guide. Her English was impeccable, she spoke clearly and loud enough for the whole group to hear, and she gave an extensive introduction and overview to the museum before sending us on our way to explore. She answered all questions thoroughly and was just a delightful source of knowledge and history. She is truly the reason we enjoyed this museum so much because she really painted a picture of the times depicted in the museum so we could truly appreciate everything we saw. Bravo!
This great little museum has a lot to offer. Brought a group of 17 high school students and they were all entertained. We started with a guided tour of the larger, inside rooms and our guide was very engaging and informative. This level included artifacts of Iceland's past, from farming, to daily life, to the fishing industry- A great mix. The lower level contained many natural specimens of native Icelandic species and other interesting pieces of folk art. The outside included recreations of typical Icelandic "earthen" houses and my students loved exploring each of the tiny rooms. There is also a cafe to pick up some snacks or hot drinks (the hot chocolate was a hit with the kids). Overall a must-see on your tour of the area.
The Skogar Folk Museum was a stop along the South Coast Adventure tour. I was instantly enthralled upon entering the building, so much history is such a relatively small space. So many artifacts, so much to see, so much to learn. It was a lovely experience. My only regret is that we didn't have a lot of time to spend at the fascinating place. Truly amazing!
The Skogar museum complex consists of a folk museum of houses moved from various parts of Iceland, a motor museum and other buildings. It is quit extensive. The folk museum is really nice, old buildings collected from across Iceland. The motor museum is quite extensive and you need to allow a bit of time to see and experience it.
Again, this is part of the South Coast tour - absolute rubbish. Nothing worth seeing, looks like stuff you'd pick up at a jumble sale. On a plus, they have loos!
I went there and was amazed by the scale of this museum as it is much larger than many museums in Iceland of which some are as small as 700 square feet. It is not a large one by international scale but it is a sound one if you compare it with Inuit cultural museums in Churchill and Spitsbergen and the like. You can see a good collection of basic utensils, clothing, sailing boat, furniture, interior of houses ... of previous icelanders. The wooden carvings from one of the cupboards is particularly eye-catching as nowadays you cannot get such nice small wodden items from shops in this nation anymore. In case you are not too interested in these things, the outdoor area has a few turf houses which make subjects of very good Icelandic photos whetehr or not you want to be part of those photos.
We visited this museum whilst on the South Shore Adventure tour with Reykjavik excursions and were given a short talk by a guide from the museum before being left to our own devices to explore.The guide from the museum was really very exceptional. I personally learnt a lot from her talk about Iceland's history that I did not know before. She really gave everyone a good insight into how life was in this part of Iceland until very recently.The museum houses an excellent collection of buildings and a vast collection of artifacts. You could spend a lot longer than we did here. Do not miss this museum.
For less than US$12 (1,500ISK) you get access to three museums. The order I would suggest is the indoor main museum (where you pay and where the food/drinks are) and then go outside to the historical houses, then the new transportation museum. There are a lot of reviews complaining that the descriptions of the artifacts are all in Icelandic, but they must have been improving this over the years. While certainly the majority of items aren't described in English (just Icelandic), there are probably close to 10,000 items. You wouldn't have time to read an English description of everything anyway. The transportation museum is a gem--it's all in English, so you could spend 3 hours easily in here. To call it a transportation museum isn't quite accurate--they also display telecommunications, including radios, dial phones and cell phones. And that's in addition to the sleds, cars, busses, boats etc. It gives you great insight into how the emergency preparedness/rescue system evolved in Iceland during the 20th century. It's largely wheelchair accessible, but there is a basement level in the main museum that I think is just stairs. It would be tough to get a wheelchair into the historic houses, but it may be possible despite the narrower doorways.