The Faroe Islands is one of our Best Places to Go in 2025. Find our full guide here.

When I picked up the keys to my rental car in the Faroe Islands, the agent slid me a contract unlike any I’d seen. No clauses about mileage, no small print on insurance. Instead, it was more of an oath—one that said I was ready to “follow the car’s mysterious path, refrain from rebelling against the GPS overlord, and enjoy the adventure—even if I don’t know where I’m going.”

That’s the idea behind the Faroe Islands’ new “self-navigating” car tours, where travelers relinquish control to a spontaneous itinerary of off-the-beaten-path locales, curated via Google Maps. There are dozens of different routes, which can be kicked off from wherever you choose to start your trip, and will take you to destinations across all seven islands that can be reached by bridges and undersea tunnels. Though the tourism board has set aside vehicles specifically for the tours—rentable through 62°N (a company at the airport)—anyone with a smart phone and wheels can access them.

The new initiative is designed to spread travelers more evenly across the remote archipelago, located in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland. In recent years, the scenic volcanic islands have become increasingly popular among travelers—and their Instagram accounts. In 2023, more than 130,000 foreign tourists visited the Faroe Islands, outnumbering the roughly 54,000 locals. Wary of their home becoming another casualty of overtourism, the government has worked for years to prevent the islands from becoming overrun, including by closing the country each spring for “voluntourism” trail work and by implementing a nightly tourism tax, beginning October 2025.

The self-navigating itinerary included a stop in Fuglafjørður, a fishing community folded into a fjord along Eysturoy’s northeast coast.

Pavel Saprykin/Getty

The art of surprise is deeply embedded in this new program—if two people start a self-navigating route from the same place at the same time, they’ll be given different routes. I began my trip in the capital of Tórshavn, which was my home base for days of exploration. That first morning, after scanning a QR code on my car’s dashboard, the GPS sent me to Kirkjubøur, a tiny seaside settlement that was once the religious and cultural heart of Streymoy island. Today it’s known for its trio of medieval treasures, including the ruins of St. Magnus Cathedral, a 900-year-old wooden farmhouse still inhabited by the same family, and the white-washed Olav’s Church, which continues to host services overlooking the sea. For the 30 minutes I milled around, it was just me (though as I was leaving, a vanload of other tourists pulled up).

As the Faroes become increasingly popular with international travelers—a trickle of visitors has turned into more of a cascade in recent years, particularly since 2023—there is a greater need for creatively expanding infrastructure, while prioritizing the needs and lifestyle of locals. The Faroese are essentially asking themselves: How can we invite visitors into the home we love, without losing what we love about it?

I hoped to find out. In April, my husband and I flew into the airport on Vágar, the third-largest island, with a plan to drive to the Northern Isles before slowly making our way back through Eysturoy and Streymoy. It was a route that would allow us to also travel through those undersea tunnels, while also being conscious of the number of pricey tolls we’d rack up from using them. We hoped to also tap into the Faroese rhythm of daily life. What would it mean to take cues from the people who know these wild landscapes best?

On our first day, we beelined for the Visit North tourism office in Klaksvík, a small city of brightly colored houses on a spit of land between the open ocean and a sheltered bay of fishing boats. Reni Heimustovu, who staffs the front desk, smiled when we asked about hiking that day. “Last time someone wanted to go hiking in weather like this, we told them, ‘Choose life!’” she laughed knowingly. Outside, the long grass was blown flat on the surrounding mountains.

And so we learned our first lessons of traveling in the Faroes: One must always be adaptable.

We climbed back into the car, and ditched the hike, instead driving along a muddy road toward Klakkur Viewpoint, below which the sea yawned expansively. In scenic, rural parts of the islands, which describes just about everywhere in the Faroes, a source of tension with rising tourist numbers has come from the fact that visitors aren’t always prepared for sheep on the road. There are so many of the animals here, that in 2016, locals used their ovine population to map areas not yet canvassed by Google Maps’ cars; famously, the Faroes have more sheep than people, and their wavy wool provides a living for many locals. New signage on roads like these gently reminds visitors which grazing lands are off limits to hiking and sightseeing: the sheep have the right of way.

Sheep, whose wooly coats provide a living for many locals, outnumber people on the Faroes—and road trippers are reminded that the animals retain the right of way.

Smitt