About Polaris
Icelandic expertise for remarkable journeys.
Polaris Journeys is an experienced travel agency based in Iceland. It is founder-led, fully licensed, and built on a simple belief: the best journeys are designed by people who call the destination home.
Our story
Why we exist
The North is having its moment, and much of the travel sold to it is planned from far away. Templated circuits, tight buses, famous stops at the busiest hour. We started Polaris Journeys to do the opposite: journeys designed here, by people who drive these roads in every season and know what the weather will do to a plan.
We stay closely involved. Every journey is designed person-to-person, and the people who plan it are the people who answer when you write or call. That continuity is not an extra; it is the product.
Our name is our method. Polaris, the North Star, is what this region has always navigated by, and we navigate the same way: by fixed points we trust. Real local knowledge. Honest advice, including advice against things. Care that continues while you travel, not just until you book.
Founder & Managing Director
Hildur Gunnarsdóttir
Hildur was born and raised in Iceland. She holds an MSc in Geology, a teaching qualification and an MBA. For many years she worked as a geologist, work that took her all around Iceland, a country she knows like the palm of her hand.
While she was raising her four children, constant travelling was no longer convenient, so she changed course and taught at college for a few years. Fifteen years ago she changed course again and began working as a dedicated travel designer, and founding Polaris Journeys in 2022 was the natural next chapter.
Hildur has lived in several European countries and travelled widely all over the world, always trying to understand the people and culture of every place she visits. That curiosity is the method behind every Polaris itinerary.
Away from the desk she hikes, skis, rides horses and cooks, and spends as much time as she can at her farm in south Iceland with family, friends, dog and horses.
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
The people
Key staff
Ásta Birna Hauksdóttir
Sales & Marketing
Ásta Birna looks after sales and marketing at Polaris Journeys. When you enquire about a journey, she is often the first person you will correspond with. She listens for what you are really hoping for, carries it into the design of the trip, and keeps the conversation warm and unhurried until every detail feels right.
Robert Frances
Operations
Robert runs operations: the bookings, transfers, supplier coordination and timing that turn an itinerary on paper into days that simply work. While you travel, his craft is mostly invisible. Things happen when they should, and when northern weather rewrites a plan, a good alternative is already waiting.
Guðrún Hrefna
Accounts
Guðrún Hrefna keeps the numbers in order. Quotes, invoices and payments all pass through her hands, handled with the same accuracy and care we promise for the journeys themselves, so the financial side of your trip is as smooth as the travelling.
Sindri Freyr
IT
Sindri Freyr looks after the technology behind the scenes, including this website. He keeps our systems quiet, secure and out of your way, so that planning a journey with us feels like a conversation, not a transaction.
How we travel
Travelling carefully
The landscapes we work in are the whole reason to come, and they are fragile. We design journeys that respect them: realistic pacing over box-ticking, small scale over volume, local suppliers and communities as partners rather than backdrops. We would rather show you fewer places properly than many places in passing.
Write to us. A person answers.
Tell us about the journey you are imagining, and we will tell you honestly how to make it real.
Plan your journey