Loft - HI Eco Hostel

Loft sits at Bankastræti 7, which is the exact point where Laugavegur (the main bar-and-shopping drag) changes its name as it runs downhill toward Parliament and Austurvöllur square. You walk out of reception and you are on the rúntur — Lebowski Bar is 90 seconds away, Kaffibarinn two minutes, Kaldi Bar four. The hostel building has been here since 2013, when Hostelling International rebranded it as their flagship Eco Hostel. It's run sustainably (geothermal heating, no single-use plastics, partner with a local recycling NGO) but the eco angle is understated — nobody's going to lecture you.

The dorms are spread across five floors of a corner building, mostly 4, 6 and 8-bed rooms with metal-frame bunks, curtains, lockers and reading lights. The bathroom-to-bed ratio is not best-in-class (reviewers flag the morning queue on the 8-bed floors), but the 8.5 rating with 1,819 reviews shows the rooms aren't the draw — the building is. The rooftop bar on the fifth floor is where the Reykjavik expat crew and the hostel guests actually meet, with craft beer from Borg and Einstök, a limited cocktail list, and a view over the corrugated-iron roofs toward Esja across the bay. Thursday and Friday nights run live acoustic sets from Icelandic indie acts — the hostel's music booker actually knows what they're doing and guests regularly describe it as 'the best evening we had in Reykjavik'.

What Loft is not is quiet. The rooftop closes at 23:00 on quieter nights and midnight on weekends, but the bar crawl traffic on Laugavegur rolls past the windows until 04:00 on Saturdays. If you want to sleep, request a dorm on the third floor facing the inner courtyard. If you want to party, the front-facing rooms are loud on purpose.