Tourists

There is one thing I haven’t enjoyed about Iceland and that is the number of tourists, a large number of them being completely inconsiderate.

Most people only have a week or two for a holiday so try and pack in as much as possible. If they have decided to go around the ring road then there's a lot of travelling to be done in a short space of time. Early starts and late finishes, quick visits to sites and quick photo stops to try tick the next item off the list. I’ve covered this before – I’m not a huge fan of people. Even less so of the type of people I’ve just described above.

Campsites in Iceland are nice and cheap and generally with good facilities but don’t expect much sleep if you visit one. I have used them when it’s convenient or too dark to go and look for somewhere else but out of choice – I’d not use Icelandic campsites, purely down to the other people who use them. The vast majority are in rental vans and have no idea about being considerate to other travellers. Of course, you also get the ones who are too tight to pay for the campsite so will spend the night in any layby or other place they can find before walking onto the site in the morning to use the facilities and leave without paying. Most campsites rely on some honesty when it comes to paying. I’ll admit I didn’t pay on 2 sites. One because I’d managed to get very little sleep due to the demon diesel heaters running all night and van doors opening, closing, opening, slamming, opening….you get the idea, up until about 1am and restarting at 5am. The only facility I used was the toilet in the morning so I left without paying. The other was in a prime tourist area. It was far more expensive than other sites, was on the roadside, they wanted extra for a shower (I didn’t bother) and when I went to wash up there was only cold water and it drained out of the sink straight onto my dry trainers. I decided if no one made an effort to come and collect my money, I wouldn’t make an effort to pay.

The tourist sites are generally free with free parking but are also poorly maintained. With the number of visitors these places have, there needs to be some investment in them. At the icebergs there were parts of 2 bumpers in the car park which had been caught on the huge underwater pot holes in the ground as you go in. Tracks up to waterfalls were mudbaths and there were rarely toilets at these sites so anywhere a little out of sight was best avoided. I’m not suggesting there should be charges everywhere but the number of visitors is so huge that these places look trampled over and are suffering – even gravel paths in places would help this. Having marked car parks would also help to control some of the aforementioned people from making it nigh on impossible to get out of where you’ve parked when you return to your van.

Aside from the iceberg lagoon where I spent an afternoon, night and morning, I spent very little time at the main tourist sites.  Iceland is huge and beautiful, there is no need to be surrounded by hoards of tourists in the bubbles, or even one or two other people.  I have had days where I’ve been out walking and not seen anyone at all, those are the best kind of days.