If you go to any scenic area in the United States you’ll see countless warning, prohibited, and no trespassing signs. In some areas it nearly ruins the experience of seeing some of these amazing places.
In Iceland, however, you don’t see many at all. Icelanders are extremely welcoming to tourists and its landscape is relatively unmarred by these distractions.
The only way this works is if people are considerate of the land, wildlife, terrain that they are visiting while on the island. But, people being people, this won’t last. And with Iceland becoming the most Instagrammed country over the last few years – it is bound to be ruined just like every other tourist destination on our beautiful planet.
This report, from the BBC, remarks how this is happening and Icelanders are rightfully getting miffed.
The Nordic country has long been considered an “Instagrammable destination” but now locals say the island has an issue with inconsiderate influencers.
We spoke to a few Icelanders when we visited in 2018. Overall they welcome tourists. The people we spoke to had positive things to say about how tourism has helped the economy of Iceland. But I don’t think that is going to last. I think the people living there will begin to regret how their country is impacted by having so many visitors and want to go back to when they had less but yet had so much more.