Iceland 2016

Before I speak to the current state of affairs in Iceland, my wife and I would like to show our appreciation to the adventurers on our far travel journey of Fire and Ice to Iceland. Two of the seekers were from Sweden and seemed like kin to Sherry and me – a brother to me and a sister to Sherry. It was an awesome journey even with the hordes of rude, unaware tourist. Each day of our journey we were gifted with sun, no rain and four nights in a row – the Northern Lights.

Selfies—the I in the Me and the Me in the I, a phrase presented by one of our adventurers at our final night’s dinner presentation—typifies Iceland 2016. When I first set foot on the volcanic lands of Iceland in 2010, crowds of tourists were nowhere in sight. Each year I’ve returned to this land of fire and ice, the hordes have slowly increased.

Iceland 2015 was overrun by inconsiderate rude tourist not respecting silence or nature. But 2016 was even worst. Talking to the locals it seems that half are in favor of the hordes and half are not. There is one glaring truth—the infrastructure of Iceland is not able to handle the great, and I mean great, increase in tourism. And the hotel building boom is on…

Iceland has even increased the size of the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa located on the Reykjanes peninsula. And next, a five star hotel. Currently there are no five star hotels in Iceland. In the spring of 2017 the Blue lagoon will open the first one (80,730 sq. ft.) in Iceland.

Rationally, the airport infrastructure cannot handle in an efficient manner the numbers of tourist and planes departing. Our flight scheduled to leave at 5:00 PM was one of five to depart at the same time. Never before in Iceland have I had to take a bus to a plane out on the tarmac. Too many planes not enough departure gates. And this happened – just in one year. And now Icelandair is adding flights from Tampa and Philadelphia!

If you do decide to visit Iceland, please respect nature, silence and others. And catch my friend’s Viking Boat excursions—Reykjavik Viking Adventure.

Will we guide another group of far travelers to Iceland? Having talked to some of my Icelandic friends, I know of some sacred areas not yet polluted by tourists. So yes, we will far travel once more to the land of fire and ice in the fall of 2017. If interested, please let us know.

Skál