Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.07.2015, Page 38

ARTISAN BAKERY
& COFFEE HOUSE
OPEN EVERYDAY 6.30 - 21.00
LAUGAVEGUR 36 · 101 REYKJAVIK
So it’s your first visit to Iceland. Welcome!
I’m sure you’ll have a great time here. And
let me say that I, for one, love the fact that
more and more people are visiting Ice-
land every year. This has allowed me to
meet some really interesting people from
parts of the world I would normally never
encounter, and I find tourism a far better
option for a capitalist economy than, say,
banking or heavy industry. My experienc-
es with tourists in Iceland have been, far
and away, predominantly great.
I make that preface because there’s a
few things I’d like to talk to you about, our
new first-timer. I’d like you to consider the
following, bearing in mind that not only do
I have nothing against you personally, but
also I’ve probably been guilty of these very
same things when I’ve travelled abroad.

When traveling to another country, there
is a tendency to develop a blind spot over
the fact that we are in a place where peo-
ple just like you are trying to live their lives.
We’re on our own time when we travel for
pleasure; we can go wherever and do
whatever our budget allows, when we
like, and don’t need to worry about social
consequences that would be totally ap-
plicable at home. This freedom, I believe,
creates a false sense of entitlement and
impunity. Not necessarily in truly horrible
behaviour (although that does happen)
but rather, in small behaviours that we
maybe hadn’t considered might be in-
trusive or demanding; little injuries that,
when repeated over and over by tourist
after tourist, can and do foster long-term
resentment among the locals.
In other words, I’d like to address
some of the more common misbehaviours
tourists to Iceland can and do commit,
even with the best of intentions and noth-
ing but love in their hearts for our island.
Camera use
You can’t travel without being able to lord
it over everyone back home that you went
somewhere they didn’t, and what more
effective way to do that than through
the magic of photography? Believe me, I
know: I live behind Hallgrímskirkja, and I
can walk up that hill, anytime day or night,
and find a dozen or more people with their
smart phones and selfie sticks, snapping
away. And that’s cool. Not so cool is tak-
ing photos of kids, even with their par-
ents, without at least asking first. I know
you find that parent-and-child in a foreign
country motif to be a compelling one, but
not everyone is down with random strang-
ers aiming cameras at them or their kids
and snapping away, as if we’re just part
of the scenery. Same goes for taking pho-
tos of the outside or interior of people’s
homes. Yes, the little primary-coloured
corrugated iron houses are adorable, but
again, people live in them. How would you
like to emerge from your kitchen, wearing
only your underwear, scratching your butt
as you eat a cold hot dog wrapped in a
single slice of white bread, only to find a
stranger with a camera aimed right in your
living room because they thought your
furniture was cute? Watch where you’re
pointing that thing, and if you’re pointing
at people, ask them first.
The money
All of Iceland’s currency—every bill and
every coin—has its monetary value clearly
displayed numerically. I say this because,
for some inexplicable reason, our money
seems to confound people. Many times,
you will find tourists in
line at the grocery store
or standing at a bar, staring
at a pile of coins in their hands
for a few dumbfounding mo-
ments before, exasperated, they
push the pile at the cashier and
declare they have no idea how
much money they have. Come on
now. The numbers are right there
on the coins! You don’t even have to
know how to count in Icelandic. But
hey, at least you’re using the money.
Some folks try to use euros, which
is maybe not the best way to
go in a country that is pre-
dominantly anti-EU—but
worse still is trying to pay in dol-
lars. I mean, I hate to break it to you, my
fellow Americans, but the dollar has about
as much regard as Coke Life these days.
Use the local money—it’s got like, colors
and art and women on it.
Asking for directions
Hey, we all get lost. Even in a city where
you could trip over a free map of said city
every three blocks or so, which you could
walk across from end to end in like an
hour, it still seems a lot of people lose their
way and need to ask for directions. That’s
ok. Not so ok: flagging down a city bus
to ask for directions. This may come as
a surprise, but people actually use these
buses to get places they need to be, like
work, school, or the kid’s day care. City
buses are not tourist information booths
on wheels. Just get a map, or ask a pass-
ing local which way to go. Trust me, they’ll
be happy to help.
Don’t ask how or where to
pick up local women.
You’d think this didn’t need to be said,
but having worked in Icelandic bars,
yes, yes it does. This kind of
travel-for-conquest behaviour
is repugnant. No matter how
much you insist that you really love
Iceland and just find the women
beautiful, they are not hunting
trophies for your exoticisation
fetish. If you’re lonely and want to
meet people, go to places where
people are and, like… try to talk to
them. Be friendly, respectful, and
engaging. Just like you would back
home.
Forget the stuff you can
get back home and
how cheap it is.
If you’re disappointed to find the grocery
doesn’t have Miracle Whip or that the bar
charges twice what you would pay for a
Bud Light back home, why did you even
travel in the first place? Stay home if you
don’t want to go places where they don’t
have your usual stuff for the usual price.
No matter how disappointed you are,
you know whose fault it is, right? Not the
poor cashier, waitress or bartender who
has to deal with your histrionics. Try some
new things; you’re in a new country, why
would you do otherwise?
That’s the tip of the iceberg, in the
sense that these are the most visible of
the regular misdemeanours. Again, tour-
ists are predominantly awesome people,
in my experience, but that blind spot can
still be there. Just remember that you’re
not in some big theme park, where the
buildings, vehicles and people are just
props that add to the ambience and in-
teractive experience. Actual people live
here, trying to live their actual lives. Get to
know them. They’ll probably enjoy getting
to know you, too.
“We have an unceasing capacity to make ourselves nui-
sances, basically. Students of tourism science can and do
construct elaborate theories from physics, of course, invok-
ing such wizards as Heisenberg and the Hawthorne effect
and the status of Schrödinger’s cat to explain the complex
interactions between our status as tourist-observers and
the changes we prompt in the peoples and places we go
off to observe. But at its base is the simple fact that in so
many instances, we simply behave abroad in manners we
would never permit at home: we impose, we interfere, we
condescend, we breach codes, we reveal secrets. And by
doing so we leave behind much more than footfalls. We
leave bruised feelings, bad taste, hurt, long memories.”
- Simon Winchester, “Leave Nothing, Take Nothing”
Photos
Axel Sigurðarson (Collage by Hrefna Sigurðardóttir)
Words
Paul Fontaine
38 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 9— 2015TRAVEL
Tips For
Tourists
How to make everyone’s
experience better