Dear Sigmundur, I Don’t Want Your Puffins

Bloggers and photographers everywhere agree that Iceland is an ideal destination. It’s geographically closer than the rest of Europe yet could not be farther in other aspects. Harsh landscapes shaped by lava and glaciers pair with Aurora Borealis or the midnight sun to frame pictures that will make Instagram followers salivate. Trolls roam the land, at least according to the legend, and will steal your shoes if you’re not careful. Rotten shark, charbroiled puffin and ram’s testicles line the menus. Icebergs roam in and out of harbors, causing a nuisance for local fishermen but making wannabe Nat Geo photographers ecstatic. But many great things, such as your current favorite song or Mount Everest, are ruined by the masses. Iceland’s character is defined by its uniqueness — nowhere else in the world can you sit in a geothermal spring on a fjord and watch the northern lights dance while reading how Erik the Red once sat in the same pool millennia prior. At the same time, the small island nation is characterized by its harsh rawness — fatal weather and natural disasters are constantly on the brink. All of these factors combine to attract only two types of travelers: pretentious pricks who won’t shut up about how they went “before it was cool” and realist earth-lovers looking to escape. I like to consider myself to be in the latter category, but upon serious reflection and soul-searching it has become strikingly obvious that I belong to the Pretentious Pricks Collective (Which would actually be a pretty cool band name now that I think about it). For the sake of this…