In 1818, a fellow named Caspar David Friedrich created an oil painting called Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. In it, a lone traveller is faced with the sublime awesomeness of nature. It’s a painting which perfectly encapsulates the Romantic notion of the solitary encounter with the majestic – that notion, put forward first by Wordsworth in his Lyrical Ballads, and then furthered by others as the movement developed, that the wonders of nature are best experienced alone, as part of an intimate, almost religious experience. With that in mind, you really have to wonder what Friedrich and Wordsworth would make of modern-day Iceland.

Anyone who has been to that country will be fully aware that it has one of the smallest ratios of tourist traps to surface area of any destination on the planet – Iceland’s most prolific sights are positively crawling with tourists. You can’t blame them, of course, any more than you can blame yourself for being there. Those sights are iconic for a reason. But are they lessened by the presence of hordes of other people? Can travel in pursuit of the awe-inspiring, especially in a place such as Iceland (where the extraordinary side of nature is more or less the name of the game) be as engaging as a shared experience as it is as an individual, Romantic experience? Should you prioritise quieter spots over the busier ones? Should you, even, avoid tourist traps altogether?

I was in Iceland for three days, only one of which I had free to myself. Over the course of that day, I took one guided tour (oh, how much easier this piece would be if I had just self-driven, but hey, we’re not all made of Icelandic kronor) around the south coast. I visited the Selialandsfoss and Skógafoss waterfalls, the Sólheimajökull glacier, the black beach of Reynisfiara and the nearby peninsular of Dyrhólaey. In the evening, I went on another group outing to go see the northern lights just outside of Reykjavik. A fairly wide range of pretty popular attractions, then, visited via group tours. There were, on each tour, generally around six to ten people packed into a minibus. Each location we visited, however, would have a great deal more tourists hanging around – anything from a handful of others off in the distance, such as on Sólheimajökull, to throngs of camera-wielders at Skógafoss or on Reynisfiara.

Was my experience diminished by the presence of too many others? It’s hard to say. These places, and I cannot emphasise this enough, are really, really bloody impressive, in the sort of way that makes even the stoutest Brit look up and raise his eyebrows slightly. Certain things can never be ruined just because there are a few too many people there. It’d be utterly mad to suggest otherwise. That said, would I have been more awestruck if those places had been little-known secrets that I had stumbled upon myself, or with only a small cadre of fellow travellers? Would, had that been the case, the slight raising of my eyebrows even been followed by a hushed “blimey”? Undoubtedly.

Compare the places I went and the things I saw – some, inevitably, were quieter than others. On one end of the spectrum, for example, we have Skógafoss. It’s a rather big waterfall that – cliché alert – really genuinely does have to be seen to be believed. There’s no easier way to be overcome by the raw strength of nature than to watch an absolute shitload of it roar over a cliff at you at high speed. It is, in a word, impressive. It’s also a very busy place. I counted perhaps five coaches and half a dozen minibuses (minibusi?) in the waterfall’s nearby car park. Some rudimentary guesswork, and a quick Google of ‘coach capacity’, tells me that it’s probably safe to assume that there were around 300 people at Skógafoss that day.

In contrast, the northern lights excursion I embarked upon consisted of just over half a dozen of us out alone in the middle of nowhere. For about an hour, towards the end, it consisted of myself and only one other person idly chatting as we watched the aurora overhead – the others had, for the sake of not freezing to death, returned to the bus. I caught a cold from staying outside that night, but I’m under no impression that it wasn’t absolutely worth it. Standing out there, more or less alone (let’s say, because we can assume that most people don’t travel by themselves, that to witness something wonderful with one or two other people – especially people you are familiar with – is basically as good as witnessing it alone) and marvelling at the sheer power of a vivid display of the northern lights was an immeasurably superior experience to standing amongst the crowds, watching that waterfall. Had the two situations been reversed, I would, I think, believe the opposite to be true.

But, even though the quieter and more solitary experiences in Iceland were, to me, the more memorable, that is not to say the busier ones were not themselves amazing. It felt like a slightly dampened experience, yes, but the notion of swearing off a place – to purposefully not visit because you feel that it will be overrun with crowds – is absurd. A dampened experience is infinitely preferable to no experience at all. Tourist traps may not be everything you would wish they would be, but their worth is no less because of that.

So let’s talk priorities. Hypothetically, let’s say that the purpose of your visit to Iceland restrict you to only three days in the country, two of which are spent getting there and back again. Let’s say that, in a country that seems to be formed entirely of coast-to-coast jaw-dropping sights, you have to pick only a few. Do you prioritise the places you know will be quieter and more personal over the renowned crowd-pleasers? Or do you go for the classics, knowing that they’re popular for a reason, and you’d be missing out on a quintessential side of the country if you didn’t?

I avoided the Golden Circle, arguably Iceland’s most famous region and easily the most popular. Or, if you’d rather, I missed out on it. It’s a shame, and I have to admit that I’m fairly saddened to still not have seen Iceland’s most famous sights. I made a conscious decision, though, to choose a tour that I knew would be quieter. I missed out on an integral part of Iceland, sure, but I swapped it for one that was, to me, slightly more preferable.

The crux of all of this lies with that word: ‘preferable’. Preference is subjective, and so is the enjoyment one draws from travelling. It was my choice to snub the tourist traps in favour of some slightly less busy tourist traps. It was my slightly foolish Romantic sensibilities which caused me to do so. Not everybody is the same. Travel is a personal experience – hell, that’s why having to compromise what you see and do when you travel with a large group can sometimes be frustrating – and, consequently, to be amongst the crowds might, for many, be the preferable option. This is more the case for less nature-based holidays, I think, but if somebody enjoys relishing the buzzing atmosphere at Iceland’s busier sights, then who am I to judge? The wonders of nature experienced together, as part of a communal, exciting experience. It’s a lovely idea, even if it’s not for me.

‘Just do what you want’ seems like a pretty obvious answer to give in response to the conundrum of whether one should pursue the iconic, outstanding sights and sounds of a country, or go after the lesser-known ones in the hopes of having a more intimate and personal experience. It’s still an answer worth remembering, though. You should never allow yourself to be constricted by what you feel you ‘should’ see or do when travelling. Missing out on something you really want to see because you know it’ll just be full of tourists is just as mad as traipsing miserably along with the crowds to see something because you’ll feel like your trip will be incomplete if you don’t. Travel is, at its heart, the ultimate expression of freedom – why betray that?

(featured image credit: Larry Gerbrandt)

(gallery aurora images credit: Tiffany Hill)

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