Don’t Ask Nanna: About Tourist Kitsch

We said not to ask… but you did anyway. Here’s some more useful information from our reluctant advice columnist Nanna Árnadóttir.

Hi Nanna,

What’s the most annoying thing about the tourism industry, from your side, not ours as tourists? What does the Icelandic tourist industry do that is annoying?

Man In The Mirror

Hi Man in the Mirror,

Well, I really fucking hate those fake candy bags that souvenir shops sell. The chocolate candies branded as Puffin Shit or pink caramel candies called Lava Rocks. That kind of thing. These are just regular types of Icelandic candy that people buy in the supermarket and that they then put in gimmicky bags and mark up to twice or three times the price for tourists to buy.
I don’t know what’s worse, that this trash gets sold to tourists, or that tourists buy them.

Nanna

If Route 1 gets closed at Vík, how would one travel west to east, the long way around? Our trip starts in two months. Doing my planning.

Best, Mike Goodwin

Well, it’s a circle, so I suppose the other way?

Nanna

Don’t email nanna@grapevine.com, or tweet her at @nannaarnadottir.