East Iceland Village Pleads With Tourists To Behave Themselves

Apparently some visitors to Iceland need to be taught basic, common courtesy upon arrival, as villagers in Seyðisfjörður have discovered.

Seyðisfjörður is a beautiful village in northeast Iceland, home to only a few hundred people, but it is also a point of entry for cruise ships and the ferry from Europe. MBL reports that with an increase in tourism numbers, locals have been repeatedly disturbed by the behaviour of some of these visitors.

“This started about two years ago, when a group of us began to discuss this,” Seyðisfjörður mayor Aðalheiður Borgþórsdóttir told reporters. “It was getting really annoying the way some tourists were taking photos through the windows into people’s homes, or even walking around in their gardens.”

This kind of behaviour prompted the town to issue a set of instructions for visiting tourists, which includes the plea not to take photos of the village’s children.

The instructions will be distributed on board cruise ships and the ferry. Although it may take a while for these basic points of courtesy to reach all arrivals to Seyðisfjörður, Aðalheiður is optimistic that the message will eventually get across.