Carlie: Hey there, it’s Carlie with the Expat Focus Podcast. Have you ever visited a city or a country and just known deep down that it’s where you were meant to be? This is what Steph Zakas experienced on her first visit from the USA to Iceland, and it’s the reason why she’s living in the country today.
Now, Steph Zakas is a true slashie – she’s a coach, advisor, consultant, photographer, and in this chat, you’ll find out how she made Iceland her home, what it’s like to live in a country of such extreme contrasts – so much darkness in winter and a sun that never sets in the summer – how Steph thinks that contributes to such a creative society. You’ll also learn that if you do come to Iceland, you shouldn’t treat the place like Disneyland.
Steph, I hear that Iceland is a bit of a hotspot for creativity. What do you think it is about the country that really gets those creative juices flowing?
Steph: I actually think it’s a perfect combination of a lot of things. So, I think because we have…first of all, the nature, obviously. So, it’s so inspiring and it does this thing in your brain when you’re out in nature and your parasympathetic nervous system can engage and you basically can let down that survivor mode wall for a minute and you’re creativity can flourish. But I really think it’s our landscapes that…how open they are. We don’t have a lot of trees.
So it’s this big vast…like you get to feel how small you are in the universe kind of thing, which I think is always inspiring. And then our community is so small. So, we have very little people here and the arts are very much supported just in the culture itself and within our government and everything like that, so I just think it’s this mix of the community and the nature and living in Iceland, and the weather because it is interesting. It’s unpredictable. You have to just live with it, right? So there’s no fighting it. So we have a lot of, I would say, downtime a little bit where it’s maybe really gloomy and rainy or the winter when we don’t have sun. So yeah, I think it’s a combination of those three things.
Carlie: It’s funny, you mentioned that Iceland doesn’t have many trees because I did visit Iceland for a couple of weeks back in 2019. And I remember our tour guide saying that if you ever get lost in the nature, you just have to stand up.
Steph: Stand up! Exactly. Yeah, we don’t have very many. We have a little reforested areas that do have some forests, which is fun. I love taking people in them, because they’re like, “what? I didn’t know this existed!” But yeah, for the most part, it’s just stark openness.
Carlie: The landscapes there are truly just incredible. And we drove the ring road over four or five days. It was very quick one. But just the nothingness that transforms into something else after several kilometers, you’re going through black lava landscape and then suddenly it changes to something sandy with beautiful colours and then it’s green. It was just amazing.
Steph: It’s my fave!
Carlie: But first of all, let’s start with how you, as an American, came to be living in Iceland, of all countries.
Steph: I know. So, it wasn’t in the books. Like, it wasn’t something that I grew up thinking, like “I will move to Iceland”, but I’ve always had this push to leave the States if I could, but it wasn’t really a thing that I thought I could ever realize. But I grew up in the States in a landlocked middle of America state. So I didn’t see the oceans while I was in my twenties and I just like…I don’t know, I’ve always had this idea to get out, which I did, which was great, but then when I was living in New York my best friend from high school growing up in Ohio, she messaged me and she was like, “I’m going to Iceland in a few weeks.” It was middle of February, totally winter. I was like, “yeah, of course, let’s go”.
So I’ve been like interested in Iceland as far as The Lord of the Rings, and a lot of folklore and National Geographic, I’m like, “that’s freaking nuts, right?” But I never really thought I would ever live here. But on my first visit here, it was like…my life changed. It was so nuts. I’d never had this feeling of home before. And at that point, I’d lived in three different states. And I just…I don’t know what it is. It was literally like…I’m not really religious or anything, but I have this spiritual just like, “this is where you belong.” And it was so strong.
And ever since then, I was just like, “I have to be here.” This is where I feel peace. And I had never felt peace before. And so I just, yeah…I just kept coming here, basically. And I made a lot of connections in the community. And I was doing art out here, photography out here, and eventually, yeah I got to move here. I decided to just, I said, f- it, and I’m going to try to get a visa, so I can live here and work here, get paid money. Because at that point I was just trading. So, a marketing…I would do marketing photos for a travel…like a tour group kind of thing, where they would fly me out and for free, I would do…
Carlie: …in exchange for the trip.
Steph: Yeah, exactly. So I wasn’t getting actually paid, for anything because it’s illegal. But I was here all the time, like constantly, like every 10 to 14 days for a few years.
Carlie: 10 to 14 days?
Steph: Yeah. I was like counting my Schengen dates and making sure, and I would pop into the UK for a few days and then come back, kind of thing. So anyway, so I said, “I’m just going to try to get my visa. I know it is far fetched because I’m an American and I’m not being sponsored by a company. I’m not being sponsored by a husband.” So, I went for it and I ended up…it was a really long process and I had to show every magazine publication I’ve been in, every lanyard I had, shooting for New York fashion week, every magazine I’ve been even just assisting on, because I did a lot of work with Vanity Fair, Vogue, Paramount, like all these big studio stuff. So, I had a huge…it was a trash bag full of stuff that I had to scan and bring in.
Carlie: Gigantic dossier!
Steph: Yeah, huge. And then I had to get letters of recommendation from the community, from artists I’ve worked with here where I did their album art for their CDs (I guess it’s not CDs anymore: I’m old), for their albums. Yeah, great. All of that, and people that I’ve done photography for here, they wrote letters of recommendation in Icelandic and I also got letters of recommendation from celebrities I’ve worked for in the States and then they granted it to me. So I got a…I’m a special artist, is how I got in here.
Carlie: So that was the visa you went for was like an artist visa?
Steph: Artist and special skill, yeah. That’s what I did, which is kind of not normal. It’s very rare. I don’t know! I don’t know if other people have it here. I’m sure other people, some other people do.
Carlie: I know an artist type visa exists for the USA. So, is the artist visa for Iceland kind of like that where you’re granted permission to live and work in the country based on your special talent?
Steph: That’s exactly it. So they granted me work visa and residency visa, obviously at the same time.
Carlie: How long was that process from when you applied for the visa to when they said, yes, come full time, be here?
Steph: I want to say it was like a year and a half of prep and applying, submitting, and waiting, if I remember correctly. So I think…yeah, I feel like it was about a year and a half that it was…the whole process, not counting all of the connections I’d been making years prior. Yeah. It’s a commitment.
Carlie: Jumped through some hoops to get to the end.
Steph: Yeah, definitely. And patience.
Carlie: So, let’s dive into what you think the biggest misconception is that you think foreigners have about Iceland.
Steph: Where do I start? Okay. I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a jerk, but I feel like most things people quote – unquote “know” about Iceland, especially before they’ve ever been here, is most of the time not accurate, honestly, because it’s a lot of information that they’ve gathered off the internet from people that don’t live here and have maybe been here once or twice or something for vacation and then they write blogs and then they’re like, you know doing all the stuff.
Yes, exactly. And it’s actually…it’s kind of funny. Sometimes I’ll read some stuff and I’m like “okay, that location is not the correct name. They misspelled all of this. None of this is correct.” So, I think there’s just a lot of misunderstanding of Iceland as a whole. I think a lot of people feel like it is a fairy tale land, which it looks like it. I get it. It’s beautiful. And it’s something that you don’t feel anywhere else, right? So it does feel…it does have a magic to it. But I think a lot of people forget that people live here. So I think there’s this misconception that Iceland is almost like a Disney World, right? And so…
Carlie: A theme park country, yeah.
Steph: Yeah. So people do stuff all the time, breaking our rules and things that I’m just like, ‘people live here and you’re impeding people right now.” But I think that’s a big misconception that you can’t just stand in the middle of the road. You might actually get hit by a car kind of thing. But the other misconceptions I think is that we eat hotdogs mostly and there’s no good Icelandic food.
Carlie: I have seen a lot of blogs mentioning the hot dogs as like a key meal to eat in Iceland to save money.
Steph: No, no. I mean, sure to save money. Yeah, but it’s not something that…you might grab a hot dog when you’re on the go or something or shopping at Costco, but that’s not a…it’s not really a thing here as a local. Yes, locals eat hot dogs, but it’s not the traditional cuisine, if you know what I mean. I think my husband eats like two hot dogs a year! I don’t know. So I think it’s little things like that.
Carlie: So, when my partner and I went to Iceland for two weeks, we actually stopped keeping track of how much we were spending because we were, spending from euros to local Icelandic money and it was…it just felt extremely expensive and we went, “you know what, it’s better if we just do not track how much we’re spending and just focus on having a good time in this place.” When you live in Iceland though, do salaries kind of balance out to the cost of living?
Steph: I think it depends on…well, one, I think it depends on your perspective a little bit. I’ll get into that in a second. And it also depends on your actual job and your role and what you’re doing here. So, I think for some of the maybe lower paying jobs, like some of the hospitality jobs or something like that where it’s a lot of people that actually just come here and work seasonally and go back and forth, hotels and cleaning staff and stuff like that. It’s probably a stretch in all honesty, but if you have a degree skilled job…because the way that the salaries work here is you get paid, so…hold on, let me back it up.
In America…so this is why we need perspective: in America, which is most of my perspective is, you have your national minimum wage and that’s that, where here you have a minimum wage per job title and per credentials, so if you are a university degreed person working in that skill that you have the degree in, or if you have other experience with that degree, then you get bumped up more, right? So, there’s a minimum wage per type of job that you have.
Carlie: Industry, profession.
Steph: Industry, yeah, and role and all of that stuff. So for…I think for those kinds I don’t…I personally don’t find issue, but I think if you are also eating out all the time. Like, if you don’t have one of the salaried positions where you’re making 1.4 million krona a month kind of thing, then yeah, you probably won’t be eating out every day. And that’s not the culture here anyway. It’s really a home culture and drinking alcohol, you kind of do at home, not so much out because it’s expensive. Yeah, I personally never had an issue and I think it’s less expensive for me living here than when I lived in New York, so yeah.
Carlie: And what do you eat at home?
Steph: Yeah, so I…well, me or what’s common Iceland stuff?
Carlie: Tell me what you’re eating and if it’s common Iceland stuff or how you vary that type of cuisine.
Steph: Yeah, I would say I’m a mix because I’m vegetarian and a lot of Iceland cuisine is meat, like quite meaty. But I do have every morning skyr, which is a yogurt kind of (it’s actually soft cheese), but it’s delicious. So I eat that with berries and stuff. That’s pretty normal. And a lot of breads with a spread and a cheese on top, like an open face: that’s a very Scandinavian, Nordic thing.
Carlie: I’ve seen that a lot in Denmark, yeah.
Steph: Yeah, exactly. So actually, we have, with our cuisine, a ton of Danish and Norwegian influence, because they both owned Iceland before we were independent. So a lot of the pastries and the dishes and stuff like that are very influenced still by Denmark and Norway. And then it’s funny because when people are like “where do I eat traditional Icelandic food?” And I’m like, “you don’t…you don’t want to.” Because traditional Icelandic food is fermented meats, because there was…yeah, they were living in turf houses.
So it’s cool because the…I feel like right now in the past, maybe five to eight years or something, there’s been this culinary, I don’t know, culture happening here where it’s a lot of influence from a lot of different places. And what is now modern Icelandic food is not the traditional Danish stuff. So yeah, so at home we’ll have the open faced stuff, the skyr, my husband loves to eat hangikjöt, which is a smoked meat. Lamb, a whole lot of lamb that is still very…that’s traditional and modern still. And yeah, it’s the typical meat, veggies, potatoes is kind of the traditional thing. I’m ADHD and I’m vegetarian so I just eat a lot of mashed potatoes and fake chicken nuggets and salads and stuff like that which is, you know, quite Icelandic, but when we go out there’s so much amazing food out there, so yeah.
Carlie: I remember we did try the fermented shark while we were in Iceland and I understood when they gave us this little plate with maybe five tiny little cubes of it and a shot of some kind of alcohol.
Steph: Brennivín.
Carlie: Yeah, why they give you such a little amount, because I think we both put a tiny cube in our mouths and I don’t think we even swallowed it. That’s very typical!
Steph: Yes, and that’s actually a really good example of the thing that people think that locals do, but no local eats that. Like, maybe hundreds of years ago.
Carlie: It’s just there for the tourists?
Steph: Yeah, exactly. And I always ruin people’s days when I tell them why and how it’s fermented. But maybe I’ll leave that off. So if anybody comes here, they can try it and see for themselves.
Carlie: We can always just Google that one, yeah. Steph, I know you’re quite an entrepreneur. Is it very difficult for foreigners in Iceland to find work?
Steph: I would say yes, mostly because the…we’re again, small, right? So there aren’t probably a million bajillion jobs. However, if you are a skilled worker and you have something that is not easy to find here, then probably not. Like, we need medical staff quite often and things like that. So, maybe not so much, but if you wanted to come here and you didn’t have a master’s or a doctorate in something highly specific and that job is highly specific to what you do, yeah, it is hard. And it’s really hard for Americans or people that are not part of the EU. Because the…I’m sure you know the hierarchy of how it goes with finding people for the positions.
Carlie: Priority for Icelandic people and then priority for EU and then the rest of the world?
Steph: Yes, exactly. And they have to prove that there’s nobody else in the world that can absolutely do it except for you. So, I would say it is, but we have a lot of foreign workers that come over from Poland, we have a very large Polish population here, and Thailand and the Philippines, that come over permanent, some are permanent, some just come and go that work in restaurants and hospitality and tourism. You know, the buses and all that stuff. So I would say there’s a lot of those jobs but some of them, again, are seasonal. But yeah, if you’re not in the EU, you probably won’t be hired for…you won’t be hired for that, like at all.
Carlie: We spoke earlier about how perhaps the weather has a bit of an influence on people being so creative. What do you do in the dark days of winter? Because Iceland is also a country where in summer, you’ve got like 23, 24 hours of light.
Steph: It’s always light!
Carlie: And in winter, you don’t. Don’t have a lot of sun.
Steph: So again, I like to be, for me personally…because I’m a very different breed. Like when people ask me why I moved to Iceland and I say “the weather”, they think I’m joking. And I’m like, “no, really I love it. I love the cold. I don’t like the sun. I don’t like the sun touching me.” So for me personally, I love the winter. It is so cozy. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is very little sunlight. I think it’s really cozy romantic in a way, because a lot of people especially if you have a perspective where you come from a place where your sun patterns just do this, year round. A lot of people think that’s what it is here. It’s just either a lot or a very short, but that’s not actually what happens.
So our sun actually changes where it is in the sky throughout the whole year, which is really fun. So in the summer, the sun is up the whole day. There’s not a time that gets dark at all. Which is really great. So the sun does this little thing, but in the winter time, it just comes up above the horizon and then just falls down again. So it’s got this really pretty, pink, orangey glow that bounces off all this really glittery untouched snow, so it’s so pretty and I love it.
And the holidays…like, I’m not Christian, this isn’t a Christian nation really and that’s a whole other story, but most people aren’t religious here but it’s the it’s the culturalness of all of the holidays here and there are so many holidays in the winter, like so many. So, you’re always doing different festivals here and the community just holds all these different parties or you’re doing a lot of family time stuff and the actual Christmas season starts in November and basically ends in February. So, you have all these consecutive little fun things that you do. So, I love it personally and you can get cozy and as an entrepreneur, that’s when I do a lot of my next year planning. So, I just really…I’m a hermit. I just turned into my little shell with my blanket and I love the darkness, I think it’s great.
Carlie: It sounds like they’re…maybe Icelandic culture is strategic to keep you interested and engaged during the darkest days of winter if there’s so many activities and things to get involved in, you don’t get much time to get a bit depressed inside or something.
Steph: Yeah, at least for me, I know there are people that absolutely don’t like it. And I know in the immigrant community I’m always seeing people posting about not feeling so well, during the winter and stuff like that. So, there are people that don’t like it and there are people that get affected, but I…I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of Icelandic attitude is you just kind of go with the flow. The saying is þetta reddast is “everything will work out,” “it’ll all be okay”, kind of thing.
So it’s really that kind of attitude towards the weather and the sun or the not sun. You just go with the flow. And integrate it into your life, if that makes sense. So it’s not, yeah…I don’t find it jarring or anything like that. It’s very much a constant flow here. And yeah, I don’t know. I really love it. And we have a lot of indoor pools and stuff like that. So the pool culture here is huge. So people just go in hot tubs when it’s a blizzard out and things like that, go skiing. It’s very active here. People are outside doing activities all year round. So it’s very, just, I don’t know. It’s just part of your life, I love it!
Carlie: I do recall one of our previous guests, Chelsea, who’s an American living in Norway, saying that they have a saying there that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
Steph: Exactly. That’s what we say too! Yes, 100%, yeah!
Carlie: So as long as you’re prepared, there should be no reason to not want to enjoy the outdoors at any time of year.
Steph: Yeah, exactly. That was actually something that when I moved here…because in America, I feel like in a lot of places, if it rains, people will just stay inside, and things like that. Actually my husband’s sister (my husband’s Icelandic), his sister moved to the States for a little bit because her husband is doing a fellowship because he’s a doctor, and she was actually talking about the cultural differences when she got there, how she…because here kids have these full bodysuits that they put on with this face thing.
It’s like a woolen where just this part of their face sticks out, and you just throw them in it. Yeah, exactly, and you just toss them outside, and she said she was just culture shocked a little bit that if it was raining or snowing or anything, people wouldn’t want their kids outside. And here it’s like, you go outside all the time, unless it’s really really windy or dangerous then maybe not, but…
Carlie: I also remember a news story. I think it was a couple from Sweden, one of the Scandi countries that left their child in a baby pram
Steph: Oh, we do that.
Carlie: …out the front of a cafe, but in the States, and someone called the cops and they had to explain that culturally, it’s just what they do.
Steph: Yeah. That’s…we do that too. And I see that a lot in the…because I’m in a lot of tourist forums and stuff like that because a lot of my clients are tourists, so I just like to have a good temperature check of what people are looking at and what locations are starting to get popular with the tourists so I can not go there anymore with my clients. So, I’ll see that a lot where they’re like, “I’m like, I’m walking by and there’s babies outside. Should I call the cops? Is everything okay?” And I’m like, “oh, that’s normal! That’s what we do.”
Carlie: So the parents are inside, enjoying a coffee and they just leave the kids out front, parked like dogs tied up on a leash, on a pole, they’re just sitting in their carriers.
Steph: Yeah, and if they start crying, whoever’s walking by will just knock on the window and point at the buggy and then the mom will just (or the dad or the parent or whoever), will just come out and grab them.
Carlie: Oh, I love that whole community collective to look after a child.
Steph: Yeah, it is like that. It’s really small here. Everybody knows everybody. Everyone’s…I would always joke, actually, when I first started dating my husband, I was like, “are you only dating me because we’re not related?” Everyone in Iceland is related to you.
Carlie: With such a small population, I’m not surprised. And are there any other notable cultural differences that you had to adapt to when you moved to Iceland?
Steph: I grew up in the Midwest, right? In the Midwest, it’s very…you talk to strangers and you smile at people as you pass them. If you are going around them in a grocery store, you’ll be like, “excuse me”, or something like that. And here you don’t talk to people unless you know them, generally. You might, if you’re on a trail, someone might say góðan daginn or something as you pass. But you don’t make eye contact with people in the street. You don’t smile at people. So I would do that at first when I first started coming here, just habit like, I don’t mean to, if I make eye contact, I smile and you only do that if you know somebody.
So, I would get the little look of them trying to remember where they’ve met me before, kind of thing, yeah, so that I don’t do anymore. And in the grocery store, people will just run into you. Not go around you, just move into you. Yeah, at first I would get like, “this old lady wants to fight me, like what’s going on?”, especially coming from New York, where it’s you look at someone wrong and they’re like, “you want to fight?”
So yeah, that took me a little while to maneuver around, I guess a little bit. And there’s been a lot of awesome upgrades I’ve actually had to get used to as an American, I didn’t have as my normal. That yeah, it would take me a while. Like my husband would remind me all the time “oh, you have health insurance, go to the doctor,” things like that, upgrades. And the way the…everything is so centralized.
So that also was like a really fun upgrade for me to just get used to with how the banking works and we each have our own pin with the government where everything’s just centralized and based off of your kind of kennitala. So I had, yeah, that stuff actually took me a while to get used to having support. You don’t have that in the States really, especially as an artist and entrepreneur, like I didn’t have a pension, I didn’t have health insurance, I didn’t have any of these social nets to catch me, kind of thing.
Carlie: I really like that about France where I am too, because even just the cultural attitude to unemployment is different here. Yes, there’s a percentage of French who are considered to be gaming the system and claiming unemployment benefits, but in general, the attitude here is very much “oh well I pay for this unemployment safety net through my taxes and I’m entitled to use it.” Whereas in Australia, the rhetoric really is they’re dull bludgers, they’re leeching off the system and people don’t see it as an entitlement because they work and have paid into the system.
Steph: In America, it’s very much you’re basically a loser in society, you’re worthless if you’re out of unemployment or, welfare, any of these other things and here it’s very much like you’ve paid for it, it’s yours. Like, it’s fine.
Carlie: Go and have a sabbatical. Go and try to start a business and take a risk or take some time off. Yeah.
Steph: Yeah. And you have to still…and most of the people too, at least that I’ve seen in conversation that have been on unemployment, they are…they want to work, they’re looking for other jobs and stuff like that. And so it’s…that attitude is totally different here as well which is great.
Carlie: So refreshing.
Steph: I’ve never personally been on it, but yeah, I think it’s great. It’s just much more of a, yeah, community feel than the States.
Carlie: Steph, have you mastered the Icelandic language?
Steph: Have you heard it?
Carlie: Is it possible?
Steph: I don’t know if it’s possible for me! I don’t know. It is so hard. I’ve taken my classes. I’ve gone through three levels. Because you, you also have to do that as your…for permanent residency. So, I did that to get my permanent residency. I can hear conversation, know what’s going on, I can read things, know what’s going on. When it comes to speaking it, it is so hard. It’s so hard.
There’s so many noises and ways of airflow and the way that your mouth has to be shaped that is just not in English at all. And the inflection is different than English. So, it’s…I have not mastered that. I would love to be 100% fluent at some point, obviously. Because I think it’s for me personally, it’s a respect thing. I want to learn their language. You know what I mean? I really want to, and I try to speak what I know, but I have a weird accent, so it always goes right to English, so I don’t get a whole lot of practice. But yeah, I can hear stuff and read stuff and know what’s happening in quite short sentences but yeah, but mastering: no.
Carlie: So, do you think it’s possible for a foreigner to live in Iceland and never take an Icelandic class and be completely able to function in society?
Steph: Yeah. Function, definitely. I think you could function, for sure. I know there are a lot of especially the seasonal workers and stuff or people that might be here for a few years and then leave that don’t. However, I do think knowing the language opens you up to more of the culture, because there’s so much of Icelandic culture that is…I almost feel (this might be a really weird analogy), but it feels when people have an inside joke and you don’t know what’s happening?
If you know the language you’re so much more privy to the sayings and stuff like that. And there’s a lot of words that just don’t translate into English and stuff like that. So, I think if you know the language, it opens you up to just more of the community and more of the culture for sure. If you don’t know any, you would totally get by. Most people here, everyone here, unless they’re maybe two generations up, everyone speaks English. So, it’s not hard. And a lot of people that work where you would be going day to day, like restaurants, bars, grocery stores, a lot of people there are foreign workers as well so some don’t speak Icelandic at all. Obviously some Icelanders work in those positions too. But yeah, so you can totally get by.
Carlie: Here in France, there are rules about using French first on things like menus, and even if you have any English words in, like printed ads that come in the mail, they need to have the French translation written in small words somewhere on the flyer as well. Is that similar in Iceland? Do they switch between Icelandic and English for things like official communications or do you just have to figure it out with a translate app?
Steph: Yeah, no, it’s still Icelandic. So, they will have for something, especially if it’s a part of the government that deals with immigrants. They will have an Icelandic, English, and Polish versions of the websites and stuff like that. But it’s cool because now, just now, is when they’re really getting a big influx of foreigners. So, this is really the first time in their history, that they’ve had to talk to and communicate with people regularly that don’t speak Icelandic. So there’s starting to be things like our national news, it’s always in English…I mean in Icelandic. But they opened up…it’s called RÚV, so they did a RÚV English.
So you can get the the news and stuff in English as well. And there’s been some talks as of late, I would say the past like six months or so, that I’ve started to hear about it, of this conversation actually coming up of, “how are we going to preserve our language and how are we going to actually make it more accessible for immigrants to learn the language?” Because that’s part of the, that’s part of the issue.
And I think as an immigrant, a lot of people want to learn the language, but we are working adults, so it’s like, when do you have time? Like when I was going to school, it was really hard on my brain, really hard, because it would be after work, and it would be…my brain’s already fried from what I’ve been doing during the day. And a lot of people…and I don’t have kids, so I was able to do that, but if you are a working parent or something like that, how do you learn this language?
So there’s actually a lot of conversation happening now around how do we make it more accessible and how do we keep it alive, but also integrate all these, new people that don’t speak it? So we do have on our, a lot of our signs are just Icelandic, but then if, again, if it’s for tourists or something like that, it’s Icelandic and then English. When people are talking (to answer the second part of your question), they don’t flip back and forth from Icelandic to English or anything, unless it’s a saying that isn’t a traditional Icelandic saying. So, they’ll be speaking Icelandic. (Am I allowed to curse on here? I don’t know.) Okay. They’ll be speaking something in Icelandic and then they’ll be like, “oh shit.” And then go back to the Icelandic, or something like that.
Carlie: Because there’s no…in Icelandic or it’s not the same?
Steph: I think it’s more of the context and how they’re saying it and the…not to mock English speakers, but it’s more of just a different way to say it, if that makes sense. So yeah, so they’ll pop back and forth a little bit in that way. But if it’s…yeah, at least in my experience, if I’m around Icelanders and they’re speaking Icelandic, they’re just speaking Icelandic unless it’s a one off something, yeah.
Carlie: We spoke about the dark winter months, how about those glorious 24 hours of daylight? Because when we were in Iceland it was extremely bizarre to have the sun still out at three o’clock in the morning. We also came during what I believe was a summer heat wave because people were out on their balconies, like sunning themselves and people were getting around without a sweater and that was like 15, maybe 19 degrees max.
Steph: So, that’s a cultural thing. So, that’s what you do when the sun comes out. I personally don’t because I don’t like the sun to touch me, but my husband, as soon as the sun comes out the Icelandic thing to do: you take your shirt off (maybe not the ladies, maybe they’ll have, something else on, though we don’t really care. Nudity is not a thing here. We don’t care.) But you take your shirt off, you take your shoes off, and you just lay in the grass somewhere. Or you lay somewhere to soak up the sun. All summer long, if we’re outside hiking or something, my husband will just take his shirt off just to get some sun.
Carlie: Even if it’s only 13 degrees!
Steph: So that’s a cultural thing. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, that’s warm. He has specific shorts for when it gets to 10 degrees. He’s oh, “yeah, short weather!” Yeah, but I love the all day sun. It’s at first…it was trippy to be in it all the time, like my first, maybe two summers that I lived here. I would just be on the couch and be like, “I’m tired, I don’t really know why”, and be like, “oh, it’s 2am.” It’s not actually yeah…I had no idea.
But now it’s I personally, I don’t even notice it because everybody has blackout curtains and you sleep with a sleeping mask. And I just, I don’t even notice. But I love getting up. My body gets up at 5 a.m. every morning, just how it is. So I love it in the summer because the sun’s already out and I walk along the sea every morning. So, it’s really nice because it looks like noon, but nobody is out and it’s great. Yeah, I like that. And adventuring because you can adventure at midnight, nobody’s out as far as tourists go.
Carlie: Obviously a lot of people go to Iceland for the nature and there’s been a lot covered in recent years about the problem of over-tourism. Some of Iceland’s most iconic spots just being overrun and damaged because of tourists and not respecting the nature. So, what’s your advice to people that really want to come to Iceland but don’t want to contribute to the problems that locals are having with over-tourism? How do you strike that balance as being a respectful visitor?
Steph: I love that you asked me that. I’m actually about to start a project on this because I’m…so I…let me preface this with, I fully believe that there’s more people that want to do good, but they’re just unaware than people that don’t give a shit, right? So I think the…if you care and you want to be mindful of our climate…so this is the thing: our ground is always wet. We don’t have a lot of sunlight throughout the years and everything’s very fragile because of that.
Some tips that I would have is to…if you’re at some of the popular locations, or any location, actually, that has a trail stay on the trails because a lot of the damage actually comes from the feet, right? Kicking up moss and stuff like that. And our ground can’t take a whole lot of feet happening. So, stay on the trails, stay behind the ropes. The ropes are there to protect either you or to protect the flora and fauna. Just stay behind the ropes, you won’t get a better photo if you step over the ropes. So just stick to that. Obviously take in…whatever you take in take out. I see a lot of people leaving trash and number twos out and just don’t do that, that’s awful.
Carlie: I have heard that Iceland is bringing more toilets to these places. Personally, I’m happy.
Steph: They are. I actually…yeah, they are, which is great. So this is the thing, I think that a lot of people don’t understand about Iceland is all of our land is either owned by the government, like a national park, or it’s privately owned. So even Skógafoss is on a private farm. So a lot of these amazing locations that people go to, even Reynisfjara, the quote – unquote black sand beach, that’s a farm, right? And so people opened up these locations because they’re so beautiful for people to see.
So, I think a lot of people don’t realize that these aren’t national parks. And that’s why there aren’t facilities and stuff like that. So the boom of tourism actually happened very quickly. So I think some of these farmers and stuff, that’s why there’s been parking fees that have started to come into play at some of these places, and it is so they can build facilities and stuff like that for people.
A tip there is just don’t pass up a gas station. We have so many gas stations and little convenience stores and stuff like that, and the attitude here is not like it is in the States, where if you walk in and ask to use the restroom, they look at you like you’re a jerk, and they’re like, “buy something first.” It’s not like that here. Just use the restroom if you’re passing it, just do that instead of waiting until you’re out in the nature, because also, so many of our locations you hike to, so you can’t really have, you know a facility in the middle of literally nowhere. But I actually have a friend who is working right now on a circular restroom project and my mother-in-law is consulting her on it to get these circular…not economy, but what’s it called? Circular, no waste…
Carlie: No trace.
Steph: Up and around. Yeah, really cool.
Carlie: So you carry it with you or it’s compostable?
Steph: No, yeah. So it’s like a toilet out in nature, but it’s a they, it uses the waste for other things. Really cool. So, that’s just happening. But yeah, that’s what I would say. I would say do that stuff first and for protection, at least, of our nature.
Carlie: But you don’t think it’s a matter of people needing to stop coming to Iceland? Iceland doesn’t necessarily want to stop tourism?
Steph: I don’t think it should stop tourism totally. It is a beautiful place. It is something that is our number one moneymaker also. And I think we need it. I do…I personally, this is just my personal views: take what you want from it. I think that there should be a higher tourist tax on a lot of things. And I also…because the thing is us locals are also footing the bill for all of this. So there’s 2.3 to 2.4 million tourists a year, and there’s only 300,000 and some change of us. And so we’re really footing the bill for the extra garbage and all this other stuff. So, I think having some kind of different structure where there is some different tourist tax would be great. And I actually think it could be beneficial to limit the amount of tourists a year that do come here. Similar to how some of the national parks in the U.S. have the permit system or a modern…
Carlie: And Venice is doing that now too, they have a daily cap on entrants and you have to pay…
Steph: I think that’s the only way I can think of. But I do think that we could handle less, to let it heal a little bit. And also too, just the roads get so busy, in the summer I get stuck in traffic and I’m like, “what is that?”
Carlie: “Go home!”
Steph: So things like that. Yeah, “stay in your cabin for a day.” Yeah, things like that I think would be helpful. And also, lastly, before I step off of my soapbox: the cruise ships, I personally think should just not happen.
Carlie: Right, I completely forgot you have cruise ships coming around.
Steph: We have so many, and they…it’s thousands of people coming into these tiny fishing towns. Even here in Reykjavík, it’s overpowering. I live by the ports, and it’s really overpowering. So many people, and it kind of sucks, because it takes away, I think, some of the beauty of why people live here, and pay to live here, and it’s expensive to live here, and I don’t know, I can’t go into my bakery that I usually go into, and a lot of tourists, again, back to the whole ‘people live here’, this isn’t a make believe place, they’re quite, dare I say rude, I get hit a lot, and walked into on the sidewalk a lot, and they walk in our bike lanes, and people are like, have to bell, because they’re trying to get to work, those kinds of things. I think, also too, if you want to be respectful when you’re here, just see what the flow is and stick with the flow and don’t walk in bike lanes and run red lights and things like that.
Carlie: Yeah, completely. Being a respectful visitor is so important. Finally, Steph…
Steph: It is so important!
Carlie: Steph, I’m curious about, you mentioned that your husband is Icelandic, but what else keeps you in the country and not, for example, deciding to repatriate to the States?
Steph: Can I just say everything? I’m so in love with Iceland. Like, so in love with it. I love what it affords me, my peace. My…it’s so weird, I actually remember the moment that I stopped having anxiety and I was staring at the ocean and realized I didn’t have this feeling that I just thought was just normal. Like I just love the peace that it affords me. I cannot picture leaving. And my work. A big part of what I do, like I’m a photographer, but I’m also a coach and I hold retreats and I get to take people to these epic locations and help them with transformations and help them with all this stuff that I couldn’t do in the States because the nature here is just…I don’t even know how to describe it. Once you’re in it (you know, you’ve been here), once you’re in it and you feel that power and oneness with the universe, as woo-woo as that sounds, I can’t get that anywhere else. I just love it.
Carlie: There’s definitely just…it’s a vibe in Iceland. In the nature, and I’ve never felt it in any other place.
Steph: Yeah, exactly. It’s a vibe. Yeah. No, me either. And each location…it’s funny because when I’m creating these different experiences, so whether it’s photography clients or coaching clients, if I’m doing a bespoke experience, I have this questionnaire where I ask them specific questions to figure out different feelings, and then I match the feelings to different locations because they all have different vibes and feelings, you know? So yeah, I just love it. I cannot imagine ever, and I’ll never go back. I’m a permanent resident. I’m never going back. Everything keeps me here. I love the culture. I love literally everything. I have a husband. We own a house. I have roots here, of course. But aside from that I just love it. I’m so in love with the country. I will never leave.
Carlie: Steph, thanks so much for coming on the Expat Focus Podcast to talk all things Iceland and your perspective as an American in Iceland.
Steph: Of course!
Carlie: That’s it for today. If Nordic countries are on your radar, you’ll enjoy my chat with Chelsea, who offers 10 tips for integrating into life in Norway. Just roll through our podcast episodes on our website, expatfocus.com, or your favourite app to find it.
Be sure to sign up to our monthly newsletter to never miss a new episode, and I’ll catch you next time.