Tourists

Tourists
Click for large. Check out my drawing-stream on Flickr.

Illustrations for a quiz in Reykjavik Grapevine magazine entitled, "What kind of tourist are you?".

So, when you are a tourist in Iceland, you could be...

The Classic Tourist/ Nature Fetishist
You fall into the ‘classic’ category of Iceland’s tourist friends. Here since long before Björk sang her first notes and Reykjavík was any kind of attraction (or even had a café), your kind has been cavorting in Iceland’s hills, small towns and public pools longer than most. Often operating on a budget, you may often be found hitch-hiking your way around the country, climbing mountains, sleeping in emergency shelters or sneaking single-serve packets of butter into your pockets at breakfast buffets. You are most easily recognised by your brightly coloured all-weather apparel.

You are: The Eurohippie!
A somewhat modernised version of the nature fetishist, the Eurohippie started rearing his dreadlocked head in Iceland sometime during the mid-nineties. The recent Kárahnjúkar Dam dispute / Sigur Rós free concert series accounts for a massive surge in their numbers lately, along with increased tofu-sales. If the numbers place you in this group (and magazine lifestyle quizzes never lie), chances are that you’ve studied liberal arts, experimented with various mind-altering substances and ideologies, and enjoy conspiracy theories and acting as a conscience for the rest of us. You are most often recognisable by a weird hairstyle, earth-tone clothing and some facial hair.

The Trendy Tourist!
Congratulations! You are the trendy tourist type traveller, and thus probably the latest addition to Iceland’s foreigner fauna. And a true pioneer! You may have some ties to Iceland’s music, fashion or arts scenes, and were most likely inspired to come here by someone you met in Berlin or New York (or an article in one of those magazines that have almost no words in them). You count Björk among your icons, but you also enjoy several obscure things that are guaranteed to be all the rage shortly (at which point you will abandon them). Your feelings about Reykjavík (101 Reykjavík) will be mixed, although you will most likely enjoy the opportunities for social climbing and to be instantly notorious in the 300-person scene (which may even prompt you to immigrate). You are easily recognised, as you look, talk, sound and smell like next month is already here.

The Dirty Weekender!
God. Then there’s you. You are likely a decent, hard working fellow lured to Iceland by Reykjavík’s party-hard notoriety and some Tarantino/tourist board fuelled misconceptions about the nature of Icelandic nightlife and its female participants. Most often seen in groups, you will be drunk by 7pm, walking down Laugavegur wearing a Viking helmet by 9pm, kinda let down by constant refusals by midnight and a patron of one of the city’s strip-clubs by 2am (at which point you will be too intoxicated to notice that the Icelandic females you’re supposedly associating with all have thick Eastern-European accents). If not staggering through downtown Reykjavík with a Viking helmet on, you can be recognised by an expensive watch and baseball-cap combo that nicely accent your leather-jacketed mid-life crisis.