Iceland and safety

Over the last few months in Iceland there have been a few issues with tourists ignoring safety notices in certain locations around the country, often to get a photograph or even take a selfie. They may also have contributed to a decision to close access to a well known plane wreck.

There has been a concern since the death of a tourist a few weeks ago at Reynisfjara beach near Vik.
Back in October 2015, we took 50 students to the same beach and I actually drew a line in the black volcanic sand with my boot and made sure everyone stayed the right side of it, even though there was a tempting cave just round the corner which seemed to be perfectly accessible, except when the 5th or 7th or 9th wave turned out to be much bigger than the previous ones...


The Tourism Task force has come up with a list of dangerous places where care needs to be observed.

These are named as:

Arn­arstapi, Detti­foss, Djúpalónss­and­ur, Dyr­hóla­ey, Geys­ir, Goðafoss, Grjóta­gjá and Stjóra­gjá, Gull­foss, Gunnu­hver, Fjaðrár­gljúf­ur, Jök­uls­ár­lón, Ketu­björg, Kolug­ljúf­ur, Krísu­vík­ur­bjarg, Látra­bjarg, Náma­skarð/​Leir­hnjúk­ur, Reykja­dal­ur, Reyn­is­fjara, Selja­lands­foss, Sel­tún, Skóga­foss, Sól­heima­jök­ull, Svína­fells­jök­ull and Víti/​Askja/​Drekagil.


They have also made available plans for their tourist industry development (PDF download from this link)

This would be very useful for those exploring tourism in an overseas location, or those following Travel and Tourism courses. The Tourist Board website contains plenty of data and other useful information.

Image: Alan Parkinson

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