When we guide people on the glacier, the question we get most frequently is, “Is the glacier melting because of climate change/global warming?”, often followed by, “Are we hurting the glacier by walking on it?”

The question of how climate change affects the glaciers deserves a blog of its own, but to answer the second question, the hikes and footfalls themselves are not the issue. A challenge facing the sustainable or eco-tourism industry is how to provide more sustainable or eco-friendly options for tourists visiting our country. Sometimes there isn’t much of a choice (as in, whether to fly or say, sail to Iceland) but we’ve tried to round-up some choices you could make to have a more sustainable trip in Iceland. 

Offsetting your flight to Iceland

Unfortunately, there are not many options for reaching Iceland. Travelling by car requires you to take the ferry from Denmark, and sea-based operations like cruise ships come with their own large carbon footprint. If flying, try to book non-stop flights or minimize stopovers whenever you can: It’s the take offs and landings that create most of an airplane’s carbon emissions.

It’s worth seeing if the airline you fly with has a carbon reduction program like Icelandair, who have an inbuilt carbon calculator and connections to Icelandic companies that plant trees locally. Otherwise, you can estimate your carbon emissions using a calculator like My Climate and then choose one of their programs, or donate to an Iceland-based company like the Forestry Service’s Iceland Carbon Fund Kolviður.

Electric car rental, bus travel, ridesharing and hitchhiking in Iceland 

For a country with one main highway (and the odd road poking out the sides), Iceland has taken a while to coordinate electric car travel with tourism. There is now one company, Geysir Car Rental, offering a small fleet of electric cars for about €600 for a week (as compared to about €300 for an automatic bensin/diesel car). It’s worth calculating how much and where you’ll be driving, because at between 200 – 240ISK a litre (€2 a litre or $7 USD a gallon) you might find it worth the initial upfront cost to go electric or hybrid. This is a good blog about fuel costs in Iceland. The electric network is better than ever, so our advice is to check in with Geysir car rental and ask them questions pertaining to your itinerary, and plan driving times and the length of your days around charging stations.

It is also possible to take the bus year-round in Iceland, although it’s a lengthier and less-reliable journey in the winter due to weather delays. Nonetheless, you can take buses around town with Straeto (make sure you get the app!), to the highlands with companies like Trex.is and Reykjavik Excursions, and consider getting a bus pass that covers the popular south coast, the highlands, or the ring road. 

Samferda, “travelling together” is a ridesharing website where people advertise rides or request them. It’s always polite to offer your host cash/PayPal for gas as it’s quite expensive here, although some won’t ask for this. You can also try the ol’ thumb on the road, but this is mainly successful on the south coast and can be hard to manage in bad weather so always have a back up plan. 

Lastly, you could consider taking tours with local companies like our friends Hidden Iceland to reduce the days you rent your car, sharing fuel, and to boot, getting some good local guidance. 

Sustainable accommodation

A lot of travellers want to have the “authentic” experience when travelling in Iceland, but it’s important to consider whether your desire to experience the “real” Reykjavik is having a detrimental effect on the actual residents. AirBnB is a double-edged sword. For some residents, it can assist with rental costs, but many apartments listed on AirBnB are run like guesthouses and hotels and are effectively pushing people out of the housing market. Reykjavik has more hotel rooms than ever before and prices have been adjusted to reflect this so consider booking a hotel in the city center. You can get a great sense of Icelandic design from visiting the many stores and bars downtown.

Outside of the city, it’s much better for the local economy to book into guesthouses and AirBnB cottages and cabins. Many icelanders have summer houses they occasionally rent out, or run guesthouses out of older farms that they can no longer work due to age or the changing market. Here, your money is going directly into the pockets of the local communities rather than larger hotel chains based out of Reykjavik, so you’re helping to support schools, roads, services, and individuals.

Community-based tourism: Local, small family business 

The way to truly support small business and local communities in Iceland is to go with companies and guides that pay their tax to their local communities. This supports schools so children can grow up in the countryside with their families, preschools so working parents (especially mothers like Local guides Helen and Lotta!) can help run local businesses, road and plow services, recycling, search and rescue, and health centres. The tour companies operating from the city will definitely be doing their part as many of the employees are long-term residents of Reykjavik, but where you can help out the 30% odd percent who live outside of the city, go for it!

Our pick for city tours is always going to be our friends Hidden Iceland not just because all their founders and guides are extremely smart and extremely attractive, but because they support families, pay a living wage, choose local operators and offset their carbon footprint. When you have the chance outside of Reykjavik to book day tours, consider doing it with family companies like Midgard Adventure and KatlaTrack for your south coast adventures near the Highlands and Vik, and we’d love to have you for your Skaftafell shenanigans. Send us a line if you’re after more recommendations for the rest of the ring road, or drop in at the local info centre and ask for the local companies.