Go Niche

Talk about a silver lining. Previously expensive, Iceland’s economic crisis has driven prices down so much that Lonely Planet has just given it top billing as one of the world’s best value destinations for 2010.

It’s just one very good reason for going there. Others include all the geysers and thermal pools that make up the land of fire and ice, the buzzing city of Reykjavik and, of course, the putrefied whale meat.

But the real reason to visit Iceland, for Irish people anyhow, is to see how they are coping with recession. All those jokes last year about the difference between Ireland and Iceland being one letter and six months surely make it a good indicator of what’s coming down the track for us?

On that basis, and in the spirit of investigative journalism, Go Nichecontacted the only Icelandic person it knows, who happens to live in Dublin.

He wasn’t long busting a few myths. Firstly, Icelandic people are much more upbeat about their prospects, he said. It just isn’t in their make-up to wallow in doom and gloom.

Secondly, he said Iceland never embraced excess the way we did here. “In Iceland you don’t have the same extremes of rich and poor, everybody is much the same, goes to the same schools, lives on the same streets – the dentist beside the mechanic.”

And just don’t get him started about McDonald’s. “The implication was that McDonald’s had pulled out because people could no longer afford to eat there. The fact is Icelanders are very into healthy eating, and not fast food.”

icetourist.is