Stuck in Iceland Celebreates Two Years and 60.000 Readers

Some two years ago, while enjoying a cup of coffee, we were chatting about how tourism in Iceland was booming. We noted that, while tourism was booming, visitors to Iceland were directed to relatively few places. This was, and still is a source of a genuine concern. Iceland has beautiful tourist attractions but they all have one thing in common: They are fragile and they are under increasing pressure from tourism. The influx of tourists has, however, been a key factor in keeping our economy somewhat afloat since the banksters and complicit politicians drove it off a cliff back in 2008.

We both had the good fortune of visiting many places in Iceland that are not really typical tourist attractions. These include a remote fossil beach, hiking across the most insane mountain range in the north, hiking the old highway of Kjölur, crossing a raging glacial river in an old cable car to meet a ghost, visiting a cave which may have been a refuge for Irish monks, and spending a week in the far north west where the foxes rule.

So we thought it might be a good idea to tell people about these places. We also share an interest in social media and search engine optimization, and our objective was to rank highly in search engine results for Icelandic tourism without spending any money on marketing.

Fortunately, we did not have the objective of making a lot of money, since, well, we do not make any money from it! It was never our intention to have any guest bloggers on our site, but we have had the incredible good fortune of having a lot of talented writers and photographers who have been gracious enough to allow us to publish their material. This has had the fantastic side effect of creating friendships with many of them. That has indeed been the best part of running this indie travel blog dedicated to Iceland.

To cut a long story short, we launched the Stuck in Iceland blog two years ago.

• 112 published articles – including this one
• 60.000 users have read articles on our site
• We have been found 27,500 times through search engines such as Google
• 576 follow us on Facebook
• 1389 follow us on Twitter

The 10 most popular articles for the last two years are the following:

The Space Ship in the Heart of Reykjavik
Thousands of EvE Online players visit Reykjavik for their Fanfest every year.

Kirkjufell Mountain Pictured in All Seasons From Dusk to Dawn
Our good friend and master photographer, Martin Schulz, photographs the picturesque mountain of Kirkjufell. Magic ensues. The picture at the top is also by Martin from his visit to Breidamerkursandur Beach.

Crossing Things Off the Bucket List in Iceland
A young and extremely talented photographer from England, Drew Stewart, managed to cross things off the bucket list in his visit to Iceland.

Brúarfoss is the Icelandic Waterfall Perfect for all Seasons
Martin Schulz teaches us how to photograph Icelandic waterfalls.

Drink, Write, Love, Discovering Iceland´s Creative Culture
The Canadian writer Ariel Demchuk got some great life advice when visiting a rather seedy Reykjavik bar.

Me, Myself, Iceland, and the Volcano!
I am running out of adjectives for Martin Schulz’s photographs. Check them out, I am sure you will struggle to capture them in words.

Stuck in the Westfjords – A Photographic Journey of Iceland
Nick Miners is a renowned English photographer. His dreamy black-and-white pictures from the Westfjords have a timeless quality.

The Surprising Gem of an Icelandic Hot Spring
The 8-bit computer games legend, Paul Hutchinson, visited a hot spring.

The Hidden Beauty of Gljufrabui
Right next to the popular tourist spot of Seljalandsfoss waterfall is a stunning waterfall called Gljufrabui.

The Dark Side of Thingvellir
When people think of Thingvellir, they think of Viking settlers founding the world’s oldest Parliament in the world. But there is more to Thingvellir than that.

One more thing: The name “Stuck in Iceland” is a tongue-in-cheek dig at the currency controls imposed on Icelanders. But it also reminds us that being stuck in Iceland isn´t all that bad. There are worse places in the world.