An icy wind was cutting across Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, just after 7 a.m. on a winter morning, still long before dawn. Puddles were frozen solid. Noses stung. It was, after all, minus 11 Celsius (about 12 Fahrenheit).
That’s cold, even in Iceland.
But there, under the open sky on the deck of the Vesturbaejarlaug public pool complex, some 20 people in bathing suits were doing jumping jacks in unison, their breath steaming as they counted and whooped, before dropping to the frozen ground for push-ups. There were a few lap swimmers. But these intrepid friends crowded into a hot tub, laughing as their sags and smile lines and surgery scars sank below the steam.
Other than me, there were no outsiders around — and certainly no tourists.
“That’s why we show up so early in the morning,” joked Ragna Thorhallsdottir, one swimmer, sipping a coffee after she had changed back into dry clothes. “We’re all by ourselves.”
A new honor brings new worries
Until recently, the 150 or so pools around Iceland had managed to stay mostly out of sight of the tourists who come by the millions, some flying nonstop even from regional U.S. airports like Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Nashville and Baltimore.
In fact, about two million visitors have come to Iceland each year since 2017, save for a dip during the peak years of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s a lot for a country of fewer than 400,000. Many tourists flock to the prime sights, like the glaciers and waterfalls, as well as the spalike lagoons, which are more rugged, luxurious and photogenic than the pools.
Now, some Icelanders worry that over-tourism could reach their pools, too. That’s because late last year, UNESCO honored the country’s pool culture as “intangible cultural heritage” — a designation given to about 850 traditions around the world, like baking baguettes in France, making canoes in Micronesia and playing reggae in Jamaica.
Suddenly, Iceland’s best-kept secret is out in the open. Since the nod, some regulars said, they had already seen more tourists.
“It’s too much,” said Unnur B. Hansdottir, who has come to Vesturbaejarlaug for many years to work out in the mornings.
Even swimmers like Ms. Thorhallsdottir, who has spent years abroad and speaks accentless English, worry the pools could lose an intangible Icelandicness if too many tourists visit.
“We want to keep it for ourselves,” she said.
Everyone’s home away from home
The pools were built generations ago as a public safety effort: Too many fishermen were drowning within sight of the shore, and since almost no one could swim, no one could save them. So Iceland went on a spree constructing pools, which are usually heated by geothermal energy, mostly outdoors and open all year long.
Today, swimming lessons are mandatory for all young children. Iceland’s pools — specifically the hot tubs — are now a beloved “third space,” sort of like Finland’s saunas or Britain’s pubs.
Older people meet there to gossip. Professionals come after work to decompress. Parents bring their children in the early evenings for an after-dinner splash. And late at night, when the homework is done and the northern lights dance overhead, teenagers meet, sometimes, to flirt.
In part, the draw is financial. The pools are one of the cheapest places to meet in a country with high inflation. And in winter, the sun shines for just a few hours — if it does at all. So the hot tubs adjacent to the pools are the only comfortable open-air spots around.
“It’s also the only place where you can really stay outside without being cold,” said Sigridur Sigurjonsdottir, the director of Iceland’s Museum of Design and Applied Art, which hosted an exhibition about Icelandic bathing culture in 2022.
Policing the outdoor showers
Every trip to an Icelandic pool starts with a shower. Or at least it should.
“We are a little bit scared that foreign people are not cleaning themselves well enough,” said Thordis Erla Agustsdottir, a photographer who has spent two decades documenting the pools.
She — like nearly every other Icelander I met — made it very clear to me that I would need to shower properly first. That meant fully naked, with enough scrubbing to stir up a lather. Many locker rooms display a body diagram targeting armpits and genitals, in case anyone needs a reminder. It’s for hygiene, as the pools are only lightly chlorinated.
What I had not anticipated was that Ms. Agustsdottir preferred the outdoor locker room in Hafnarfjordur, south of Reykjavik. I shook uncontrollably even under the hot water, dutifully soaping as she chatted in the slicing air.
“I’m like the police in the shower,” she said, laughing a little at herself. “It’s such a simple thing to do. Just clean yourself!”
She was one of several Icelanders who said they were worried about cleanliness standards if the UNESCO designation brought in more unaware tourists. Already, that’s why many Icelanders choose to avoid the lagoons, worrying that those sites are more lax about the showering enforcement.
There are other differences between the types of swim sites. Lagoons can have swim-up bars, plush towels and let visitors bring their phones to the deck for selfies and scrolling. Pools usually don’t. And the price gap is vast. Pools cost about $10 a day, depending on the location, or about $300 a year. (They are usually free for children and older adults.) But a basic ticket to the Blue Lagoon, one of the most famous, can cost about $150 during peak hours.
“We don’t go there,” said Kristin Jorunn Hjartardottir, speaking of the lagoons.
She swims outside, even in the ocean, and wrote a book with her husband about open-water swimming. On a recent morning, she padded across a beach that was frozen solid before pounding through a layer of ice to make a clearing to swim, for a few minutes, just offshore.
Does safeguarding help or hurt?
UNESCO officials are aware that its intangible heritage recognition can affect the very places or practices it seeks to celebrate and safeguard.
In response to questions from The New York Times, UNESCO acknowledged in a statement that the honor “can increase the visibility of a site or practice,” which can “place pressure on fragile environments, affect cultural practices or impact the well-being of the communities.”
That makes some Icelanders worry that the designation could backfire and turn their pools into just another must-do stop on an Iceland trip.
Some Icelanders pointed out that other UNESCO sites have been inundated with tourists. The Geiranger Fjord in Norway, which UNESCO recognized in 2005, has recently become a draw for travelers seeking a “coolcation” to avoid the deadly heat waves that have plagued southern Europe. The cruise ships and tour buses cramming the fjord are starting to threaten the fragile ecosystem.
Some Europeans have even pushed for UNESCO to rescind its honors. Last year, a British naturalist argued that the Lake District’s status as a world heritage site should be revoked, citing “damaging overtourism.” Residents of the Slovakian village of Vlkolinec told local media that the UNESCO designation had enticed an overwhelming number of tourists to ogle their wooden houses.
Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, a folklore professor at the University of Iceland who co-authored a book on the country’s pools, said, “In some ways, safeguarding is the main source of threat.”
Icelanders always liked the “adventurous spirits” who wandered in for a dip, he said.
But now, “there’s a fear of the tour buses coming in,” he said. “That’s a very different kind of animal.”
A recommendation from A.I.
The tourists, however, are coming. And they often do need reminding about the showers.
That’s especially true at Sundhollin, a public pool that attracts a lot of foreign visitors, in part because it is in Reykjavik. There, in the locker room on a recent morning, Marianna Niemann Filippi was preparing for a soak. “I don’t really like doing the touristy things,” explained Ms. Niemann Filippi, an American who lives in Denmark, still dry as she pulled on her suit.
Rookie move, I gently explained. She stripped.
“Sorry, it’s like an automatic thing!” she said, half apologizing to the other women in the showers. One smiled thinly.
Outside, friends from the Washington, D.C., area lounged in the hot tub. Some had their phones in waterproof sleeves. Lan Yue said they had loved Iceland but were leaving soon and wanted to tick off one last bucket list item.
They had thought of ending the trip at the Blue Lagoon. But they wanted something more authentic. So they asked ChatGPT where to go, she said, “to get to know the local culture and, maybe, to mingle with the locals.”
This pool was its first suggestion, Ms. Yue said. And it did not disappoint, she added, gesturing at a young Icelandic family nearby.
Egill Bjarnason reported from Husavik, Iceland.
