Iceland Expats Break Down Largest Challenges They Confronted After Transferring

• Iceland is a hub for worldwide migrants due to its nature, security, and public providers.
• However migrants to the Nordic nation face some particular challenges, like costly groceries and a scarcity of daylight within the winter.
• Expats to Iceland from the US, UK, India, and Canada informed BI about their experiences.

Relocating is rarely straightforward, however the challenges fluctuate significantly relying on the place you progress.

Iceland has an enormous expat inhabitants. Based on Statistics Iceland, greater than 20% of its inhabitants was born abroad.

5 expats to Iceland informed Enterprise Insider in regards to the largest challenges they confronted.

You have to regulate to the shortage of daylight

Iceland has near-constant daylight on the top of summer season, and little or no daylight on the peak of winter.

“I nonetheless discover it very onerous in the summertime,” mentioned Shruthi Basappa, a meals author and cofounder of structure studio SEI who’s from India however relocated from Barcelona to Iceland 11 years in the past. “It is at all times a problem to sleep. And within the winters it is at all times a problem to maintain your self awake.”

Within the winter, 9-to-5 staff miss the few hours of daylight whereas they’re cooped up within the workplace.

“I was afraid of winter coming,” Jewells Chambers, who relocated from Brooklyn seven years in the past and makes the podcast All Issues Iceland, mentioned.

Chambers mentioned she workout routines and undertakes a venture to distract her from the darkness. Sonia Nicolson, who moved from the UK eight years in the past, recommends you “give into Hallmark films and simply be cozy and hibernate.”

The lengthy summer season days, in the meantime, imply individuals wrestle to know when to cease working.

“It is tougher for me to know after I ought to loosen up, and I can exhaust myself,” Chambers mentioned. “I might burn out from pleasure.”

“It is onerous to recollect to eat dinner and it appears like the center of the day even at 9 p.m.,” mentioned Jeannie Riley, a journey advisor at Iceland With a View who relocated from Texas in 2016. The expats really helpful sleeping with eye masks and blackout blinds.

Grocery procuring could be a problem

Icelandic grocery shops are costly and missing in selection, expats say.

“We’re a tiny little island and it’s extremely troublesome to get contemporary produce that is ripe and prepared,” Nicolson mentioned.

Riley mentioned she could not replicate some recipes she used to make within the US as a result of she could not discover the components. “You possibly can’t get good avocados in Iceland,” she mentioned. “It is like successful the lottery.” Fruit is “actually costly” and goes moldy sooner, she mentioned.

“If you’ve booked a flight, you at all times take into consideration what you are going to purchase within the grocery store,” Nicolson mentioned. Chambers mentioned vacationers carry an additional suitcase to fill with meals.

However the number of meals obtainable has grown quickly within the final decade, Basappa mentioned.

Textiles designer Alice Olivia Clarke mentioned that when she first moved to Iceland from Canada 30 years in the past, she could not get takeout pizza.

“Now you possibly can actually get something,” she mentioned. “And if you cannot get it within the nation, you simply order it in.”

And Iceland’s nice for vegans, Chambers added.

Public transport is ‘horrible’

“Driving is the usual in Iceland,” Chambers mentioned. Knowledge from Iceland’s transport division exhibits there have been almost 250,000 passenger vehicles in use in 2023, with Toyota the preferred model.

Basappa mentioned that when she first moved from Barcelona to Reykjavik, “I used to be so blind to the fact of how horrible public transport is.” She’d presumed she might stroll all over the place, however “we shortly realized after our first winter that you just needed to have a automotive.”

Iceland has no trains and expats mentioned buses had been sluggish, costly, and never frequent sufficient. Chambers does not advocate vacationers journey across the nation by public bus and warned that taxis are “terribly costly.”

The individuals are as chilly because the climate

Riley mentioned making associates had been the “most difficult half” of her relocation.

“You by no means actually really feel such as you’re built-in into society,” she mentioned. “Icelanders are a little bit bit extra closed off. They don’t seem to be going to strike up a dialog and make small discuss.”

Nicolson mentioned many Icelanders had been nonetheless near their college associates “and it is virtually like their friendship group is full.”

The expats mentioned that as a substitute, they’d made many associates by means of expat teams, together with some on Fb, which Chambers mentioned is “the overlord of Iceland.”

Put together to battle with vacationers

Tourism in Iceland exploded after widespread media protection of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2011. Pre-pandemic, Iceland had round 2 million worldwide vacationers a yr, and the numbers are bouncing again.

“I believe tourism has been great for Iceland,” Basappa mentioned. “Our high quality of life improved dramatically with the inflow of tourism.” The streets are livelier, extra languages are spoken, and eating places provide diverse meals, she mentioned. It is also supplied an enormous increase to the nation’s financial system.

However there’s pushback. “There’s a rising resentment that that is coming at the price of the Icelandic heritage, just like the language,” Basappa mentioned, referring to restaurant menus printed in English and servers talking English.

Some vacationers do not respect nature, Clarke mentioned. And the primary road in Reykjavik was once Icelandic boutiques, however “every little thing obtained swept up and was puffin retailers,” she mentioned. “That was a very troublesome to see.”

The expats additionally mentioned that Airbnb was making rented lodging tougher to seek out and dearer.

The character nonetheless wins individuals over

The expats mentioned Iceland had nonetheless wooed them, although. Particularly, they referred to the attractive surroundings, security, and public providers like healthcare and schooling.

“All the pieces simply appears quite simple in Iceland,” Riley mentioned. “You are not operating into lodge chains and overpasses, huge, tall buildings.”

Chambers mentioned that she feels much less confused and away from the rat race in Reykjavik in comparison with in Brooklyn. Nicolson, in the meantime, mentioned that kids sometimes stroll to high school, even within the metropolis heart, and play out on the street.

“We’re fortunate to nonetheless have that,” she mentioned.

Did you relocate to Iceland? Contact this reporter at gdean@insider.com.