Experiencing nature in nature-based tourism

Abstract

This article aims to situate nature, not as an organised and mapped space but rather in the way in which it is lived and experienced. Given the fact that most tourists who come to Iceland claim the reason for their visit to be the natural landscapes of Iceland, tourism in Iceland has focused on so-called nature-based tourism. This is not new because eighteenth-century to early twentieth-century travellers and explorers were affected by the sublimity of the landscapes they encountered and, hence, have had their influences in shaping the meaning of the contemporary, institutional definitions of natural landscapes. These are definitions that leave out the lived experience and also deny nature its vitality and movement. As Tim Ingold has argued, nature as it is experienced is an animated being, and as such, one enters into the atmosphere of vibrant surroundings that one engages with. In order to situate nature, I travel to Snæfellsjökull National Park in Iceland.