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Comment by jpseawell | Hacker News Reader

I went to Iceland back in March. I drove around the entire island in a “touristy” Mercedes camper van.

As a visitor, I would say there were the perfect amount of tourists there.. not so many that it ruined my “experience”. However, that was in March. I can’t imagine what it’s like in Summer.

I’m now learning to speak Icelandic, and looking for software jobs in Reykjavik if that tells you anything. (Hiring managers please contact me)

Maybe I’m part of the problem?

You should go to Iceland.. it’s epic in a non-cliche kind of way.

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It's coming up to a decade since I moved here. I came sight unseen and thought I'd move on after a year or two but now have a wife, kids and a house!

There's a reasonable tech scene and a pretty big part of that is made up of immigrants. I worked in three companies here and all three were mostly English speaking. That can vary a bit but none of my peers have had problems moving into new roles where that wasn't the case (and its a surefire way to get better at the language quickly). Now I'm working remotely for a SV startup.

Moving here is pretty trivial if you're in the EEA as is staying on if you have work.

For tech jobs there is also:

https://www.tvinna.is/ (in Icelandic although some job ads are actually in English)

For startup news about Iceland:

https://northstack.is/ (English)

The golden triangle is a bit much. We started out on that route, but pulling up to the first marked site and seeing 50 coaches and throngs of old Chinese ladies all taking photographs in the same direction was offputting. But, we then left the triangle route and explored on our own, and barely saw anybody. Makes a lot of sense for tourist focused countries to keep tourists focused on a particular area or route.

Often when you get people taking pictures of seemingly mundane things by tourists it’s because they’ve watched a “drama” that has a protagonist go places and then that place becomes an item. Somewhat akin to random people photographing mansions of Hollywood stars. It means nothing to locals but to fans it has some sort of meaning —and there are lots of these dramas where one of the key tropes is they go abroad for whatever reason.

Agreed. Better to keep them corralled.

Now that I think about it we did hike for 25min out to the plane crash. When we arrived it was full of instagram models taking selfies and wearing Supreme gear.. not really the kind of wilderness I was looking for.

On the flip side, we did see the Northern lights at a camp site up North. There were only a handful of people since it was still in the Winter months. It felt very pure and intimate. Like it was our secret no one else knew about. One of the greatest experiences of my life. I think that’s what all tourists are searching for.

I visited in 2016 and drove around the entire island as well. In Reykjavik and the golden circle there were a lot of tourists indeed, but as soon as you go out of the area, there's hardly anybody and it was great. The only other place with considerable amount of tourists and tourist buses was Jokulsarlon.

Yeah I've heard from Icelandic friends some negative stuff about the country that you often don't hear about 'publicly'. I love Iceland, the language and culture but I don't think I'd want to live their.

Like what? Everyone always bashes where they live though, right?

Are you looking to move to Reykjavik because of the dev jobs or are you saying you like the landscape that much that you are willing to learn the language to experience it full time?

The latter. I’m attracted to the Icelandic culture as well as the landscape. I mentioned Reykjavík specifically because I assumed most dev jobs would be there, but I really just want to move to Iceland, haha.

Learning new languages is fun though! I think it changes the way your brain thinks.

Best of luck. We moved here this summer and it's lovely. It's quite easy with an EEA passport and remote work. If you make it over, look me up and I'll buy you a kaffi.

Takk fyrir!

If you're interested in learning the language, you may want to look at HÍ's Icelandic as a Second Language programs. As a side benefit, they're officially full-time university study, which makes you eligible for a student resident permit(1).

This is the route I took last year, for similiar reasons as yourself. I'm now pursuing my Master's in CS there and having a great time.

(1) Assuming you also meet all of ÚTL's general requirements.

This is really interesting. Does the program require an actual full-time amount of study, or does it just meet the legal classification?

For the practical diploma (1-year course) 10 of the 30 credits each semester are an online self-study course. Classroom time is 4 100-minute sessions per week, and the overall study load was definitely lower in that program than I have now with a 30-credit engineering program. The actual amount of study time you’ll need will be highly variable depending on your own language learning aptitude.

There’s also a full Bachelor’s program for people who have gotten the basics already. Because the baseline admission requirements are higher, I imagine it entails comparably higher amount of effort.

What kind of software jobs are you looking for?

Hi! Thanks for reaching out. I specialize in enterprise web applications. Mostly PHP, Node JS, and React.. but I can learn new things very quickly.

Here’s my email if you’re interested: jpseawell@gmail.com

You could also contact TeqHire, an Icelandic hiring agency: https://www.teqhire.com/

Awesome! Thx I’ll check this out.

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