Iceland's West Fjords with Renaissance man Rúnar Karlsson

Rúnar Karlsson chats with host Tim Sweeney from Ísafjörður, Iceland, where he runs Borea Adventures with his partner, Nanný Arna Guðmundsdóttir. Rúnar, Nanny and their team take worldwide visitors on wildlife photography trips, ski touring adventures, whale watching cruises, and hiking and kayaking trips in the remote West Fjords of Iceland.

A true local expert who grew up in the area, Rúnar explains how to approach your own Iceland adventure and tells us why the famed arctic fox loves to pose for photos with the guests he draws from around the world. An outdoor lover, he also discusses how a digital detox in nature can reinvigorate a guest. Finally, Runar explains how a “career” in Iceland can be a winding, varied path and why skills and experience are never a bad thing as you plot your own journey.

SHOW NOTES:
02:25 - Exploring Iceland's Tourism Boom

05:05 - Life in the Westfjords

10:37 - The Remote House and Its History

16:08 - Wildlife Photography and Nature Exploration

18:55 - Skiing Adventures in Iceland

21:32 - The Unique Experience of Remote Living

33:17 - Digital Detox in Nature

44:05 - Travel Tips for Iceland

49:59 - Career Paths and Life Lessons

55:29 - Exploring Iceland: A Unique Perspective

55:39 - Career Insights and Alternative Paths

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Long Distance Lounge podcast is produced by Twin Thieves Media

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Follow Tim Sweeney on Instagram at @tesweens

Logo by Kyle Johnston Designs

Transcript

Hi folks. I'm Tim Sweeney. Welcome in to the long distance lounge. This is, I'd say a podcast that is pretty loosely based around travel where I get to chat with people from

far flung places around the globe. And sometimes those are people I've met along the way on my own travels. And that is the case this week because we are going to Iceland. That's a place that I've been to on two occasions. Once was just a quick stop in Reykjavik, a 24 or 48 hour layover on my way from Europe back to the U S and I think that was part of a smart marketing strategy by the people at Iceland air, which they may still have where you got to kind of

add on an extended layover to see a bit of Iceland for no extra charge. they let you kind of scratch the surface and keep building that tourism crave for Iceland, which has existed for a number of years now. the second time I went to Iceland was when I met today's guest and I was in the West fjords on a ski touring trip. So this is a place about, was a 45 minute flight for us from Reykjavik. I think it's about a four or five hour drive.

although I think the roads have much improved since I was there. My guest today is Runeur Carlson. And that is me doing a really bad job of trying to put an Icelandic twist on his name. Runeur Carlson to us English speakers. And he's a very interesting guy. He's a really good guy. And he was really fun to catch up with again here on the podcast. He's a ski guide. He's an outdoor adventure guide. He's now a boat captain doing well watching cruises, I believe.

So he's running all kinds of trips out of this small area called Isle of Fjord, which I'm sure I just butchered again, he'll correct me. we're going to get into all that. We're going to also talk about how tourism has evolved in Iceland, because if you're a traveler, you know that Iceland has become quite a hot spot to visit, although not so hot, I suppose. Anyway, let's get into it with Arunar, because he's an interesting guy and it's way more fun to talk with him than about him, and I've had enough.

bad puns here and bad pronunciations. So here we go.

Tim Sweeney (02:15)
All right. I'm delighted to have here today. Let me try it the right way. The Icelandic way. was

Pretty good.

Runar Karlsson (02:25)
That was pretty good, Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (02:27)
Or

Rune R. Carlson, if an English speaker says it. How are you? Good to see you again. It's been a while.

Runar Karlsson (02:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, likewise. Nice to see you. Yeah, it's been a while and yeah, things have moved quite fast though, you know.

Tim Sweeney (02:42)
Yeah, fast and probably a little slow too, where you are. Cause the pace of life is a little more gentle than it is in other parts of the world, I suppose. let's start with where you are, where you're calling in from today, where you live, what you do.

Runar Karlsson (02:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm calling in from Isavjordur, which is in the northwest part of Iceland. And I'm sitting here at my house and it's snowing like crazy at the moment. I barely made it through the door, you know.

Tim Sweeney (03:05)
Really?

sort of thing you're being dramatic now but well

so you're in the what we would call the West fjords is that right that's the kind of

Runar Karlsson (03:18)
Yeah,

that's kind of the right word for this area. It's like the hand that is sticking out of the northwest part with all the fjords and mountain ranges and pretty dramatic area of Iceland.

Tim Sweeney (03:31)
Okay. So before we get into that part, can I, I did some research earlier. I just want to know like some stats on Iceland overall, cause I'm a bit fascinated with the, with the idea of how Iceland has become kind of a booming tourist area in a way. Right. How long has that gone on for? Like when did it become the place or a place to go? People realized it wasn't quite so far away basically.

Runar Karlsson (03:55)
Yeah, that's one thing. you know, with better, you know, more airlines flying in and all that. But I think it kind of started with the eruption in Eiafjallajökull, which is a very hard name to pronounce, in 2011. Then when things got pretty crazy. Everybody wanted to come and see this volcano and the word went all over the world, you know, about Iceland and...

Tim Sweeney (04:07)
I'm not gonna try that.

Runar Karlsson (04:21)
It stopped airline traffic across the Atlantic and all that. Yeah, I think that's when it really started. We were getting, I think, like 300,000 500,000 visitors a year at that time. And now we're up to 2 million or over 2 million.

Tim Sweeney (04:24)
Right. That's right. I remember that now. So that made people want to come basically.

Wait, say that again? How many before?

Runar Karlsson (04:40)
I think it was 400,000 or something like that. I know it's just over 2 million.

Tim Sweeney (04:46)
Which is an insane statistic because I looked it up. There's not even 400,000 people as a population. Correct?

Runar Karlsson (04:54)
Yeah, it's just about 400,000, yeah. 390 something,

Tim Sweeney (04:56)
Just about 400,000. Okay.

Let me, let me, you see if I'm correct in my stats. You probably know them. I was surprised 65,000 are foreign citizens. Does that sound right out of 400,000?

Runar Karlsson (05:05)
Yeah,

that could be right. We have a lot of big Polish community. And like here in town, it's quite a lot of people from Thailand, surprisingly, come here to work. yeah. And yeah, there's a lot of Polish workers here in the construction. then if you look at people that are coming here to work in the tourism, there's a lot of people working in tourism, like in our company now.

Tim Sweeney (05:10)
Okay.

Really?

Okay, wow, all right.

Runar Karlsson (05:33)
I think it's about, what should I say, we employ in the summer around 30 people. And I would say 80 % is foreign nationalities. Not because we want it, it's just, that's just how it is. We get more applications from foreign guides.

Tim Sweeney (05:38)
wow, okay.

You need the people.

Right.

Okay. So a couple more quick stats, but then we'll get into it, but a hundred volcanoes in the country and no mosquitoes. That's interesting. I have random stat got your independence from Denmark in 1944. That's crazy. I didn't know that. And 11 % of the Island is covered by glacier and, but it's also not as cold as people think in Iceland. Is that true or false? Although it's pretty cold where you are right now, I guess.

Runar Karlsson (06:00)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not as cold as people would think because, you the name Iceland. And then you have our next door neighbour Greenland, which we should probably switch names because Greenland is not so green and, but Greenland has a lot of ice. I call it the first PR stunt in the world. It's when Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky were trying to attract more people to Greenland.

Tim Sweeney (06:25)
Right.

Runar Karlsson (06:40)
to the southwest part of Greenland. He decided to name it Greenland. It is actually quite green in the southwest part of Greenland. The rest is 90 something percent ice.

Tim Sweeney (06:44)
okay.

but the rest you can see it on the flyovers when you go from

Is it

really? Yeah. You see it when you fly over from the US to Europe and vice versa. You see Greenland and it, it just looks ice. Yeah. all right, let's go beyond. I mean, every, lot of people know Reykjavik. There's a lot of tourism stuff around there. You can, you can do even do the first time I went to Iceland. did one of those sort of 24 hour layovers, which is not enough to see, but you get a taste of it, which was very smart by Iceland air and the tourism group, whoever built that in the little free stopover on your flights.

Runar Karlsson (06:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (07:23)
So you can see a lot in that area. I guess you would know those areas. There's, there's a lot of kind of this kind of driving loops and stuff, From, Reykjavik for the, for the, for tourists who just kind of want to rent a car or do a tour, et cetera. and they'll, you see all the stuff you hear about Iceland, but you are a little farther afield, let's say. Right. So we, when I went there, it was a ski touring trip.

Runar Karlsson (07:36)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Sweeney (07:51)
I was kind of just asked to do this a couple of months before, never even thought of doing it. Turned out to be a really amazing experience. Thanks to you and, and the whole team there. And it's fly to Reykjavik and then I think we spent a day and then you go to the domestic airport and take a short flight 45 minutes or something to say it again.

Runar Karlsson (08:00)
That's good to hear.

Mm-hm. To ease of your,

ease of your, which means eyes short.

Tim Sweeney (08:17)
Ice fjord, okay.

and this gets you pretty remote pretty quickly. There's a small village there. I looked it up, but there's a couple thousand people that live there where this is where your kind of home base is.

Runar Karlsson (08:29)
Yeah, so there's about 3,000 people living here where I'm at. And that's the biggest community in the Westfjords. There are about 7,700 in the whole of Westfjords. And yeah, so you can take the short domestic flight, which is about 40 minutes, but you can also drive. And that's about 450 kilometres. And now the roads are constantly getting better, there's more tunnels and more tarmac.

and they just opened the western route that you can drive throughout the year. And that will be a game changer for tourism in the area because now you can drive a loop throughout the year, depending on weather of course, but yeah, the road is open all year.

Tim Sweeney (09:10)
Right.

Yeah, because we had to drive back actually, because the, there was a lot of weather. Yeah. And it was a bit of a circuitous route from what I recall, but is that true? Is there a lot of infrastructure constantly happening in Iceland, mostly due to tourism or.

Runar Karlsson (09:15)
Yeah, because of light. Yeah.

Yeah, think tourism is one thing and it's also because there's like here in the area there's been a big growth in fish farming and they want better roads because they need to drive all the catch to the market, you know, for exports from either from Keplavik or mostly from Keplavik and I heard the statistics it was like 400 million Icelandic kroner on the roads every day.

Tim Sweeney (09:38)
okay.

Runar Karlsson (09:58)
Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (09:59)
Wow! Okay, yeah, so that makes sense to do the construction.

Because that's the main industry where you are is fishing. that correct? Fishing and tourism? Mostly fish.

Runar Karlsson (10:09)
Yeah, fishing is

the main industry and tourism, But where I live, it's kind of the service hub for all the areas. So here's the biggest hospital and all these government agencies and things like that. So it's a pretty lively town and it's finally after years of recession because of the quota system, fishing quota system, lot of the smaller communities around the coastline of Iceland started declining.

Tim Sweeney (10:36)
really?

Runar Karlsson (10:37)
Yeah, of the stronger always buys the smaller one out and then the quotas left all these smaller communities and they had to close down the fishing factories and people moved away and that recession started in late, I would say mid 80s maybe. But now we are finally, you know, the population is growing finally and that's thanks to...

tourism and fish farming. People can have their opinions on salmon farming and rainbow trout farming, but that's just the reality of things. People are moving here and it's a big boost for the area for sure.

Tim Sweeney (11:14)
Now you are not in that business, obviously you are running a company. Well, I didn't even say the name of your company, but I will get that in much earlier at the top. Don't worry. Boria adventures. Is that right? Am I saying that? Now have you, did you ever do anything else or I looked up your, your background, your sort of career trajectory, if you will, on your bio and your website, you've, you're, know, you've licensed a guide, everything you've done a lot of adventure.

Runar Karlsson (11:17)
No.

Yeah,

Tim Sweeney (11:40)
tourism type stuff. Did you ever work in those sort of traditional areas in Iceland prior to this, or how did you find your way into this field?

Runar Karlsson (11:48)
Yeah, well, it was kind of interesting because I was actually, when I was in university, know, I would try to find a good job when you have your summer holiday. That's kind of the tradition in Iceland. You don't go travel or whatever, but you try to earn as much money as you can during the summer months. So I got a job on a a trawler, on a fishing trawler.

Tim Sweeney (12:03)
Yep.

Runar Karlsson (12:12)
So it is a freezing troller that goes out for 30 to 36 days. And yeah, you work six hours, six hours off, six hours on, six hours off, or 36 days. And yeah, that was actually quite fun and know, good crew and all that. And then I came back after the first, over a month and I was very anxious.

Tim Sweeney (12:17)
Well, that's serious work.

Runar Karlsson (12:40)
to go and do something, know, shit man, need to do something. So I went mountain biking and I went rock climbing and then I took my paraglider out and went up the mountains and the conditions were not very good. But I was like, fuck it, let's go. Yeah, I was going out after two days or something, and then I just got airborne and I crashed into the mountainside and broke my arm.

Tim Sweeney (12:55)
You didn't care you were in a fishing boat for 36 days, right? Anything was good.

Wow.

Runar Karlsson (13:09)
That kind of ended my career as a fisherman that summer. So, yeah, so then I was actually living in Reykjavik at the time because I was in university there. So I went back to Reykjavik with the cast on my arm. And I went to one of the outdoor stores in Reykjavik, just, you know, had nothing to do. And a friend of mine was there and he was kind of, hey, Rune, I need a guide, like, tomorrow.

Tim Sweeney (13:15)
okay. Okay, destiny in a way.

Runar Karlsson (13:37)
Well, I got a broken arm. Yeah, that's okay. How are your legs? Are your legs okay? Yeah, they're Yeah, it's a simple trip. It's only 10 days expedition across the highlands. It's like, okay. So I did that actually with the broken arm and that kind of started that. So I started working for him in his company and...

Tim Sweeney (13:50)
10 days is no yeah, yeah, that's no joke

Runar Karlsson (14:04)
Guided quite a lot of these tracks across the highlands and mountain biking tours in the highlands and stuff like that. Went to Greenland for kayaking and that kind of started this.

Tim Sweeney (14:18)
adventurous, adventurous lifestyle, but you were, you were clearly an outdoors guy prior to all that. If you had all those hobbies, did you grow up where you are now, or was it closer to recuver? Okay.

Runar Karlsson (14:28)
No, I grew up here.

All my friends were in the Boy Scouts. We were always camping over weekend, sleeping in snow caves and all that stuff. We were 13 or 14 years old. When I came home from school on Friday, my mom was like, where are you going this weekend? We were off somewhere.

Tim Sweeney (14:39)
Just normal stuff where you're from.

Runar Karlsson (14:51)
So I grew up with that and then I joined the mountain rescue teams and got the training there. After university, I worked for the town council here, which is in all sorts of projects related to planning festivals and tourism.

Tim Sweeney (15:08)
Yeah, okay.

Runar Karlsson (15:10)
tried to promote Ysafjordur and the port of Ysafjordur as a destination and did that until 2006 I think and then we started Board Adventures.

Tim Sweeney (15:23)
Okay. Wow. Yeah. So tell me a little

bit about the, well, first of all, you mentioned festivals, things like this. Cause when I was there in May, it's a fairly feels, feels sleepy. So we arrive by plane, go straight to a boat, transfer our stuff, our ski gear, everything, take a nice boat out to the, it's an old kind of farmhouse in a way. Right. So tell us about how this thing came to be. think I remember you telling me a story about it was kind of abandoned.

Runar Karlsson (15:35)
and then.

Tim Sweeney (15:51)
And then you had to clear out snow, everything. So I guess first tell us where the hell this place is. It's, it's not exactly a stone's throw from what is already a somewhat remote village, right? Of 3000 people. This place where you're running adventures out of is out there.

Runar Karlsson (15:57)
Ha.

Yeah, that is very remote actually. It's only accessible by boat really. It's a house that we had sailed quite often past and we thought about it like, it's a nice place. Or it could be a nice place, but it was in very bad shape. This house was built in 1921 by two families that had actually another...

house there, a wooden house. So this is a concrete house that they built and they kind of saw their future there. Like this would be their place and they had big plans of starting to grow all kind of vegetables and they sent their son to like a farming school. And then...

Tim Sweeney (16:37)
Wow.

That

would be truly living off the land then out there or the ocean land in the ocean, I guess, right?

Runar Karlsson (16:49)
Yeah,

most of the farmers that lived in that area, they were actually more fishermen than farmers. But then the war broke out, the Second World War, and we actually were probably the only country that benefited from the Second World War. There's a big boost for the Icelandic economy.

Tim Sweeney (16:57)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Runar Karlsson (17:13)
The US military came here and the British military was here. They built harbours, they built airports. So was lot of job opportunities in the bigger communities. People that were living in these remote areas, especially younger women and men, saw that they could move to town and start earning actual money. So in the 40s, pretty much the whole area...

Tim Sweeney (17:33)
Right. Yep.

Runar Karlsson (17:39)
that is north of me here just emptied, like everybody moved out. So they left this house in 1948 and nobody had been there, stayed there until we showed up in 2013 and you know.

Tim Sweeney (17:56)
Wow.

65 years later. That's incredible.

Runar Karlsson (18:00)
Yeah,

it is incredible. The house was still standing, but was kind of the last minute. The roof had almost fallen in, the windows were broken, the basement was full of snow. We approached the descendants that used to live there and wanted to...

Tim Sweeney (18:25)
Also, their

family was still around, no one was going to the place, clearly.

Runar Karlsson (18:31)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And they liked the idea and we rebuilt the place pretty much. New roof, new windows, new floors, heating, plumbing, septic tank, whatever, water pipes and everything. Yeah, and then as well. And that has worked out pretty well. And we've been running trips there both in summer and winter since then.

Tim Sweeney (18:43)
Yeah, even a sauna. Of course.

Now do all

your trip tours operate from that house or some go right from town? How does it?

Runar Karlsson (19:00)
Yeah, it's different. In the summer we have different day tours also, both kayaking and hiking and just general exploration and wildlife and stuff like that. And then we have more of an expedition style, like multi-day trekking and sea kayaking with a mixture of staying in these houses, like in our house in Kvijard and other remote locations and camping.

And then in the winter we are mostly staying in Kriar, both for our skiing trips and wildlife photography tours.

Tim Sweeney (19:35)
Yeah. So that's at the house. Okay.

And let's just for people listening, who have no idea, set the scene for just how remote this is because it's like 200 something square miles. It's called, I'm going to butcher it again. Ready? Or something like this.

Runar Karlsson (19:50)
Yeah, Harmstrande, that's the region that is... Yeah, it's a protected area now. It's been protected since 1974.

Tim Sweeney (19:53)
It's like a park essentially or protected area.

And it's very protected, right? I was reading it because Iceland does protect a lot of land, but this area in particular is,

Runar Karlsson (20:04)
Yeah.

Yeah,

no motorized vehicles allowed, no planes, no helicopters, no snowmobiles in the winter even. And no grazing animals, nothing. So it's pretty much the only area in Iceland where nature really kind of rules the land.

So hikers are allowed, obviously, I mean that's fine. And then what is also special about this land, a lot of it is actually private land. But private land in Iceland and in Scandinavia and Scotland for instance, is a little bit a different concept than for instance in the States, where the landowner protects their land with a shotgun.

Tim Sweeney (20:35)
really?

Right. keep... They don't let you on the land. Yeah. So

this is kind of private owned but shared essentially.

Runar Karlsson (20:54)
Yeah, privately

owned, but you're allowed to pass through. You're allowed to camp. Yeah, ski and whatever, but it is actually private.

Tim Sweeney (21:01)
key.

Yeah.

And it's the boat trip was how long is it from town out to where the house is? Camp, what have you.

Runar Karlsson (21:10)
Our boats

go, we travel around, usually the cruising speed is around 20 knots and it's about an hour, so it's 20 nautical miles from town roughly.

Tim Sweeney (21:22)
Right.

And there was no cell service when, when I was there. I remember you could see it on the top of the mountain. Sometimes you'd get it. Cause I would like text my mother or someone who's worried about me and say, still alive, still today. I'll check in in 24 hours. but, but that's a beautiful thing nowadays. The fact that you can't actually connect, which is nice.

Runar Karlsson (21:26)
Thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

it is kind of nice. There are still places in the world where you can connect to the internet. But yeah, that's definitely quite special.

Tim Sweeney (21:53)
But it does dawn on you actually, because we skied some fairly steep stuff. I don't know what it is normally, but it was, it felt steep. The group we had was, I would say fairly accomplished skiers overall, right? I don't know what you normally get there. Um, so I mean, some of the stuff they said was like 45 degrees or something. And you think, okay, snow's great. This is going to be fun. But yeah, if I get hurt here, it's a long way from anything. Down to the ocean, onto a boat.

Runar Karlsson (22:04)
Yeah.

and

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Yeah,

Tim Sweeney (22:24)
Yeah, it's a long way, but, what,

Runar Karlsson (22:24)
yeah.

Tim Sweeney (22:27)
what are the stuff, the tours you're running? So take me through like seasonally. I mean, we, was joking earlier. It's not as cold as you think in Iceland, which is true, but it's, cause people think it's just like frigid, you know, the North pole, but it's not because that land is like glacier. Well, ocean, not that's not land, out there is like glacier ocean and.

Runar Karlsson (22:39)
No,

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (22:54)
But what are you, what are you doing from season to season as far as what tourists come and do?

Runar Karlsson (22:59)
Yeah, so like now we just started the Wild Lab photography tours out there. So we have groups that are coming taking photos of the Arctic fox, which is the only original mammal in Iceland, a land mammal. And it's actually a pretty special animal because it's a...

Tim Sweeney (23:05)
Okay, photography.

Runar Karlsson (23:18)
They're quite hard to approach. You can see them in Canada, can see them in Svalbard. But in Scandinavia there are very few left, because the red fox is moving further north and they are bigger and more aggressive and they just kill them off really. here they are... So Haudenosaunee Nature Reserve has the most dense population of arctic foxes in the world.

Tim Sweeney (23:27)
Really?

well.

Runar Karlsson (23:45)
So they're pretty common there and easy to see. And they're attractive to humans. They're pretty easy around humans. so we take groups out there, stay in the house usually for four to five nights. And people are just standing outside taking photos of the foxes. Pretty simple.

Tim Sweeney (24:05)
But I guess they

go on little hikes and stuff too, because it's beautiful around there too. mean, just the contrast of ocean, anyone has ever been anywhere where there's fjords, it's naturally incredible. mean, we were, I guess we'll get into the different seasons, but the landscapes are like vast, these sweeping mountains right down to the contrasts are amazing.

Runar Karlsson (24:11)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah,

they go on very short hikes actually because usually these groups are... I would say a lot of these photographers have kind of found their passion in photography because they might have some mobility issues or things like that. And usually kind of a little older. So some of them actually never go further than 100 feet from the house, you know.

Tim Sweeney (24:41)
I see, okay.

Right, yeah,

well.

Runar Karlsson (24:53)
but are very happy. So we supply accommodation, good food, nice atmosphere, fire up the sauna and stuff like that, and charge their batteries in the evening. But yeah, been a very good add-on to our calendar because usually February, March, even a little bit into April is...

Tim Sweeney (25:05)
Yeah, you do that.

Runar Karlsson (25:21)
has been a pretty bad season for us. But now we are fully booked for next year for this period. So that's very good.

Tim Sweeney (25:30)
and they get the full treatment. You are a good, a good shift to that. got a beautiful old kitchen down there. the, place is really rustic and, but cool in a way. can't tell you the amount of times I banged this forehead on the stairwell, stairwell, it is not, it is made, as you said, in the twenties, it's not made for people who might, I guess. So you have to be conscious of the whole, the space and the size, but I mean, it's, it's not an attic. It's just a couple of spots where you're, but that makes it cool. I think it was really a.

Runar Karlsson (25:33)
Yeah.

yeah.

No.

Yeah, people are, yeah, people are.

Tim Sweeney (25:58)
Unique experience for sure.

Runar Karlsson (26:00)
Yeah, people were shorter in those times. They didn't have as much nutrition as we do, I guess.

Tim Sweeney (26:02)
A hundred percent. Yeah, right. Less than the mold

of the, of the Nordic Vikings as today.

Runar Karlsson (26:10)
Yeah, and then so

after the Fox photography we start then get into the ski season. So when the days are getting longer and weather is usually getting a little bit more stable. So we do that like mid-April well into May, even sometimes to the end of May. And then we have a little break because kind of the change of the seasons from spring to summer is a little delicate in this area.

Tim Sweeney (26:28)
Okay.

Runar Karlsson (26:38)
because you might have lot of snow melt and all the grasses soaking wet and hard to go hiking. So we sometimes have to wait a little bit until 5th to 10th of June until we can really start hiking in the area. And then we start our hiking trips and now we have two boats, much bigger boats than when you were here. So that can take 48 passengers.

Tim Sweeney (26:41)
I see.

Okay, wow.

wow, yeah.

Runar Karlsson (27:05)
And we're doing whale watching tours now. We started that.

Tim Sweeney (27:08)
Wow,

this is big business now, Runa. You're in just a few years. Good for you.

Runar Karlsson (27:13)
Yeah,

I mean we decided that we would need to have more capacity and that kind of was a game changer for us. Because in the summer you have a lot of people that want to go on different stuff and it was always kind of the limited factor, limiting factor when we had just a small boat.

Tim Sweeney (27:19)
make it work. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Yep.

So you're doing like day trips and stuff for people who are just visiting the area as well. Okay. Okay. can we talk about the skiing for a second? Cause it was quite an experience. How much skiing do you get to do yourself? I mean, this is all self-powered. We should say it's all ski touring skinning up. So what we did in the morning was get on the little, what do call that sort of RAF Zodiac.

Runar Karlsson (27:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, the little rip-off. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (27:56)
Yeah.

pick a spot basically that you want to ski and maybe go for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, wherever we go to the end of the fjord, hop on the snow or the grass, start walking, then skin up, then do some climbing boot packing, whatever it is and ski down. if people wanted to ski there, what it's kind of depends how high up you go, how, let's say.

Runar Karlsson (28:06)
Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (28:19)
extreme is the wrong word, but you know what I mean? How much you want to challenge yourself because you can ski steep up top and then it's pretty gentle and mellow down to the ocean. But I mean, what an experience. guess it's the same. haven't been to Norway and those places, but we can ski right to the ocean at the end of the day. And it's spectacular. The views are spectacular. Even the snow was great. what types of clientele do you get there for skiing? Cause I know you've had pro skiers come through there for filming also.

Runar Karlsson (28:33)
Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (28:47)
all sorts of stuff.

Runar Karlsson (28:48)
Yeah, I would say most of our clients or our guests are from say, Northern Europe and North America. That's kind of our main clientele. And I remember in the beginning, I was quite surprised that we were getting like skiers from, know, from the Mecca of skiing in the States, like from Colorado or Idaho or whatever, you Utah. And they're like, what are you doing here? Yeah, so it's perfect.

Tim Sweeney (29:13)
Right. Where the snow

is great. Yeah.

Runar Karlsson (29:16)
Yeah,

but people are looking for different experiences. There's not many places in the world where you can stand on the top of mountain and you look down to the ocean and you can ski all the way down to sea level, literally all the way down to sea level. I mean, you have to go to Antarctica or North of Norway, maybe. There very few places in the world where you can do that. So, yeah, that's kind where our main clientele comes from. And we get quite a few...

Tim Sweeney (29:30)
It is.

Runar Karlsson (29:46)
mountain guides that have their groups and they come through us and we take care of the service and be like a co-guide or something like that you

Tim Sweeney (29:48)
Okay.

Yeah.

Cause you're guide yourself. So you can kind of coach them on where, where to go, what's safe, what knowing their, their ability level, that sort of thing.

Runar Karlsson (29:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's

right. So that's what we do. now, since I made the mistake of getting a captain's license, I'm quite a lot on the boats myself. So not enough skiing at the moment. But it's fun to mix it together, to be the jack of all trades, master of nothing kind of thing.

Tim Sweeney (30:12)
Okay, not enough skiing. yeah, major mistake.

you

are for sure, Jack of All Trades. I don't know about the not master of nothing. I mean, how are your photography skills?

Runar Karlsson (30:26)
you

I'm pretty confident in that field, editing and doing all that stuff is not my thing, really. Yeah, exactly.

Tim Sweeney (30:34)
Okay.

Yeah. I think that's where the magic is for a lot of photographers anyway, isn't it? In the editing.

so you mentioned a bit where people are coming from. It sounds like it's kind of, all over. how about the weather? Do people, should they be intimidated by the weather? But it's a, it's an outdoor place. So you get what you get, right? certain times a year people know what they're getting into, I suppose. Right.

Runar Karlsson (30:49)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is always a difficult question. get this question quite a lot. When is the best time to come to whether it's to hike or ski or whatever? just like, man. no. It's like my niece said she was kind of giving up holding her, celebrating her birthday, which is, I think it's 3rd of July, because was always crazy weather, 3rd of July.

Tim Sweeney (31:13)
Yeah, it's not a dome.

Really?

Runar Karlsson (31:27)
She

wanted to a party outdoors, it's the middle of the summer and was always crazy weather. She moved in the weekend. It's very hard to tell, but my take on it is that the weather does what it does. We can't do anything about it really. We might have a down day, but that's how it is.

Tim Sweeney (31:29)
Right.

Is this gonna change your birth date? Good. Yeah.

Runar Karlsson (31:56)
But usually when it comes to mid-April into May, the weather is getting a bit more stable and also you have longer days so you can actually go like, there's some wind coming late in the afternoon so we could just go early and be home at three or whatever or a little bit later and ski until nine or ten in the evening even. people are up for that, you know.

Tim Sweeney (32:16)
Yeah.

we had spectacular weather when I was there, as I recall. And, and then one day it changed and the snow blew in. was like squall kind of all day. But I remembered being quite okay with that because we had done about whatever, thousand to 1500 meters a day for five days. My legs were quite happy to sit in the house and have hot chocolate and a beer or something.

Runar Karlsson (32:22)
Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

exactly. People need to also enjoy that and bring a book with you or whatever. book that you have never managed to finish because you're always so busy at home.

Tim Sweeney (32:52)
Distracted. Yep.

What, what do people say about that? I'm curious as we get, as I mean, it's very cliche, but everybody's always on their phones and whatever devices. They can't go two seconds without picking it up and looking at it. Do people comment to you at the end of some time out there about, I guess how valuable it was to detach a little bit from all of that stuff. Do you hear that from people that, that it was like a refreshing break? I mean, that's why they come there in a way, right?

Runar Karlsson (33:17)
Yeah, I hear that. Yeah.

Yeah, people are just like, they are mentally prepared when they come and they know that there's no internet and there is nothing like that. But they actually can walk up to the mountain a little bit and you can access like if you need to make a phone call or something. People are usually just like, I'm not going to bother with it, you know. And they're never complain or anything like that. just like, hmm.

It's kind of nice, you know? And they're actually doing a study now in Denmark, taking teenagers out to the nature for six days without mobile phones. And they're just trying to kind of see what it does to their mental state. And it's amazing, they're just out in nature.

Tim Sweeney (33:44)
Yeah, I needed this and I didn't know it. Yeah. Well, what,

Runar Karlsson (34:07)
you know, sleeping in a tent and making bonfires and playing simple games or whatever. Just in a couple of days, their mental status goes like totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Tim Sweeney (34:16)
Right. Less stress, less pressure, less looking at comparing yourself to other people. All those things. Yeah. The

things that people were doing 30 years ago when they were kids. what about, guess, before we let you go, how about the, the staff you have there? You mentioned you have what 30 people now or more, but people come when I was there, there were guides from one guy was a guide from the U S I think from Colorado or something.

Runar Karlsson (34:26)
Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (34:43)
Um,

but it's a bit of a family operation too, right? Like, I mean, when you grow up there, I don't know if, if your family is from the area as well, like, um, all these people kind of live this for their hobbies, right? What you, what you provide as a, as a tour group, the people in the area grew up doing in a way, right? So this is business, play in a way.

Runar Karlsson (34:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. When we started, it's like my thought and my partner that started the company with me, it's like, how can we make money doing something that we like to do, know, fun to do? I mean, we are constantly going out ice climbing, skiing, and whatever it is, hiking in the summer. There must be some people out there that want to do the same, you know?

Tim Sweeney (35:33)
Right.

Yeah.

Runar Karlsson (35:34)
and maybe pay us a little bit to help them do it. So that was kind of the philosophy to start with. So now my wife Nanni is the manager and she's my boss both in my private life and in business life. Then Regina, our daughter, is also working for us. Our son Ervas works also for us occasionally. I mean, he lives in Norway but he comes here.

Tim Sweeney (35:48)
in your personal life.

Runar Karlsson (36:00)
heliski guide and he comes here in heliski season in the north and he does the research for us also. So yeah, it's kind of a family business and then what I'm kind of proud of also is or very happy with is that we get a lot of applications, people that want to come and work for the season and now we're kind of drowning in applications from very qualified people from all over the place, from Chile...

Tim Sweeney (36:01)
wow.

Okay.

Really?

Runar Karlsson (36:26)
France, Spain, Germany, know, all over the place.

Tim Sweeney (36:31)
Yeah. And how, how do

they hear about you? And even, even tourists, how do they hear about you? it word of mouth? Mostly people have someone else's told them it's Instagram, things like this, or like, how do you market your business? Cause you are in a, you're in a small town, but I guess obviously nowadays everybody's connected. except when you're out, except when you're out at the lodge, do you call it a lodge? I don't even know. you call it, what do you call that? the camp.

Runar Karlsson (36:42)
Yeah

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We

were kind of struggling with the name, like, Lod is maybe a little bit over the top, but Armhouse is kind of... Yeah, it doesn't have a right ring to it. Hutt is... Hutt is kind of... Well, when I picture a hut in my head, it's more than a hut. You have to come up with a word for me.

Tim Sweeney (36:58)
Yes, that's a bit...

Yeah. No, you need a word. I remember you calling a farmhouse and I was like, this was a farmhouse? mean...

Now it's more than a hut. It's more than a hut. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'll think about it,

but it is right on the ocean too. That's the cool. We didn't even say that, but the setting of the, the sort of camp hut, whatever you want to call it is, I don't know how far it is down to the water, the a hundred meters walking maybe.

Runar Karlsson (37:26)
Yeah.

No, it's probably like 30 meters. Something like that. Yeah, it's very short.

Tim Sweeney (37:34)
50 is it 30? Okay. With the, with that freezing

cold stream running down from the mountain. So you can soak yourself in there and then go back in the sauna. That is some cold water though. I just remembered that doing that. and yeah, you mentioned the little sauna you have out back, which is like, well, at least it was, I don't know now if you've, if you've pushed it up, but it was like a little shed with a, I love the sign. I have a photo of the sign pointing to the sauna as if there's like,

Runar Karlsson (37:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (38:01)
a long winding road, it's just right up back.

but it's quite, quite an amazing setting, but yeah, how, sorry, I got off topic there, but how do people find you that, that, book a trip there or whatever? Cause it's clearly pretty remote.

Runar Karlsson (38:13)
Yeah,

I mean, that's kind of the one area that is not our stronghold is marketing. We try to keep up with social media and all that and the website and things like that. But yeah, it's a word of mouth. That's also one thing. And then we are working with travel agencies all over the place that are sending their people here and always trying to connect with like-minded companies.

And then also, yeah, friend of a friend and all that stuff. And the same goes with people that are applying for work here. They have someone that worked with us the last year and they want to come. But what has kind of been our biggest treasure here is that there's a university center here in Nisehøyder. And there's a lot of international students that come here for their master's degree in...

in environmental science and coastal and marine science and stuff like that. And that's usually very outdoorsy people and they are looking for a summer job and they have housing and so we don't need to worry about that. a lot of our people come through that program and some of them are now full-time employees for us. They've been working for us for years.

Tim Sweeney (39:16)
Okay.

Runar Karlsson (39:28)
have bought an apartment here and raised a family and whatnot. So that's very nice. I want to tell you one funny story that last summer, people were always talking about the cruise ship industry in a negative way. I can agree to some of it, but not all of it.

Tim Sweeney (39:31)
Wow, okay. Yeah, it's a...

I've never been on a cruise ship. was telling someone else on this podcast that I used to write descriptions for cruise ships as a job when I was a copywriter and I've never been on a cruise ship. So I won't tell you what brands, but don't believe everything. Yeah. It was kind of funny. I was having to look up all the amenities and then encourage people of why all the reasons they should take a cruise. Anyway, go ahead. Tell me, tell me the funny story.

Runar Karlsson (39:55)
good. No, good. No.

Yeah,

Lucas, works for us. He's a very nice guy from the Czech Republic and he's been living in Aston for quite a few years. And he was doing this very simple kayaking tour, private tour for guests that were on a cruise ship. And this lady there, a nice lady from the States, was kind of asking him questions, how many people live here and all that. And then, do you have a hospital? Yeah, we do have hospital. okay.

Yeah, and it's always a struggle to get doctors and nurses everywhere. But now there are some doctors working from Denmark and from Norway and all over the place. I'm a doctor, maybe I should apply. She said, like, yeah, you should. Lucas told her. Lucas and Nicole, his girlfriend, is also working for us. She was pregnant and then she was given birth in late November last year.

and they were in the hospital. And then this woman comes and Lucas just looked at her and said, I know you. Oh, I know you. You're the doctor. And then she actually applied and now she's a doctor here. This American lady. No, she came in just to check on the baby later. I thought it was, yeah, she came here on a cruise ship and then just.

Tim Sweeney (41:17)
Wow. Did she deliver, did she deliver their baby? Yeah, that's incredible.

Runar Karlsson (41:29)
few months later, she is working as a doctor here. Yeah, good PR.

Tim Sweeney (41:32)
Yeah. Well, he must've done a good job with the, with the tour. Yeah, exactly.

I didn't even realize their cruise ships come through there. Really? I didn't see, I mean, we didn't see the town a lot because we were out at the camp slash lodge. and it was in, I think we were there in second week of may or something like that to ski. it wasn't bustling by any means. I mean, I think the one, when we.

Runar Karlsson (41:41)
yes, they do.

Tim Sweeney (41:58)
The night before we were going back to Reykjavik, we, we popped into town. stayed in town, went to a pub or something, but it seemed sleepy. So the idea of cruise ships there is wild to me, but you know, this is six, this is six years ago now.

Runar Karlsson (42:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is true, but it has been a big boom here now because of the... Do you hear me?

Tim Sweeney (42:26)
Yes.

Runar Karlsson (42:26)
Yeah, it's been a big boom, especially after the war broke out in Ukraine. All the crews that were going into the Bay of Botnia, the North Sea and all that area. They started coming up here. So now I think it's about 200 cruise calls each year.

Tim Sweeney (42:56)
a year. Well, that's a lot of traffic into your small town, but I guess that businesses don't mind to a point.

Runar Karlsson (42:57)
Yeah.

No.

No, I don't But it's

a lot of smaller ships also, but it's not like that. But now they set a limit. I think there's 3,000 passengers a day that are allowed or something like that. Because a lot of these people, think that it's a Disneyland kind of thing. They come into town and they think that...

Tim Sweeney (43:09)
Right.

I see, okay. Before.

Right. Yeah.

Runar Karlsson (43:29)
And they literally walk into people's homes and it's like, oh, this is nice. They think it is a museum or something. Random man, he lives close to the Maritime Museum. And he was drinking his morning coffee and then this couple comes in and says good morning. And he's just like, yeah, good morning. And then, yeah, in his house, they walk around the living room, looking at photos on the walls. And then they come into the kitchen and just like, are we supposed to be here? No, not really.

Tim Sweeney (43:32)
Really?

my god.

in his house.

Wow

Runar Karlsson (44:00)
sorry.

Tim Sweeney (44:01)
Don't

tell me where they were from. I don't even, I don't want to know. don't think, yeah. Um, that's pretty funny. Uh, so two final questions is give me the little, I don't want to say sales pitch, but I'm looking for some travel advice. If someone comes to Iceland in general and then out to your area. But I mean, you're going to make a trip, a trip of it. If you go there, if you go to Iceland, um, I know people talk about it.

Runar Karlsson (44:04)
I don't know either. I don't know it.

Hmm.

Tim Sweeney (44:30)
brothers mentioned it to me like, Oh, it's not that far. We grew up in the Boston area. It's five hours or something by, by plane. think what should they do to have a really cool experience in, in Iceland? Not the, maybe there's some touristy stuff, but, you can include the sales pitch to come and visit you as well. Cause I mean, people do the ring road and stuff. that right? That goes around the Island essentially what's a you're a local. What any

Runar Karlsson (44:48)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tim Sweeney (44:57)
insider tips. know you want to give away all your secret spots, but give me a couple local tips.

Runar Karlsson (44:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, I personally, would probably focus on the western part of Iceland. For some, I mean it kind of depends on of course which month you're coming, but if you're coming during the high season I would avoid the southern coast because it's just so busy. man, yeah, just crazy traffic, lots of buses, there's...

Tim Sweeney (45:18)
buses and things like this. Yeah.

What's

the high season in like June, July, August or something like this mid summer? Okay.

Runar Karlsson (45:26)
Yeah, June, July, August.

I haven't been there myself in the last few years, but my brother and his wife were there last summer. They kind of drove through and they were just like, couldn't believe it, how busy it was. So soon as you kind of get a bit further north of Reykjavik, it's definitely more slow. And Snæfellsnes Peninsula, for instance, where you have the Snæfellsjökull glacier is beautiful. And then the Westfjords.

let's say if you give yourself four or five days to drive to the west wards and what is nice about the west wards is that you kind of get into a slower rhythm because the roads are you know even though they have improved a lot but still they are you know you're going in and out of the fjord and you so you're kind of you're not driving super fast and the traffic is usually quite you know slow.

and lot of to stop, there's lot of hot pools here and there that are kind of hidden or not many people know about and doesn't cost anything and nice remote hotels and hostels and smaller accommodations and just really nice kind of atmosphere and then I would probably, if I had time, would drive

towards Akureté and try to drive across the highlands. You don't need a super jeep, you just need a jeep. A Hilux or something, if you rent something like that. Or a Land Cruiser or something. That's quite spectacular. Because as soon as you get above 400 meters or roughly...

500 feet you're into these black deserts and very, very weird lunar landscape kind of thing. And then you go between the glaciers and these massive big rivers and hot pools and places and stuff like that.

Tim Sweeney (47:11)
wow, okay.

Okay, yeah, those are the photos you see.

And how, how are

the, I guess the people there now are accustomed to tourists, but how has that been received as more and more people, especially in the summers, like I guess for the younger people, they grew up with it, right. But, people welcoming of tourists, are they, do they get sick of it in small towns when people pop through or generally they're like, it's, mean, because obviously language, everything, not a problem. You guys all speak English perfectly.

So, well, I should say English for someone like me who's a native English speaker, it's easy. What's the vibe like between tourists and locals and what can people expect?

Runar Karlsson (48:01)
I would say in general it's very good. There might be a few places in the south that are getting tired, especially... Yeah, I like to hear stories of a fire. For instance, I'm making this up, but it goes something like this. A farmer has horses and there's constantly cars parked around his farmhouse because people are taking photos of the horse and you can go, what the fuck?

Tim Sweeney (48:09)
crowds and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Makes sense.

Runar Karlsson (48:28)
I need to get my tractor through here, things like that.

But generally people are very, hospitality is good and people are very accommodating to people.

Tim Sweeney (48:43)
Well, it was awesome with you, the hospitality. mean, even I should mention your guitar playing and singing, which, which just gets even greater after a few, say adult beverages. was impressive. I recall some good singing. had a few, I think we had a few musicians in the group actually. there's some passing the guitar around in the, in the old farmhouse slash lodge, with a few beers and singing. It was great. last, last thing though.

Runar Karlsson (48:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (49:11)
You are doing something I would say that's quite unique and you're doing it in your hometown. So you're, you're lucky in that people come to you in a way, but you found your path into this career. think that like your hobbies, your passion or what you do every day, maybe not as much as you like, you're probably watching people do your hobbies, but you're a conduit to this fun. I'm looking for, um, a lot of young people, I think, or people in a middle of their life wondering.

Runar Karlsson (49:31)
Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (49:40)
I've spent 20 years doing this. I do this sometimes, I must admit. What if I just changed it, did something completely different? I don't know, you have kids, what did you, what was your advice and finding things you like to do or sort of least starting down that path of exploring and landing in a career you enjoy.

Runar Karlsson (49:52)
and

man, that's a difficult question. I'm not much of a philosopher in that sense, but...

Tim Sweeney (50:01)
It is not philosophy, but what, what did you find

that for you? was it, I'll say for me, I would just sort of, it was always like, if there was an opportunity, take it and try the next thing and try the next thing. And it sounds like you took the opportunities that came toward you and were open to things.

Runar Karlsson (50:18)
Yeah,

My take on this is like, which is kind of general Icelandic thing actually, is that you don't fix your career to something. Like you learn, let's say business or something in university and then you gonna be, you want to be a CEO or whatever, or you learn to become an electrician and then you're always an electrician until you're 65, 70 years old. In Iceland it's like...

you're constantly changing careers because people want to, you know, they're trying out different things. It's like when I was talking to a friend of mine from Austria and he asked me, I asked him what his father did because we were kind of talking about his father and he said, yeah, he works in a bank. Oh, okay. So he's been doing that for a long time. Yeah, all his life. Oh, oh really? I was so surprised. And then he asked, what does your father do? Well, he is a musician.

And then he was a lorry driver, he was a carpenter. Then he ran a restaurant and a bar. And then he had a chicken farm and a dry cleaning. the list went on and on, you know. And he was kind of, Yeah. And then he ended as a... He ran the home for the old people.

Tim Sweeney (51:28)
Yeah

That is a crazy resume he's put together.

Runar Karlsson (51:41)
So he did the full circle until he went to home for the old people himself, the resting home. That's kind of a very Icelandic thing. You try out different things. When you're 35, you decide that you should study law. You meet a plumber that is also a carpenter and he's also an electrician. He also has a permit to drive big lorry trucks.

Tim Sweeney (51:49)
Okay, yeah.

Runar Karlsson (52:10)
So you try to kind of, because we are so used to the seasons, you know, you have different seasons and in the old days you were... because it was the herring season, you worked in the herring and then the herring season was finished and then you had to do something else. So it's... I kind of like that. that's kind of what I've told my kids is that, you know, try to get as much experience as you can. Experience is never a bad thing. And try to learn...

new skills. doesn't have to be a master's degree in chemistry or something, but it can be something simple as a license to drive a bus or a captain's license or something or a permit to do whatever. all these things add up and it gives you more opportunities and it's not good to kind of be fixed on...

on one career path because that might be a dead end. Just keep your mind open, have the wide-angle lens on kind of thing.

Tim Sweeney (53:05)
And it keeps things interesting too, right? Learning is always a good feeling, learning new skills.

Runar Karlsson (53:07)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah,

exactly. I finished my captain's license and also finished the carpentry school for fun. So it's just to have more... Maybe if I sell this company or get tired of this or whatever, then I have something to do.

Tim Sweeney (53:19)
for fun.

Yeah, you can use those carpentry skills to build another lodge right next to the other lodge if you wanted to.

Runar Karlsson (53:38)
We actually have two projects like that. Let's see how that goes.

Tim Sweeney (53:41)
Really? Two projects like that? Yeah. Good for you. Well, I

want to come back someday. It was a really special experience and a special place.

Runar Karlsson (53:52)
Yeah, thank

you. Yeah, you should come in the summer also. You could try that.

Tim Sweeney (53:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. The skiing was fun, but I think this, yeah, the summer would be, would be cool.

Runar Karlsson (54:01)
Nice to see it in a different season.

Tim Sweeney (54:02)
Yep. Daylight

from when to when in the summertime.

Runar Karlsson (54:07)
From May, June, July it's pretty much 24-7.

Tim Sweeney (54:08)
All the time.

All the time. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, that takes some getting used to.

Runar Karlsson (54:15)
We could

come for the solar eclipse in 26th, 12th of August or something.

Tim Sweeney (54:20)
Okay. I'm looked at up. know. think you probably

have your prices jacked up. So I had to be careful about that. It'll be in demand.

Runar Karlsson (54:29)
Yeah, it's actually

crazy. It's going to be pretty good here in the western part of Iceland. So people are asking about all kinds of

Tim Sweeney (54:33)
yeah.

Already.

Yeah. Sort of once in a lifetime thing to see. Right. Well, thank you, Runa for the time. It's really fun to talk with you again. And, I should say thanks for the experience I had there a few years ago. It, clearly left a mark with me and need to go back. would encourage people to go back to, so they can find you online. You have Instagram, you have a website, Borya B O R E A. Right. Right.

Runar Karlsson (54:40)
No. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, Borya.

dot dot is

or BoryaAdventures dot com.

Tim Sweeney (55:05)
Right. Also, the first one is the Instagram. I asked. Sorry. Okay. And then Boreadventures.com and online. If we follow you on Instagram, we'll see pictures of that Arctic Fox. Right. Yeah. Great. Hey, thank you for the time. It's nice to see you again. I hope to see you in person soon too. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Runar Karlsson (55:08)
No, Boria.js.

Yeah, will be Archie Fox pictures coming up.

Yeah, thank you. Really hope so.

Tim Sweeney (55:29)
All right. That'll do it for this episode Thank you for listening. Thank you to Rune R Carlson. I told you he was an interesting guy and yeah.

I think he delivered really interesting stuff too, about career and how people think about that. And Iceland, I enjoyed talking to him about that and, uh, hearing sort of a different slant than the traditional one we see on, uh, LinkedIn and other platforms and places like that where people, you know, promote one career and one path. That's a, an interesting take he has on it. Anyway, I appreciate everyone listening. If you liked the podcasts, please subscribe, please share it with other people. Maybe it's someone who's.

talking about going to Iceland or just someone who likes to travel. Thanks for listening. And I'll be back with more episodes soon. Take care.