Faroe tale: stories about road trips of a lifetime, Faroese people and culture
Chief Travel Data Manager
How do you usually plan the days on your trip? Are you a nerd who has a detailed schedule on each day, hour, and a minute or you are Mamma-Mia-Spontaneous-Harry, not planning the days at all?
I’m somewhere in between, as I do search for the info and save places I’d like to visit, but at the same time, it’s easy for me to change the route. It’s also easy to follow a new plan as I usually travel solo, and thus, I don’t have to negotiate, persuade, argue, and meet halfway.
During my Faroese trip, I tried to keep a balance. Certainly, I wanted to see as much as possible but when I felt I need some more relaxing activity, I followed my feelings and went to the museum or two, for instance.
Some of the other days have started with taking a bus to a certain point. Even though they have a funny ad saying “It’s sheep and easy by bus”, that was the most expensive price I paid for the transport service ever.
What they can actually add as a benefit are the exceptional views all around.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the picture. It’s even easy to have a first-row place, as usually there were few people on the bus. You’ll see mountains and waterfalls, far away cliffs and huge clouds covering green hills, sudden rain or fog, small villages as well as tunnels under the water or in the mountain.
Certain roads are called “Buttercup routes”—particularly scenic routes for travelers you can check on the free tourist map. I went through several of them. If you are not distracted with the cars occasionally passing nearby, buses, vans, concrete mixer trucks, nothing will stop you from seeing the beauty step by step. I believe it’s a rare case to see all the kind of transports on that empty roads but it happened to me.
Actually, I realized it’s a good idea to have different options to perceive the surroundings. Once, you’re driving faster using the bus with better-than-Netflix views, while another time you’re having a slow living moment—listening to birds singing, the wind blowing, and getting wet to the skin. That’s part of the experience!
Empathy
I was coming back home after the scenic road experience. That was a moment when I was totally and completely wet, and the only thing I care about was the safety of my sketchbooks in the backpack. Luckily, they were safe and sound. And then suddenly, one car stopped next to me. There were a couple and they asked me whether I want to go with them not to be under the rain.
For a moment, I couldn’t understand them ’cause in my Ukrainian reality cars represent the untouched symbol of prestige, treated like a temple following the Orthodox golden glitter style. Of course, it’s hyperbole but what I want to say is that in Ukraine it’s almost impossible to get the same level of empathy in similar circumstances.
But these guys were Danish, they’re probably get used to rain a lot, and for them, it’s not a problem to have a higher level of humidity inside a car.
Overall, it was a memorable moment for me even though it took only several minutes to get to the destination.
“Come in, the doors are open”
During the trips, I like to pay attention to people’s way of life — their behavior, the pace of life, openness and closeness to the world around. And then, I asked myself a question—who are the Faroese people?
While I don’t have a confident answer, I do have some ideas that are based on my interaction with them.
Faroese are open
There exists the popular opinion that people in the northern parts of the world are more reserved than other nations due to weather conditions and fewer daylight hours in winter. But that’s definitely not true when it comes to Faroese people.
It’s easy to talk to them not only because they know English perfectly but because it seems it’s in their nature—to be open-minded, honest, helpful. Of course, if you don’t meet a farmer with the rifle who’s living in a very Instagrammable place and get irritated by tourists a lot.
It’s a usual thing to leave the front doors unlocked. Can you imagine the almost zero level of crime in that case? Also, I even heard it can look impolite if you do lock the door and your neighbor can’t come in whenever he wants, what a world!
Proud of their nationality and culture
I was amazed to hear how much they love their own language and how they do their best not to add Anglicisms but looking for the analog word from the old days.
Being part of the Kingdom of Denmark they do not identify them as Danish. Once, the sportsman from the national Danish team was covered with Faroese flag during the march on the Olympic Games to showcase his identity. This detail represents their calm but confident position, I believe.
Curious
Quite often I was asked “Why did you come to the Faroe Islands?”, like the stunning, out of the Earth nature isn’t enough, ha?
Love the nature around
Faroese do treat their land highly respectfully and expect the same from the tourists. It even seems to me, they won’t let the huge flow of tourists come to their land in the future. Like they say “It won’t be second Iceland”, period.
Suddenly, I came up with the idea that there exists a certain scale of love for life and people. From one point there will be anger and irritation — imagine a hot summer day, 40°C you’re in a full marshrutka — a kind of a smaller bus in Ukrainian reality — extremely inconvenient transport full of people and some of them literally weight over you while you’re sitting on the sunny side and there is no air conditioner. And from another point, there is a sincere, hearty feeling of joy and gratitude when you’re hitchhiking and meeting Faroese people or other fellow travelers on the Faroe Islands.
As a conclusion, I can say that I’m totally inspired by the Faroese people and their state of mind. It was a pleasure walking the streets to greet the unknown people in front of me whose smiles were sincere and generous.
I assume, there is some sort of magic hiding in this land. After all, why would they believe in elves then?
You can find the first part of my story about the Faroe Islands here:
Fly Me to the Faroe Islands: the land of wonder and trust
And a story I wrote after the last year big summer trip:
A Story of Growing as a Designer While Traveling
Thank you!
