This small island community is combating overtourism with self-navigating cars

In the North Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Iceland and Norway, a small island community is testing an imaginative solution to overtourism: self-navigating cars.

The Faroe Islands, an archipelago with a 2-to-1 ratio of sheep to humans, are known for their iconic views. There’s the cascading Múlafossur waterfall; the westernmost island of Mykines, home to thousands of puffins; and the Sørvágsvatn, also known as “the lake above the ocean.” But while these three sites are the islands’ main tourist attractions, a new campaign from the tourism agency Visit Faroe Islands claims that they’re also the source of some significant problems.

“Tourists gather around the same iconic ‘hot spots,’ driven by algorithms and social media trends that create a closed ecosystem where images from popular places attract even more people to those very locations,” the agency’s website reads. “The result is overtourism and predictable experiences.”

Overtourism has become an increasing concern for popular vacation destinations in the post-pandemic years, as an overwhelming influx of visitors to Instagrammable hot spots puts pressure on local infrastructure and communities. The trend has sparked protests in Venice, Italy; Barcelona; the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa; and Kyoto, Japan, among others. Cities in Italy, Spain, and Greece have taken to implementing “tourist taxes” in an effort to curb the problem, and must-see destinations like the Louvre have even decided to redesign to accommodate greater foot traffic. 

This month, Visit Faroe Islands is piloting a less-aggressive approach to overtourism. Through a collaboration with 62N car rental, the agency is offering an experience called the “Auto Odyssey,” a series of self-navigating itineraries that guide tourists to lesser-known locations across the islands in an effort to reduce the strain on local hot spots.

An itinerary designed for spontaneity—and tourist flow

In a new campaign video, Visit Faroe Islands lays out its pitch for Auto Odyssey: “Even in one of the most secluded places on Earth, the Faroe Islands, the tourists flock to the same places to take a picture,” the video starts. The solution? Self-navigating car rental. “If you want this car, you have to accept that the car decides where you go, no matter what,” the video continues. “In return for embracing this unpredictability, this car will take you to places few have been before you.”

When visitors choose to rent a car from 62N, they can opt into the Auto Odyssey program for free. Once inside the vehicle, travelers scan a QR code that activates turn-by-turn navigation on their phone, with a curated set of four to six stops over the course of three to six hours. The whole experience is designed for maximum spontaneity, as travelers’ destinations become clear only once they’ve arrived, and the navigation illuminates just one section of the journey at a time. Along the way, the system provides local stories tied to each place.

“The Visit Faroe Islands team pulled from personal knowledge and sat down together to curate the routes and feature places that we like to visit ourselves,” says Súsanna E. Sørensen, marketing manager of leisure and PR at the tourist board. “We selected places we know are scenic or interesting, yet don’t get a lot of attention. It is not about identifying a new scenic hot spot but more so to show visitors unexpected places. We want to encourage them to take in the beauty and the silence of the place.”

Possible destinations include a roadside stand serving fish and chips; one of the oldest turf-roofed wooden churches on the islands; a hiking trail through dramatic fjords; and a lake tucked between steep cliffs. The system comes preprogrammed with 30 different itineraries, and is designed to ensure that all the rental cars on the road are headed on separate paths, keeping overcrowding to a minimum. 

In a press release, Guðrið Højgaard, CEO of Visit Faroe Islands, explained that Auto Odyssey is the agency’s way of exploring how technology and creativity “could offer a new way for travelers to discover the Faroes.” The concept is certainly a long way off from solving Europe’s larger overtourism problem, given that it’s designed for a comparatively small location that relies on travel by car. Further, the Auto Odyssey program runs on the honor system—it has no way of actually stopping a traveler from charting their own course. Still, it offers a fascinating case study into how the design of a travel itinerary might help cities guide and redirect the flow of daily visitors.

“This is a more thoughtful kind of journey, designed to both protect what’s most beloved and reveal spots often overlooked,” Højgaard said. “With this initiative, we hope to lead by example, demonstrating how destinations can embrace innovation to spread tourism more responsibly and meaningfully.”