Geotagging & Social Media: When Sharing a Location Harms It

The question that took me years to answer

For a long time, I didn’t share my Iceland photographs on social media at all. Not because I lacked images — after six trips, I had plenty — but because I couldn’t resolve a question that felt genuinely important: if I post this, and it spreads, am I part of the reason the next person tramples the moss my photograph is standing on?

I never fully answered that question. What I did instead was set a rule for myself: no location tags, no GPS coordinates, no geotags of any kind on personal posts. If a place needs protecting through vagueness, I’d rather protect it than get the engagement. This site exists partly because of that same tension — but here, at least, sharing a location comes with the context of Leave No Trace guidance, safety information, and a stated policy of not publishing everything I know. A caption with a pin on a map has none of that.

This article is about why that distinction matters, and about what happens when it’s ignored.

What Actually Happens When a Location Goes Viral

Iceland has several well-documented cases of a quiet, obscure place becoming a managed crisis within a few years of a single piece of viral content. The pattern repeats closely enough to be worth naming precisely.

Fjaðrárgljúfur: the canyon a music video broke

Fjaðrárgljúfur, a moss-lined canyon in southeast Iceland, was a relatively unknown stop until Justin Bieber filmed the video for “I’ll Show You” there in 2015. Visitor numbers rose from roughly 150,000 in 2017 to 282,000 the following year, and Icelandic environmental officials linked the increase directly to the video, describing a 50 to 80 percent rise in foot traffic across those years. afarafar

The canyon’s vegetation — centuries in the making, as with most of Iceland’s ground cover — could not absorb that volume. The Environment Agency closed the site to visitors, and Visit Iceland’s director framed it not as a blame-Bieber story but as an infrastructure failure: the canyon needed paths that could handle year-round traffic, and the closure was as much a safety response to unstable spring ground as an ecological one. The canyon later reopened with managed paths and restricted seasonal access — a permanent, structural change to how the location can be experienced, directly traceable to one video reaching an audience the site was never built to hold. Global News

Gljúfrabúi: the “hidden gem” that stopped being hidden

Closer to home for anyone following Icelandic travel content, Gljúfrabúi — a waterfall tucked inside a narrow canyon a short walk from Seljalandsfoss — followed a different but related pattern. For years it was the answer every blog and travel account gave to “avoid the crowds at Seljalandsfoss, go here instead.” The advice worked so well, repeated across enough platforms, that a queue now regularly forms at the canyon’s narrow entrance as visitors wait their turn to squeeze through for a photograph. Smithsonian Magazine

I have visited Gljúfrabúi more than once, at different times, and been essentially alone there each time. Recently I watched footage of a summer queue at the same entrance — people standing in line for a location that, within my own memory of it, had no queue to speak of. The advice to “skip the famous spot and go here instead” is, structurally, the same mechanism as a viral video: it redirects volume from one location to another, and the second location was rarely built to receive it.

The French off-road case: when sharing becomes evidence

In June 2026, Icelandic authorities investigated a group of French tourists, travelling in French-registered vehicles, over extensive off-road driving damage in south Iceland. Police confirmed the matter was under investigation and described the offence as serious, noting that fines for illegal off-road driving in Iceland can run into the hundreds of thousands of krónur. Iceland Review

What makes this case relevant to this article specifically is what happened next. One of the individuals involved, Luc Haudeville, had uploaded GPS routes of the group’s journey to the route-sharing platform Wikiloc — documenting, in detail, a path that crossed protected highland terrain near Kötlujökull, Einhyrningur, and Hvanngil. After the fines were issued, the routes were removed from the platform, but not before drawing public criticism — one commenter explicitly urged others not to follow the tracks, and another argued that continuing to display the route after being fined showed disregard for the landscape and for those working to protect it. Hertz IcelandHertz Iceland

According to Grapevine’s reporting, Haudeville had been proudly broadcasting the damage on social media before he received his first fine of 300,000 ISK for destroying the landscape — and his response to that fine was to immediately resume the same behaviour. Blue Car Rental

This is the sharpest version of the problem this article addresses. It is not simply that a beautiful photograph might inspire a crowd months later. It is that the sharing itself — a GPS track, a location tag, a route file — can function as a direct instruction set for others to repeat the same harm, in the same place, immediately.

The Litter Problem Nobody Photographs

There’s a quieter version of overtourism damage that never makes headlines the way off-road tracks or trampled moss does: rubbish left behind at locations that were never built to receive the volume now arriving.

On my first Iceland trips, I was genuinely confused by how few bins I found anywhere outside Reykjavík — at trailheads, viewpoints, even some fairly major stops. It took a while to understand that this is deliberate: much of Iceland’s landscape has no waste infrastructure at all, because none was ever needed for the numbers who used to visit. The solution is simple and doesn’t require the country to install a bin at every pull-off — carry a bag, take everything out with you, and treat “no bin here” as the default rather than the exception. I’ve done this since without a second thought, and it costs nothing.

The problem scales with attention. A quiet, unmarked spot that a handful of people find each week rarely accumulates rubbish — whoever leaves something is the exception. A spot that a viral post sends hundreds of people to in a single weekend is a different mathematical situation entirely: even a small percentage of visitors leaving wrappers, cans, or wet wipes behind adds up fast, at a location with no infrastructure and no one coming to clean it.

I’ve seen this firsthand at more than one location — and more than once, I’ve said something directly to the person responsible rather than just picking it up and staying quiet. That’s an uncomfortable thing to do, and it doesn’t always land well. But responsibility here isn’t abstract or systemic only. It’s also the specific decision, made by one person, to leave something behind or not — and I’d rather have an awkward thirty seconds than let it slide.

Why This Matters More in Iceland Than Almost Anywhere

Iceland’s ecosystems recover slowly in ways that are easy to underestimate from a photograph. Moss that took three centuries to establish does not return in three years. A single set of tyre tracks across highland tundra remains visible for decades, not seasons. This site’s Leave No Trace guide covers the mechanics of that fragility in detail — the point here is narrower: a location tag doesn’t just tell people where something beautiful is. It tells them exactly how to get there, removing the friction that once served as a natural limiter on visitor numbers.

Before geotagging, a stunning but obscure location relied on word of mouth, guidebooks, or genuine exploration to be found. That friction meant visitor growth was gradual — infrastructure, paths, and management could develop alongside demand. A viral post or a shared GPS track removes that gradual curve entirely. Demand can spike within weeks, arriving faster than any ranger service, path system, or parking area can be built to absorb it.

What Responsible Sharing Actually Looks Like

This is not an argument against photography, against social media, or against sharing what you’ve seen. It’s an argument for a specific set of decisions, made deliberately rather than by default.

Share the image, not the coordinates. A photograph can move someone without functioning as a map. Removing the geotag, the pin, and the precise directions costs the photograph nothing and removes its capacity to direct traffic.

Be specific about the region, vague about the exact spot — when the location can bear it. “Somewhere in the Westfjords” tells a story. A GPS-precision caption for a fragile or unmanaged site does not.

Consider whether the location has infrastructure to absorb attention. A signed, pathed, managed location — a national park waterfall with a car park and marked trail — can generally handle a tag. An unmarked hot spring beside a gravel road, reached by nobody’s directions but your own curiosity, cannot.

Don’t publish routes across protected or off-trail terrain, ever. The Wikiloc example above is the clearest possible illustration of why: a shared route doesn’t inspire people to visit a general area. It gives them turn-by-turn instructions to repeat the exact damage, immediately, at scale.

If a location is closed, recovering, or under visible pressure, say so rather than staying silent. A caption that notes “this spot is popular now — please stick to the marked path” does more good than a caption that pretends the crowd doesn’t exist.

A Correction to My Own Logic

Everything above assumes that vagueness — sharing an image without a location tag — meaningfully protects a place. For places that are still genuinely obscure, unnamed, or absent from any map, that’s true. For places that already have an official name and appear on Google Maps, it isn’t. Anyone reading “somewhere in the Westfjords” alongside a recognisable rock formation or waterfall can identify it in seconds through a reverse image search or a five-minute scroll through a map. Omitting the name from a caption, in that case, protects nothing — it only creates the appearance of restraint.

This matters directly for a site like this one. Every location this site names — Hvítserkur, Grjótagjá, Reynisfjara — is already on the map, already searchable, already has an official designation. Withholding the name in an article wouldn’t meaningfully change anything about visitor pressure; it would only make the article less useful while providing no real protection. For places at that stage, the only decision that actually matters is the binary one: publish, with full context and Leave No Trace guidance attached — or don’t publish at all. That second option is this site’s existing policy for locations that are fragile enough to warrant it. There is no meaningful middle ground where a place keeps its name but loses its findability.

An Honest Question I Keep Returning To

I don’t think this site is exempt from the dynamic it describes. A photography website that recommends locations — even responsibly, even with Leave No Trace guidance attached to every article — is still, by definition, directing attention somewhere. More readers means more visitors, eventually, to some of the places covered here. I don’t have a comfortable resolution to that. What I have instead is a set of decisions this site has made deliberately: some locations are described only partially, some are not published at all, and every location article carries the access and impact information the sharer of a bare Instagram photo does not provide.

That doesn’t make this site harmless. It makes it, I hope, more honest about the trade-off than most alternatives — and it is why the responsibility doesn’t end with the person writing the article. It continues with everyone who reads it.

If you visit somewhere because of this site: follow the marked paths described in the relevant guide. Respect the barriers and closures noted, even when they seem excessive. If you share your own images afterward, apply the same judgement this article argues for — the location that gave you a good photograph deserves better than becoming the next Gljúfrabúi queue.

What I’d Like to See Change

Iceland’s current approach — a mix of ranger patrols, signage, and after-the-fact fines — is reactive by design. It responds to damage that has already happened rather than preventing the search-and-share behaviour that leads to it. In cases like the June 2026 off-road incident, the fines were significant — hundreds of thousands of krónur — and yet the same individual resumed the behaviour almost immediately after paying the first one. Hertz Iceland

I would support meaningfully higher penalties for documented, repeated, or deliberately broadcast environmental damage, along with clearer legal consequences for publishing routes or coordinates that facilitate others repeating protected-area violations. Fines calculated as a percentage of the damage’s restoration cost — rather than a fixed sum that a wealthy visitor can treat as a toll — would change the calculation for exactly the kind of case described above. This isn’t a popular position with everyone who visits Iceland to drive wherever they like. It is, I think, the position the landscape itself would ask for, if it could.

Further Reading

• Leave No Trace in Iceland: A Photographer’s Guide
• Photography in Iceland: The Complete Responsible Guide
• Editorial Policy — this site’s own approach to what gets published and what doesn’t

Sources

Nature Conservation Agency of Iceland — nattura.is

The Reykjavík Grapevine — grapevine.is

Iceland Review — icelandreview.com