Tourists fined for off-road driving and illegal camping in Skeiðarársandur

Tourists were questioned by police and then fined for off-road driving in Skeiðarársandur and camping on the sands. All off-road driving in Iceland is illegal.

The tourists rented a vehicle from Camping Cars and Bogi Jónsson, manager at Camping Cars confirmed to mbl.is that the tourists were being interrogated by police.

Off-road driving on desert sands such as Skeiðarársandur causes markings and damage to its pristine beauty.

"It's really bad that this happened, especially because we really urge each individual to pay attention to these laws." A photo of the tourists camping appeared on a tourist related Facebook page and Jónsson reported the incidident to police.

"We are a small car rental company and we spend a lot of time and money on telling tourists that wild-camping and off-road driving is illegal in Iceland."

David Sigurþórsson, who spotted the tourists camping in the sands, and took the photos, said that they pretended not to know it was illegal to camp. "But it's a weird choice of camping because it's actually one of the few places out there where there are signs that off-road driving is forbidden there. There are also large rocks to prevent people from doing this.