Tomorrow I fly to the Faroe Islands for my residency at Williamshús, the former home of William Heinesen, a Faroese writer and composer. I’ll be living in an apartment on the second floor, while the first floor and basement act as a museum, preserved as they were when he lived and worked there.

I’ve only been to the Faroes once before, but that week-long trip in 2018 left an impression and a connection far beyond a typical tourist visit. I started reading as much English-language history of the country as I could find, devoured all the episodes of the Faroe Islands Podcast, and started my Looking North blog to document and share what I was learning. It’s hard to explain why that place sank its claws so deeply into my psyche, but it’s easy to trace how that experience inspired subsequent research into northern cultures, which ultimately led to discovering the Arctic studies program and my move to Iceland.

If it resonated with me so strongly, why have I been reluctant to return? By a certain logic, I should have gone back to the Faroe Islands much sooner. But perhaps paradoxically, I felt an aversion to going unless I had a deeper reason to be there. I didn’t want to be just a tourist; I wanted at least slightly more grounding and purpose as to why I was there. I felt similarly about Iceland, also because of my love of the place, and of course my graduate certificate program became the deeper purpose for coming here. The writing residency at Williamshús was just enough of a nudge to overcome this hurdle for the Faroe Islands.

I suppose that this distinction is something like the tension between being a tourist and a traveler, of wanting a way to see a place a level deeper — if not as a local does, then at least at a level of engagement beyond the superficial. I’m not concerned with being on the far end of the tourist spectrum, like the cruise ship passengers in Reykjavík who swarm in for pre-packed experiences with shopping lists to check off. But the question of what “authentic travel” means is thorny. I think it really comes down to the trip’s intention, for which the English language lacks a single word.

Some people associate the word “vacation” with relaxation, although I tend to overload that term to include trips with a lot of physical activity too. Further complicating that is the distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 fun, the latter of which pushes further away from the typical vacation definition. Unsurprisingly, German has a clearer distinction, where the word Bildungsreise translates to “educational trip,” whereas Urlaub means simply “vacation.” I guess I’m hoping that this trip to the Faroe Islands will prove closer to a Bildungsreise, with writing and thinking, hiking and exploring — sitting a little deeper in the culture and present of a place that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about over the last eight years.

Noted & Done

• I went to Björk’s exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland.
• I finally switched from Spotify to Apple Music. If you’re thinking about making this move, let me reassure you that it is easy and seamless. Apple provides a tool to import everything and the design of their app is better in every way. I wish I had done it sooner.
• Instagram has a new feature that will use your Instagram photos in AI images unless you opt out. Follow the instructions here.
• I highly recommend the TV show Star City, the spinoff of For All Mankind that continues the premise of the Soviet Union winning the space race, but from the Soviet perspective. It’s really fantastic and doesn’t require that you’ve seen any episodes of For All Mankind, which FWIW I think has gone downhill since season three. Hopefully Star City will be a limited series and not the first of a multi-season run; it feels complete.