About Goecco Outdoor Adventures!

A peek beneath the bonnet... 

Goecco Outdoor Adventures is the oldest urban walking tour company in Reykjavik. It's also - by common consent - the premier urban walking tour company in the Iceland.

It's the gold standard. 

Goecco Outdoor Adventures is a company dedicated to bringing Reykjavik's past back to life in fun and exciting ways. Too often, history - especially Icelandic history - is presented as being a dry and boring subject, ignoring the Icelandic past between 874 and 1944.

Not for us!

We believe that exploring our city's past is a fun and exciting way to spend a few hours, whether you are a visitor to our city, or a life long resident. We will offer several tours which try to present the past as an authentic playground for those who want to know how the modern city of Reykjavik came to be.

A simple fact and a 24-carat judgement...and they alloy perfectly. 

Goecco Outdoor Adventures was founded many years ago by Jonas Freydal Thorsteinsson, an Icelander with over 20 years of experience within the tourism industry. Thorsteinsson started Goecco Outdoor Adventures because he was fed up with the banality of typical Icelandic tourist product prices.

Which, if you think about it, means that one of the keynotes of Goecco Outdoor Adventures was sounded ab origo .

And there's no need to be coy about this: there are huge advantages that go with "owning the category" as they say in business-speak.
1) You blaze the trail you learn a great deal.
2) Your foundations go deep and they're very solid.
3) You've got a very long "corporate memory" to draw on.
4) Practice makes perfect.
5) Your very ethos - let alone ways and means - is aged in the cask.

And that's no bad thing. Its long history and way of doing things are part and parcel of Goecco Outdoor Adventures distinctive identity . (I'm tempted to say footprint.)

And that's not something that can be successfully imitated.

It has to be earned. Over many years.

In Mr. Thorsteinsson trenchant words (different context of course), "imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but an imitation is still a fake".

And as long as we're surveying this territory, it's, well, reality-based to say that Goecco Outdoor Adventures is also the best loved urban walking tour company in Iceland.

And you know something, I wouldn't bet against us either in the little matter of how the company is run.

Indeed, it's one of Iceland's foremost walking tour companies, not least because it's family-owned and loved and run. It's small enough to be hands on, big enough to benefit from a few critically important economies of scale - and to have secured for our people - our walkers - all kinds of wonderful "added value", to open doors that wouldn't normally be open, etc. In short, no one else can provide what Goecco Outdoor Adventures provides... whether you're talking quality, range, calibre of guiding, level of service, sheer value, etc. etc. etc.

It doesn't come much better than this way of doing things. The work itself is both a joy and very satisfying. (Let alone fun!) Nobody's getting ripped off, nobody's being exploited.

The products are great value for our customers.

And for that matter "great value" as well for the Icelanders whose neighbourhoods we explore...because walking tours are "ecologically sensitive" tourism.

And they're just generally good for you - whether you're a walker or a guide or a bemused neighbour who steps outside to kibbutz - the fresh air, the exercise, the "social component", etc. etc.

And as long as we're reasonably successful...well, no need to be coy about this either: for both the guides and Goecco Outdoor Adventures GHQ it goes some way toward keeping the wolf from the door.

And into the bargain it's a very enjoyable way of earning part of your living. It works as well as it does because of the way we're structured.

We're all pulling together.

That's something quite extraordinary - something very special - in this day and age. And the bottom line - and I'm using the term with full resonance intended - is that the way we're structured is the reason we're able to attract and keep the best guides in Reykjavik.

And to complete the circle...well, imagine a pebble dropped into a pool. The ripples extend out to you guys, our walkers.

You're the third leg of the stool - to mix my clichés.

The point being that there's a wonderful little eco-system here...which works for one and all.

Goecco Outdoor Adventures is like a big, bouncing, friendly, happy, welcoming, extended family.

Take a resonance imaging "snapshot" of this little enterprise and you'd see that it's mercifully free of a lot of the poisons - the tensions and unpleasantries and resentments - that seem to go with the territory in a lot of rigidly hierarchical "concerns".

So if it "feels good" to a lot of you - and clearly it does - well, now you've got a rather better idea about what it was you'd sensed about us and what we do and how we do it.

And why, for that matter, the company is good to be a part of - is, well, good company (it's such a marvellous word, that - the Latin roots are with and bread ...to share bread with) - why, in short, it's worth your support and affection and loyalty.

C'est tout .

Jonas Freydal Thorsteinsson (Jonas The Lucky of Iceland)