Friends budget travel a bit “too hard,” end up in unexpected rural spot

A video of two travelers stumbling upon a tiny “self-service grocery store” in a remote town in Iceland has gone viral on TikTok.

The clip, posted by user @_kristinarose, has amassed more than 1.2 million views since it was shared on August 27.

Text overlaid on the video says: “When you budget travel a little too hard and you end up in a rural town with no restaurants or grocery stores.” According to the location shared with the post, the video was recorded in Iceland’s western region.

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The footage shows two women walking along an empty road against a mountain backdrop. They soon reach a “grocery store” the size of a phone booth.

“We found the grocery store in the town,” a woman in the video says, adding: “It’s self-service grocery store. This is the only food we have access to.” The women open the door of the booth, and the camera pans across a shelf, showing bags of tomatoes and a few other items. In the video’s comments section, the poster wrote that the store also had “dehydrated fish sticks.”

In the video’s caption, the poster said, “We ended up making oatmeal for dinner using our camping stove and oatmeal packets we brought from home.”

Newsweek has contacted @_kristinarose for comment via TikTok. This video has not been independently verified.

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The viral post comes as travel is set to hit record highs this year. Global tourism spending is expected to reach $2 trillion, fueled by leisure demand, Euromonitor International, a market research firm, found in a December survey.

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The survey showed that niche tourism segments—such as travel related to adventure, wellness, luxury, ecotourism and sports—were poised to be major growth areas in 2024, with consumers prioritizing personalized experiences that match their lifestyles and values.

In a comment, the poster wrote: “We were in disbelief, like how was this listed on google maps. We were expecting a small store but didn’t realize it would be like this.”

The poster said they “didn’t buy anything [from the self-service grocery store] because we weren’t sure how it worked and if it was just for the locals,” adding, “We didn’t want to take the food in case the locals relied on it.”

The poster clarified in other comments that they had just arrived in the country for their vacation and weren’t able to stock up on food before they drove to the rural spot, “so this is all we could find in this specific area.” The women were able to get food from another grocery store the following day.

‘That Is Wild’

The viral clip has amazed and amused users on TikTok, with one writing: “This is so cool. I wanna see the world.”

Another added: “This is so cool, you guys are blessed but not but blessed nonetheless. Safe travels queens.”

“This is actually so funny,” a user wrote, while another said, “THAT IS WILD BUT ALSO KINDA FUN.”

A commenter added, “It’s so cute and by cute I mean tiny.”

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