The manager of Hótel Frón, a hotel in downtown Reykjavík, is hard at work correcting the address of his hotel on online booking sites after a slight misspelling seems to have sent a foreign traveller on a five hour drive to a small North Iceland fishing village. A traveller who had just arrived in Iceland from the US had entered the address of the hotel into the GPS device in his rental car, and then proceeded to follow the directions, ending up 380 km (235 m) to the north of where he was actually going.
It is not clear how exactly the traveller got lost, but it seems he might have entered an incorrect address for his destination. Instead of asking for directions to Laugavegur he entered Laugarvegur, with an extra ‘r’, ending up on Laugarvegur street in Siglufjörður, instead of Laugavegur street in Reykjavík. This misunderstanding could in turn have been caused by the fact that the address of Hótel Frón is listed incorrectly on many online booking sites, as Laugarvegur, with an extra ‘r’.
Gísli Úlfarsson, the manager of Hótel Frón, told the local news site visir.is that something like this had never happened before. “No, never,” adding that he found it “curious” people would not check the city or town they are going to. “He called us last night and I thought this was some sort of joke. I refused to believe he had driven all the way to Siglufjörður.”
After Gísli realized many online booking sites had the address of the hotel listed wrong he immediately set to work to correct the misspelling to ensure other guests did not end up getting an extra, unwanted, adventure to North Iceland.
The traveller in question stayed the night in Siglufjörður and had the dates for his hotel booking in Reykjavík changed.
The manager of Hótel Frón, a hotel in downtown Reykjavík, is hard at work correcting the address of his hotel on online booking sites after a slight misspelling seems to have sent a foreign traveller on a five hour drive to a small North Iceland fishing village. A traveller who had just arrived in Iceland from the US had entered the address of the hotel into the GPS device in his rental car, and then proceeded to follow the directions, ending up 380 km (235 m) to the north of where he was actually going.
It is not clear how exactly the traveller got lost, but it seems he might have entered an incorrect address for his destination. Instead of asking for directions to Laugavegur he entered Laugarvegur, with an extra ‘r’, ending up on Laugarvegur street in Siglufjörður, instead of Laugavegur street in Reykjavík. This misunderstanding could in turn have been caused by the fact that the address of Hótel Frón is listed incorrectly on many online booking sites, as Laugarvegur, with an extra ‘r’.
Gísli Úlfarsson, the manager of Hótel Frón, told the local news site visir.is that something like this had never happened before. “No, never,” adding that he found it “curious” people would not check the city or town they are going to. “He called us last night and I thought this was some sort of joke. I refused to believe he had driven all the way to Siglufjörður.”
After Gísli realized many online booking sites had the address of the hotel listed wrong he immediately set to work to correct the misspelling to ensure other guests did not end up getting an extra, unwanted, adventure to North Iceland.
The traveller in question stayed the night in Siglufjörður and had the dates for his hotel booking in Reykjavík changed.
