Toe pics in Tenerife: Pocket universe as shelter from uncertainties in Icelandic mobilities

After travel restrictions were lifted in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, people from Iceland flocked to Tenerife. While the pandemic crisis seemed over – at least in Iceland – other new or lingering crises were present, coupled with the feeling that the future was increasingly characterized by multiple uncertainties. Crisis has been theorized not only as signaling an abrupt change but also as continuities, where crisis can be the feeling of the cancellation of a predictable future, either permanently or momentarily. This article emphasizes temporalities as particularly relevant to mobilities between Iceland and the Canary Islands, whether for vacation or for temporary residence. It suggests the island as desirable as they were perceived as existing outside normal time, in a sense, a parallel universe that is not shaped or affected by a world in crisis. However, even though for some Icelandic travelers this space constitutes what I call “pocket universe,” others feel of entrapment or a sense of being “stuck.”I draw attention to how different actors exist in the same space, while located in different temporalities.