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National parks and other protected areas attract tourists worldwide. Subsequently protected areas have become popular destinations for tourism development and are seen as mitigation in many peripheral areas’ rural development. However, due to extreme seasonality, lack of suitable infrastructures and planning, and interference with fragile ecosystems, tourism in the northern periphery is becoming a growing environmental concern. Any form of tourism can have negative impacts on the resources on which tourism activities depend. Unsustainable tourism might thus lead to the disturbance of natural resources, which in turn is likely to affect the visitors’ experience. This raises the question if tourism development can ever be sustainable? This study aims to increase the knowledge and understanding of the interactions between tourism and the natural environment by assessing and analyzing the spatial and temporal pattern of tourism development and tourism impact in the northern territory of Vatnajökull national park in Iceland. The proposed approach is based the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) analysis. The interrelation between the spatial and temporal pattern of the tourism development and the park’s natural conservation value and ecological sensitivity indicate rapid development of tourism that has strengthen the local economy, at the same time as tourism-induced environmental degradation has increased.