Broadly speaking, policy makers understand that people derive benefits from experiencing nature, but not necessarily the important interconnections and features that underpin a fulfilling nature experience. At the same time, national direction encourages the growth of recreation-based markets connected to natural areas, with little understanding of tourism growth is impacting visitors’ experience and the important soundscapes of local communities and nature. Tourism research shows that hearing natural sounds and quiet are connected to their propensity to return whereas noise is a commonly cited deterrent (Jiang et al. 2018), and are willing to pay for noise reduction in protected areas (Merchan et al. 2014). However, reducing the sound levels from particular sources may not necessarily result in an acoustic environment of high quality, because the character of the sound is equally important (e.g. Cerwen 2016). Environmental sounds, like the sound of aircraft or people (anthrophony) and nature (biophony, geophony), are meaningful in different ways. Some sounds have a positive impact, whereas others have a negative meaning or character, regardless of their sound levels. For example, anthrophony of any form is considered noise by individuals who hold high environmental or recreational values (Miller et al. 2019), but is strongly dependent on trip motivations and expectations (Taff et al. 2015). These questions must be further explored in order to know how large a role noise plays in sustainable Nordic nature based tourism and recreation.