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A viral Norwegian travel advert with nearly 20 million views is turning the tables on the over-tourism narrative with a different take on why you should visit the country’s capital Oslo.

With the opening line, “I wouldn’t come here to be honest”, the advert is hardly traditional, but seems to have hit the right notes with travellers.

Narrated by a 31-year-old Oslo local named Halfdan, he introduces viewers to Norway’s capital while complaining about its lack of pretension, its easily accessible art like Edvard Munch’s The Scream (“Not exactly the Mona Lisa,” he notes) and its accessibility. All the while, he strolls through a tranquil cityscape with no queues, crowds or selfie-snappers in sight.

“You can just walk from one side of town to the other in, like, 30 minutes,” Halfdan bemoans. “Is it even a city?”

The departure from ‘over-selling’ of tourist hotspots seems to have even impressed delighting the city’s tourism officials, and the one-minute and 45-second has attracted nearly 20 million views since being launched in June this year.

The advert has a very Idiot Abroad vibe but fits into the recent trend of people wanting to experience something outside of the standard tourist traps. Visitors to foreign shores are getting increasingly disenchanted with queuing for hours for a rushed picture of the Mona Lisa or Acropolis.

The existing quo isn’t appealing to the locals either. In protest against the swarms of vacationers who have raised rents and converted their house into a playground, 20,000 people marched in Majorca last month, while a mass tourism protester in Barcelona showered tourists with water last month. This year, Amsterdam revealed measures to limit the number of cruise ships that bring visitors into the city core, while Venice unveiled a temporary visitor fee.

August Jorfald, who directed the film and wrote the script for the advert, said the idea came after he visited Paris with his girlfriend.

“I said the trip would be successful if I didn’t see the Eiffel Tower.”

“I don’t want the Disney World. I want to be at someone’s kitchen table and drink wine from a milk glass.”