Greenland

04 Oct Greenland

The past few posts have been close to home for us, highlighting the DC area.  This week we’ve decided to go further away – much further away and to somewhere that most of you have never visited but we hope that you soon plan to…. Greenland!   Greenland is about three times bigger than Texas and bigger than Alaska but has less than 60,000 people (most of which live in the only city – Nuuk).  Greenland is like a totally different world from wherever in the world you may be.   A land of gentle people, sweeping spectacular views unlike anything you will see anywhere else in the world. Wildlife like nowhere else.  Icebergs everywhere you look.  Accessible and stunning glaciers.  It’s an amazing, unique, foreign but accessible world unlike anywhere you’ve ever been.  Getting to Greenland is not easy – you have to connect either through Iceland or Denmark – which means that you first need to get yourselves to Iceland or Denmark a trip in themselves (and since you’re going to be in these great places, you may as well spend a couple of nights exploring them).  Then catch a flight on Greenland Air or Air Iceland Connect (different from Iceland Air), the only two airlines that fly to Greenland.  You basically have only four choices of places to fly into:  Nerlerit Inaat on Greenland’s east coast, Kulusuk, Nuuk, or Ilulissat.  From Denmark you will fly into Kangerlussuaq but there is literally nothing to see there (it’s just an airport and two small uninteresting streets housing the airport workers), so you’ll simply wait at the tiny airport (which has a nice gift shop and a great bar/restaurant with amazing views) and catch your connecting flight.  While Nuuk is the capitol and has some nice sights, we recommend that you go to Ilulissat and spend the next 4-5 days (or longer, if you can) spend your time enjoying the picturesque little city, taking midnight cruises through the icebergs (in the clear sunlight of the midnight sun), going on whale watching cruises, hiking on a glacier, a hiking around the Ilulissat.   More on Ilulissat next week!