It goes without saying that Greenland is a country for the adventurous traveller. It has a host of fjords, massive glaciers, high mountains and beautiful sights along a coastline with very few cities and inhabitants.
It’s difficult to decide when and where to go in Greenland, so you are probably best off devising your own itinerary, depending on what you really want to see.
For midnight sun and whales, you need to visit during summer. For dog sledding, winter is the only option. Icebergs can be seen all year around and are spectacular at night when the Northern Lights are active.
Greenland’s top five winter and summer attractions are listed below:
Winter
- The Northern Lights
- Snow
- Dogsledding
- The Arctic Circle Race
- Heliskiing
Winter is long in the arctic, from the first snow in October through to April, depending on where in Greenland you go. This is only the new snow – there are several places in North Greenland and on the mountaintops where snow and ice is permanent and in fact 80% of the country is covered by a huge icecap.
North of the polar circle it is dark 24 hours a day during winter. From the middle of February the light begins to return and the dog sledding season starts, sometimes lasting until May, depending on the weather and ice conditions.
Summer
- The Midnight Sun
- Icebergs
- Nature and Wildlife
- Hiking
- Fjord Tours
The fjord tour is one of the best ways to experience Greenland. You may be lucky enough to get close to the whales, not to mention the colossal glaciers and icebergs. Even if you choose a comfortable hotel holiday, give yourself the pleasure of taking a day trip into a Greenlandic fjord.
If hiking’s more your thing, you can traverse the long mountain ridges, former glacier tongues – now kilometer long deposits of rock, gravel and sand - and enjoy the beautiful valleys, carpeted with grass and arctic flowers. For the less experienced, guided tours are recommended. Many destinations in Greenland have marked hiking routes with different levels of difficulty that can be done in a day or less.
Getting there
Unless you arrive with a cruise ship that is stopping by as part of its itinerary, commercial airlines are the only way for travelers to get to Greenland, from airports in Denmark and Iceland. Air Greenland operates regular flights from Copenhagen to the main international airport in Kangerlussuaq and seasonal flights to Narsarsuaq. There are also seasonal flights between Keflavik in Iceland and Greenland’s capital Nuuk in the west of the country and from Keflavik to Ilulissat in the Disko Bay. Air Iceland flies year round from Reykjavik Domestic Airport to Kulusuk in east Greenland and also to Nuuk. Air Iceland Connect also operates seasonal flights to Narsarsuaq in South Greenland, Nuuk, Ilulissat in the Disko Bay and Kangerlussuaq in the Arctic Circle. Nordlandair from Akureyri in Iceland also operates to Constable Point in North East Greenland.
Title Image Credit: Markus Trienke (Image Cropped)