Let's Go to Greenland!
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Last week I registered for a tourism event being held in Greenland this September, and I'm SO excited for my first trip to Greenland! The ancient mountain, fjord, and iceberg landscapes dotted with colorful fishing villages don't seem real. I'm so curious about the history, culture, and cuisine of Greenlanders.
The event will be in Nuuk, Greenland's capital. United now operates seasonal nonstop flights to Nuuk from Newark; it only takes four and a half hours! Nuuk's time is just three hours ahead of Newark.
A truly great way to make the most of your time exploring Greenland is with an expedition voyage. An Arctic sailing is on my own personal wish list because you can see icebergs closer to home than Antarctica and don't have to sail the Drake Passage to get there.
Have you imagined what visiting Greenland by land or sea might be like? I look forward to sharing my own land experiences with you later this year!
Article below from 5/13/2026 by Jen Rose Smith can be found HERE.
Inuit culture offers a warm welcome to travelers cruising the country’s wild southern coast.
Seen through a helicopter’s wraparound windows, the Greenland ice sheet was the world. It blurred into a creamy sky on the distant horizon; its sinkholes and crevasses puckered to cerulean depths. As tiny figures waved us in toward a landing, I recalled the previous day’s briefing for this flight, which took me from the decks of the 199-passenger polar expedition ship Ultramarine to the crest of a vast, frozen interior that has never seen a permanent settlement.
“You might be the first person in history to set foot on that particular place,” veteran mountain guide Phil Wickens had declared, his words sending an electric murmur through the room as our cocktails gently sloshed in the ocean swell. More than 80 percent of the world’s largest island is encased in ice, he’d reminded us.
From the helicopter, it was just a small step down to reach the ice sheet. But it felt like walking onto one of the planet’s sole remaining frontiers.
Two days before, we’d set sail from the capital, Nuuk, starting Quark Expeditions’ 13-night southern Greenland exploration wrapped in a dense curtain of fog. By the time the silvery mist lifted, my cabin’s floor-to-ceiling windows framed views of the island’s fjord-fractured coast, where icebergs jostled a granite fringe. My canary-yellow Quark parka and survival suit hung in the closet, adventure-ready – with no fixed itinerary, we’d spend the journey chasing fine weather along this rugged southern stretch. I scanned the coast from my private balcony, but there wasn’t another ship in sight. When I clambered to the bridge, the radar revealed our location, Ikersuaq, as a privileged sunbreak on a long, cloudy coast.
That was good fortune more than good luck, perhaps. As Greenland emerges as a newly sought-after cold-climate cruising destination – a fresh goal for even seasoned voyagers – Quark Expeditions leverages decades of experience in the polar north to make the most of often-fleeting favorable conditions and pioneer improvisational routes that go where other ships can’t.
To medieval Europeans, Greenland was ultima Thule – a nearly mythical outpost marking their world’s farthest, frozen reaches. Fair enough, even now. I marveled as towering bergs reeled past the picture windows of Ultramarine’s wood sauna, where quiet moments often found me. Across two exhilarating days late in the sailing, I saw polar bears treading blooming tundra, musk oxen so massive they seem carved from shaggy mountains.
Our trip’s adventurous, twice-daily excursions underscored the point. A heli-hiking trip in Ikersuaq swooped past sawtooth summits cupping alpine lakes before touching down in untrammeled wildflower meadows flanked by sheer drops. Later that same day, we paddled inflatable kayaks alongside expedition guide Molly Ledford, tracing cliffs of granite and gneiss where life fluttered gamely in the short polar summer: silvery-leafed willows gnarled by cold, meadow buttercups, the purple-blooming dwarf fireweed that is Greenland’s national flower. “Raft up!” Ledford cried, when we heard a sudden rumble and rush from the head of the fjord. At her command, we wedged our boats into a tight, stable pack as we watched a glacier tip a wall of ice into seawater, churning it to milky turquoise.
For all its untamed beauty, Greenland is also an ancient human landscape, albeit one that’s sparsely settled. Just a handful of far-flung communities dot the southern coast, some with just a few dozen inhabitants.
When our Zodiacs arrived at the coastal village of Aappilattoq – population: 90 – veteran crew members greeted familiar faces onshore like old friends, and guides and travelers alike joined locals for a pickup soccer game on a pitch squeezed between cliffs and sea. In the town’s tiny Lutheran church, the choir shared Greenlandic hymns. At the school, local women invited us in for a traditional kaffemik – a gathering with coffee and cake that marks nearly every special occasion for Greenlandic families. Seated in front of their brightly painted homes, fishermen mended nets in the morning sun.
In a nearby meadow, I spotted Nuuk chef Miki Siegstad foraging wild mountain sorrel for the special Tundra-to-Table dinners he hosts on board the Ultramarine with fellow Greenlandic chef Iben Lange. Using ingredients drawn from the land and sea, the dinner series is the result of a partnership with Quark Expeditions designed to foreground and honor the country’s Indigenous heritage.
“In our traditional culture there’s a lot of respect for food, for ingredients,” Siegstad said when he welcomed two dozen of us to the special dinner in the ship’s bistro, an intimate spot just aft of the window-wrapped dining room where we usually met for meals. “In the old way, you take only what you can use, and if you have extra, you share it with those who need it.” Siegstad’s foraged mountain sorrel garnished raw shrimp that arrived at the table perched atop a gleaming chunk of iceberg; snow crab was laced with angelica, which I’d seen growing wild among the art studios and crayon-box houses of Nuuk.
Siegstad and Lange shared tales from their Greenlandic Inuit culture with every course. Together, the pair recounted the story of Sassuma Arnaa, the mother of the ocean, also known as Sedna; she lives deep under the sea, her tangled hair home to fish, whales, and seals. “Our ancestors believed that if you overhunted or wasted food, she would call all the animals back to her hair,” Siegstad said.
I thought of Sassuma Arnaa the following day as I stepped once more into the helicopter, this time for a coast-hugging flight to a remote tundra camp, where I would be overnighting with a small group of shipmates and Greenlandic guides. I scanned the water for her porpoises and seals, for the telltale plumes of her humpbacks and fin whales.
When the camp came within view, the canvas tents were breathtakingly slight in the rocky landscape. Guide Kimmernaq Heilmann, who lives in the northern city of Sisimiut, greeted us as the helicopter touched town on the tundra. Clad in a hand-knit sweater of musk-ox wool, she spread her arms wide in welcome. Her fingers were tattooed with slim, ringlike bands long chosen by Greenlandic women to honor the mother of the ocean.
Like the chefs, Heilmann recounted stories – from Inuit mythology to her own first caribou hunt – as we explored the tundra surrounding the camp, our walk aromatic with Arctic thyme and black crowberries crushed underfoot. She grew quiet as our small group approached the mounded stones of an ancient Inuit grave. “We are in a sacred place,” she said, showing us how the gravesite pointed, like a compass needle, between the nearby mountain’s rock face and the deep blue of Tasermiut Fjord. “In the old Inuit religion, when we lay souls to rest, we rest them with a beautiful view.”
Is there any other kind in Greenland? Only nightfall, when we gathered for a fireside meal of river-caught Arctic char and Greenlandic lamb, could eclipse the scene. It took until nearly midnight for the midsummer stars to grow bright.
The next morning, we’d leave our canvas tents behind and return to the Ultramarine’s creature comforts – to convivial afternoon teas and late-night drinks, to our adventures and the cozy respite that always followed. I could already feel the warmth of the wooden sauna. But the ship was still far away in the darkness, the summer night too brief for wandering thoughts.
I stepped back from the flames to let my eyes adjust to the starlight, then lingered in the quiet until the constellations streaked away toward Sedna’s sea.
Luxury Cruises to Greenland
Quark Expeditions
Purpose-built polar ship Ultramarine lends convenience and comfort to the rugged beauty of Greenland’s southern fjord country on Quark Expeditions’ 13-night sailing that begins and ends in Reykjavík, with heli-hikes, Zodiac cruises, and an optional Tundra-to-Table dinner. Departures: August 17 and 29.
HX Expeditions
A round-trip HX Expeditions cruise from Reykjavík aboard the 200-passenger Fram makes the most of southwest Greenland’s enthralling culture and history over 14 nights, featuring Norse ruins, traditional communities, and explorations deep into Scoresby Sund. Departure: September 5.
Aurora Expeditions
Ticking off a pair of polar icons in one 14-night sailing from Oslo to Reykjavík, Aurora Expeditions’ 130-passenger Greg Mortimer calls on both Svalbard and eastern Greenland – two destinations famed for their polar bear populations. Departures: Multiple dates, June 27, 2026, through August 9, 2027.
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