Luckily, this isn’t an “if you’re reading this, I’m already dead” situation. With some careful scrambling and expert guidance from Jukku and fellow guide Christina, all seven of us made it to the plateau beneath a spectacular niche glacier. It was 400m across, shaded by the peak, and surrounded by iceberg-laden fjords. However difficult it was, the payoff was incredible, which taught me a valuable lesson about exploring Greenland. Getting where you want to be isn’t always simple, but whatever effort you put in will be the most worth-it effort of your life.
Downtown Ilulissat. Photo / Annaliese Smith
If you’re planning a trip, the first things you’ll learn about Greenland are that 80% of it is covered in ice and that there are no roads between towns. Those facts, paired with the whims of the Arctic weather, are why it isn’t an easy place to navigate.
Sled dogs and kayaks have been replaced by prop-planes, speedboats and ferries, but an increasing number of tourists visit on cruise ships. In 2025, nearly 94,000 people arrived by cruise, enjoying the convenience of transport from ice-fjord to settlement and beyond. I’ve never found my sea legs and can’t justify the price of that particular convenience, so I set out to find my way around the territory independently, navigating its logistical difficulties in search of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
My trip, like most, started in Nuuk. Although recent expansions have welcomed international flights to five of Greenland’s main airports, it is still most convenient to touch down in the capital. I’m a nervous flyer, so when the engines slowed on descent and the cabin fell close to silent, I was convinced that something had gone seriously wrong. Then I looked out the window. I was suddenly cruising through the blue channels of the Nuuk fjord, flanked by mountains that seemed to rise impossibly from the still blue water.
I was lucky enough to have a window seat for this flight, which I didn’t take for granted. “Air safaris” are a popular excursion, taking visitors over calving glaciers, rolling hills and even Sermersuaq, “the great ice”, which covers the mainland’s massive interior. Travelling independently bakes that experience into your trip almost by accident.
Greenland rewards travellers who find their own way. Photo / Annaliese Smith
To navigate the west coast, you can take the Sarfaq Ittuk ferry, which runs once a week, or a domestic Air Greenland flight. Though the ferry is the cheaper option, its limited schedule is a logistical challenge, which is why I ended up on a flight into the Arctic Circle almost as soon as I arrived.
Though I had been amazed by the icebergs on my flight through the Nuuk fjord, the descent into Ilulissat was like a whole new world. Ilulissat means icebergs in Kalaallisut, and there aren’t many places in the town centre where you can’t see them looming large in the bay. Most have floated out of the Unesco World Heritage Ilulissat Icefjord, which itself is fed by the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, one of the most active glaciers in the world.
I headed straight for the coastal trails that lead from the southwest of the town to the fjord. With every step through the spongy moss, the ice sculptures grew bigger until I was staring at a desert of white. Curling towers and peaks broke the horizon, and the booms of cracking ice buffeted the cliffs where I stood.
Greenland’s icebergs, fjords and small towns are accessible without a cruise. Photo / Annaliese Smith
The main viewpoint of the icefjord is connected by a boardwalk to the Icefjord Centre, a wonderful museum that tells the story of the ice and of the nearby 4000-year-old Sermermiut settlement and archaeological site. This is a well-trodden path, popular on cruise itineraries, but just to the east, a set of blue way-markers beckoned me from the crowd. This trail turned out to be another marked by the municipality but was far quieter than the ones I took to get there. I met just a handful of people as I ambled over the hilltops with the fjord stretching endlessly before me.
Boat among icebergs in Ilulissat. Photo / Annaliese Smith
The route looped back into town, where adverts for boat tours through the bergs are ubiquitous. You could again kill two birds with one stone by taking a passenger ferry, the Disko Line, through the bay to nearby settlements, but my time in the north was waning.
Flights, ferries and local guides make independent travel in Greenland possible. Photo / Annaliese Smith
On my final day I instead decided to enjoy a morning at the harbour and watched as a tiny boat expertly navigated the narrow maze of vessels. All was calm until a conversation in shouted Kallaalisut hailed a team of fishermen who began heaving the boat’s cargo. The bulging body of a seal was wrestled from the hull and flopped into the water.
I sat with my mouth agape, then heard laughter behind me. An older fisherman found my shock and awe comical and, having figured out that we didn’t share a language, gestured for me to follow him on to the pontoons. Before I knew it, I was among the icebergs with Jørgen, his name revealed to me only by the print on his fishing boxes. Rifle in hand, he searched for a seal of his own while I was captivated by the popping-candy sound of millions of air bubbles escaping the ice, when we were both interrupted by an otherworldly “whoosh”. Jørgen looked back at me and frantically made a wave motion with his hand, mimicking the dark backs of the three humpback whales breaking the surface behind him. They passed calmly before leaving us with a flash of their flukes, each as unique as fingerprints, and disappearing to unknown depths.
I arrived back in Nuuk at the weekend and basked in its museums, boutiques and cafes. The city, though home to only 20,000 people, felt quieter than when I had arrived. The hunting season had just opened, and everyone had escaped to the fjord for camping, berry picking, fishing and walking. For my self-styled adventure, this sounded ideal; the Greenlandic experience right on Nuuk’s doorstep.
All I needed was a boat and some good guides, which I found in Jukku and Christina through Much Better Adventures and its local partner, Two Ravens. With five fellow travellers, I disappeared into the fjord where we set up camp in Itisoq Bay and did as the Greenlanders do: enjoying crowberries straight from the heather, fishing for cod and enjoying it kuisartorluni-style, or “eating from the rock”, by which it is boiled and poured onto the rocky shoreline and eaten communally.
Qoornoq. Photo / Annaliese Smith
Though the island where we set up camp had plenty to explore, transitioning from meadows of moss to ice-capped peaks, and half-craters crowned with lakes, on the third day of our camping trip we took a short boat ride to Qoornoq. The settlement was abandoned in the 1970s before transforming into a summer getaway for Nuuk’s city slickers, popping out of the fjord in Greenland’s quintessential primary colours. We peered inside a dilapidated fish factory where some campers were drying hunks of reindeer.
They beckoned us to their camp, where they explained, via Christina, that their hunt happened beyond the western ridge of the island, near a place known as “mass grave”. According to the hunter, the inhabitants of Qoornoq had won a battle many years ago, upon which a shaman coaxed the sea to flood the area, vanquishing their enemies. “But what were they fighting for?” Simone, my German camping companion, asked. “There’s so much space.”
Hiking at the infinity pool. Photo / Annaliese Smith
I had heard this sentiment many times during my time in Greenland, mostly in conversations about tourism. The locals all agreed that there was space enough for everyone – more than two million square kilometres – and were excited by the opportunities tourism could bring. Although that is true, my improvised itinerary showed me that it wasn’t necessary to travel hundreds of kilometres on a cruise to see the best of Greenland. The existing infrastructure and the magic of the small towns meant it was right under my nose.
It’s not the simplest backpacking route in the world, but the journey is always half the fun.
The writer travelled courtesy of Much Better Adventures.