This three-week Greenland route is for fit, self-sufficient backpackers who want to earn their icebergs on foot. It is slow on purpose: two calm days in the capital, eight days walking the tundra between Kangerlussuaq and Sisimiut with everything on your back, then a long, easy finale in Disko Bay. You need Air Greenland domestic flights, the Arctic Umiaq Line coastal ferry (or a short flight if its weekly timetable does not line up) and the Disko Line passenger boats in Disko Bay. Budget travelers do well on this one, because a week on the trail costs almost nothing beyond the food you carry.
Days 1-2: Nuuk
Most transatlantic routes now land in
Nuuk, so start here and use it as your shopping stop. The supermarkets are the best stocked in the country, which matters when you need eight days of dehydrated meals, gas canisters and spare socks. Between errands, walk the Colonial Harbour with its 18th-century wooden houses, then cut back through the center to
Katuaq Cultural Centre, whose rippling …
read more 👉This three-week Greenland route is for fit, self-sufficient backpackers who want to earn their icebergs on foot. It is slow on purpose: two calm days in the capital, eight days walking the tundra between Kangerlussuaq and Sisimiut with everything on your back, then a long, easy finale in Disko Bay. You need Air Greenland domestic flights, the Arctic Umiaq Line coastal ferry (or a short flight if its weekly timetable does not line up) and the Disko Line passenger boats in Disko Bay. Budget travelers do well on this one, because a week on the trail costs almost nothing beyond the food you carry.
Days 1-2: Nuuk
Most transatlantic routes now land in Nuuk, so start here and use it as your shopping stop. The supermarkets are the best stocked in the country, which matters when you need eight days of dehydrated meals, gas canisters and spare socks. Between errands, walk the Colonial Harbour with its 18th-century wooden houses, then cut back through the center to Katuaq Cultural Centre, whose rippling wooden facade was designed to echo the northern lights. It doubles as the town’s cinema and café, a warm place to sit out a rain shower and watch how locals spend an evening.
If your legs want a warm-up, the climb up Ukkusissat (Store Malene) behind town gives you a fjord-and-rooftops view and a fair test of how your boots behave on loose rock.Days 3-4: Kangerlussuaq
A short flight puts you in Kangerlussuaq, a former US airbase of around 500 people at the head of a long fjord, where the air is drier and the summers sunnier than anywhere on the coast. Spend these two days at the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet itself: the gravel road out to Point 660, roughly 35 kilometers east, ends where the ice begins, and the tours that run there also pass the Russell Glacier, where the ice front stands as a wall above a meltwater river. Musk oxen graze the tundra right around the settlement. Use the second evening to repack, weigh your food and accept that you cannot buy anything for a week.Days 5-12: Arctic Circle Trail
The Arctic Circle Trail runs roughly 160 kilometers west to Sisimiut, and eight walking days is a comfortable pace that leaves room for a short weather day. There are no shops, no villages and very little phone signal. Unstaffed huts sit along the way, free and first-come, but carry a tent because they fill up and some are basic. Water is everywhere in lakes and streams. What you get in return is a week of open tundra, reindeer, glassy lakes and hardly another person, with the landscape shifting from dry inland valleys to steeper, greener country as you near the coast. Go between late June and early September, and pack a head net for July, when the mosquitoes are fierce.Days 12-14: Sisimiut and Aasiaat
Walking into Sisimiut after a week of silence is a jolt: around 5,500 people, a busy harbor and real showers. Take two nights. The old quarter has a small museum set in historic colonial buildings, and a long sleep is the point. On Day 14 move north to Aasiaat, ideally on the Arctic Umiaq Line ferry, which threads the coast and gives you a night of sea and iceberg views without spending another krone on flights. Aasiaat spreads across flat, polished rock islands at the southern edge of Disko Bay, and its colorful houses and summer whale sightings make it worth one unhurried night instead of a quick pass.Days 15-18: Ilulissat
Four nights in Ilulissat let you see the Ilulissat Icefjord from several angles without rushing. Walk the boardwalk from the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre into Sermermiut Valley, where an abandoned Inuit settlement site faces a jam of icebergs piled up at the fjord mouth. Then spend one full day on the boat trip north to Eqi Glacier, a long round trip of roughly 9 to 11 hours where you watch a calving front from a respectful distance and hear the crack before the splash. It is the priciest day of the trip at roughly DKK 2,000 to 3,000 (US$290 to 440), and after a week of free camping on the trail, it is where I’d spend the money.Days 19-21: Disko Island
Finish on Disko Island, a Disko Line boat ride across the bay to Qeqertarsuaq. After the granite and ice of the mainland, this is different rock entirely: dark basalt cliffs, black sand and flat-topped mountains. Your trail legs will enjoy the hike toward the Lyngmark Glacier above town or the coastal walk east to the Kuannit rock formations. On Day 21, take the morning boat back to Ilulissat for your flight out.
If you can squeeze in one extra day, take a boat across the bay from Ilulissat to Ilimanaq, a settlement of around 50 people where the loudest sound is often an iceberg rolling over.v2.webp){kind=logo}
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