Day Trip to Greenland from Reykjavik
 

On July 31st I took a day trip to Kulusuk, Greenland, from Reykjavik. The trip report for the experience can be found on my blog:

http://altecockertravels.weebly.com/...y-31-2016.html

You can decide for yourself if you want to do it.

I have to say that my back has gotten a lot better since that day trip. I had back surgery at the end of March 2016 and really was not agile enough for that day trip, but I did do it anyway.

Happy travels.

So interesting! Thanks for sharing.

Great Trip Report and amazing pictures! Needs to be added to my bucket list! Have been to Reykjavik, which I thought was also amazing, but Kulusuk looks like it gives Reykjavik
a run for the money.

Thanks for sharing. Not much about Greenland on this forum.

Thanks for the report. Why the 3rd person? Is AlteCocker Caesar?

Fascinating, thank you for sharing!

Thanks for a ver interesting and honest report about a place I have wanted to go for years. My father spent a lot of time in Thule and Sondrestrom back in the day.

Thanks also for sending me to the dictionary where I learned that "kokker" has nothing to do with "putz" so an alte kokker can indeed be an "alte". I learn something new every day!

I think I'll follow up on some of your other reports.

Lauren is an inspiration. While others her age sit in a rocking chair she's out hiking, biking and ziplining. My hat off to you!

One of the reasons for the blog is to encourage others to do what I do. You don't have to sit home and knit when you get older but doing what I do does take a lot of planning and organization.

No further overseas trips are in the works as I am going to sell my house and downsize. The work getting rid of stuff begins as soon as I get home. I have been doing it already, but it needs to go into higher gear. I already own the condo (currently has tenants); it's near where I live). I will put my house on the market on April and will need to hang around until it sells and I move.

Next home exchange is in California the last week of March and the first week of April 2017. The house will be multiple listed as soon as I return. I will use the proceeds for more travel.

You might be interested in Vick's photos on this post

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...to-gallery.cfm

Enjoyed your blog, you really do get off the beaten path.

Kulusuk was definitely off the beaten track and a very expensive day.

Thanks for the trip report. Kulusuk doesn't look very appealing but I applaud your courage. At least you can say you've been to Greenland.

No, Kulusuk is not very appealing but, then, I've now been to Greenland.

Lauren - we looked at Greenland when we went to Iceland but decided that even for us [in our 40s then] it was too much effort for too little reward.

Kudos to you for proving us wrong [or right?]

So fascinating! Thank you for sharing. How many people do we know that have actually been to Greenland?!

I know one other person who recently cruised the Arctic. When I get the opportunity to go to somewhere far from the beaten track, I take it. Having done the Kulusuk day trip, my evaluation of it is that it really was not worth the roughly $930 it cost me. Everything in Iceland is very expensive (which is why I am glad I home exchanged there because, without the exchange, no way I could have afforded it). Greenland is not a place where there is an assortment of choice about which airline you take and/or where you stay (there is one hotel in Kulusuk). So everything is very expensive due to lack of competition. The $930 did not, by the way, include the glacial lagoon boat ride that got you back closer to the airport and cut down the walking back there. That was another 40 euros--so pretty much a 1,000 day.

I was getting over back surgery and all the walking was really beyond what I could handle as I was still having a lot of pain if I pushed it. The back is a lot better now but the healing is very slow.

Would I recommend that you do this? Probably not. The glacial lagoon in Iceland had better floating icebergs than that in Greenland. The native village itself makes you very glad you do not live there. No one has plumbing. While I did not see the bucket "toilets" that is what they use. Just as on American Indian reservations, there is trash about. The natural setting is beautiful and, when you are living a basic minimal lifestyle, picking up trash is just not that important.

The more spectacular glaciers are on the west side of Greenland. To go there would have been even more expensive.

On balance, I am glad I went because I was curious. I did not take any of the other expensive adventure tours in Iceland (there are lots and none are cheap), so that was the one adventure I chose. I am, on balance, glad that I did it. If you are in a position to take the Kulusuk tour, you need to make up your own mind about it.

I had a Scottish friend who took a boat trip most of the way around Greenland. It was not a cruise but more like a Norway ferry -- it was a boat that carried a few passengers as it delivered things that were too hard to fly in to remote villages.

He was an old arctic hand, having run a Hudson's Bay outpost somewhere in the Canadian North during the 1950's. I think this trip also made a stop in Baffin Island.

It seems like a good way to see a lot of what might turn out to be the same thing, though the villages in his photographs were a lot more colorful than the one you visited. Maybe it's the East Coat West Coast thing.

Most of my UK friends still use travel agents, and I can recall seeing lots of small adverts in newspapers for agencies that sort out trips to places like Spitzbergen and Isfahan. One of these might be cheaper than doing it from Iceland.

Still, I admire you a lot!

There is only one plane a day to Kulusk from Reykjavik. During the winter, there are no planes. Mostly it is all tourists. I did meet some guys from Russia that planned to kayak around Greenland. They told me they had kayaked the entire Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego. You have to admire people who do things like that, but not for me. They were, of course, planning to camp.

Some people stay overnight at the hotel. I believe it is the only building besides those at the airport where there are flush toilets. Kulusuk is a very basic place where people live a traditional life.

At my age, I figured I probably would not get a chance to go to Greenland again, so I took it. With global warming there might be more tourism there. Greenland is administered by Denmark (they use Danish kroner). In winter the only scheduled air service is through Copenhangen to Nuuk on the West side. Nuuk is the capital. Emergencies get medivaced. Must be terrifying in case of a medical emergency.

You pretty much described a frozen hell. Why, of all places on earth, would someone choose to live in Greenland? Can't they move to Denmark since it's basically the same country?

And I feel really bad for those Russians who are planning to kayak around Greenland just so they can brag about it. How boring! Just miles and miles of ice. But if it makes them happy....

Choose? It is the land of their ancestors. They are native Greenlanders. Hunting and fishing is their life. In Copenhagen they would be totally comfortable. In the small Greenlandic village they know and are related to everyone. So that is why they probably stay.

I suppose some migrate but I don't have statistics. Just because you and I would not choose to live there does not entitle to make the choice for others.

Similarly, just because you would choose not to kayak in Greenland does not mean others need to make the same choices. Everyone is different--which is why you will never go to Greenland and stick to European big cities--and miss out on a lot of experiences.

Lauren, I'm not interested in seeing every corner of the world. I travel for my personal enjoyment, not to count countries and landmarks.

Some parts of the world are not really the effort as your report proves.
I'd rather keep going back to Italy, for instance, than visit Andorra or Gibraltar. I know the latter are simply duty-free zones of little interest.