Dressed in swimming trunks and with a brave face, Jack Laws plunges from the deck into the Arctic waters embroidered with icebergs. A few hours later he finds himself 200 meters away from a polar bear floating in the ocean on a zodiac.
‘That was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was breathtaking, but very isolated,” says the 29-year-old British filmmaker Subway.
He is one of thousands of travelers who recently made the journey to Greenland, a ruggedly untouched wilderness steeped in a rich indigenous culture that is now in the geopolitical spotlight.
Donald Trump has brought the world’s largest island back from its frozen anonymity, reviving talk of the US occupation and anxiety among European leaders.
Days after insisting that the US “needs Greenland for national security,” Trump sent a stark message to Norway’s prime minister, saying: “The world is not safe unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.”
The president insisted that the United States control Greenland because Denmark cannot protect the country from Russia and China, challenging Denmark’s long-standing claim to the area.
But before it made headlines as the latest pawn in Trump’s political game, Greenland was emerging as an emerging travel destination.
Covering an almost unfathomable two million square kilometers, the island is so vast it’s hard to imagine.
Only 11 countries are larger. It covers a landmass larger than Texas, yet only 56,000 people live there, mostly Inuit.
An ice sheet several kilometers deep covers 80% of Greenland, forcing the Inuit to live in brightly colored communities along the coast.
Jack remembers seeing a fisherman chopping a whale off the coast and feeding it to his dogs on the side of the road in Nuuk.
Maybe the remains of Mattak (Pronounced ‘Mukkkk’) – a traditional Greenlandic delicacy of raw whale skin and blubber, which is salty, oily and a bit like rubber.
There is nothing like it anywhere on earth, and that includes the food. Expect dishes made with whale meat, cod, shrimp and roe (Greenland’s equivalent of caviar) on the menu in restaurants.
Long on the must-visit lists of esteemed names like Conde Nast in 2025, accessibility has held Greenland back from becoming a bigger player in the adventure travel world.
Unorthodox and unique, it’s a place where you can enjoy craft beer filtered through 100,000-year-old glacial ice.
Watch as humpback whales breach crystal clear water. Camp on icebergs the size of skyscrapers in Manhattan and admire the remains of Viking longhouses dating back to their arrival in the 10th century.
But getting there required expensive and time-consuming indirect flights to isolated airstrips like Kangerlussuaq, an abandoned city that served as a U.S. air base during World War II.
Adam Hay-Nicholls, a journalist who writes about travel and Formula 1, landed there in 2021 to cover Extreme E, an electric off-road racing series in extreme environments that highlighted the impact of climate change.
“It’s in the middle of nowhere, with a very long runway where they used to land the B-52 [fighter jets] during the Cold War,” he says.
After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the US handed the base back to the approximately four hundred people who live in the city.
What they left behind left a lasting impression on Adam and the crew he was visiting with. “There were all these American cars from the ’80s rusting away, Fords, Buicks and Chevys, amazing things, you know. Even those yellow American school buses.’
Nowadays the island is opening up and the landings are more refined.
In late 2024, the capital Nuuk opened a long-awaited international airport, and in June 2025 United Airlines launched a twice-weekly direct service from Newark to Nuuk, ushering in a new era of travel for the remote Arctic region.
Yet most of Greenland’s tourism takes place at sea. The record number of 141,000 visitors in 2024 marked an increase in Arctic cruise tourism.
This year, Virgin Voyages will visit Greenland on the Iceland-New York transatlantic route, while HX will sail in the waters from Reykjavik in June.
“When you’re there, surrounded by nothing but ice, rocks and the Northern Lights, you’re overwhelmed by the feeling that you’re the only person for miles,” says Adam.
The most authentic way to explore the island is with the multi-day coastal ferry, the long-running Sarfaq Ittuk, of the Arctic Umiaq Line.
Like Norway’s Hurtigruten, it is more relaxed than modern cruise ships and includes stops where passengers can meet Inuit communities.
In summer, the midnight sun provides light all day and night. From June to August the frozen rock becomes a playground.
Melting ice caps reveal green fields covered with buttercups. Fjords glitter in the sun. The rivers are rich in trout, and strawberries darken the hills ruby red.
Anna Richards, a writer who spent twelve days in Greenland in September, describes the scene. ‘The landscape is wild, at some points it’s strange because you don’t see any trees. I’m not sure I’ve ever been somewhere where I haven’t seen trees in all that time.
“It’s off the scale. The towers of ice and the changing shape of the icebergs. It’s special.’
Elsewhere, the National Museum of Greenland and the Nuuk Art Museum offer a glimpse into local history and traditions.
“I’m in love with Nuuk,” says Jeanine Barone, a travel writer who has been there several times.
‘It is a vibrant, smart city with contemporary art, design, architecture, cuisine (and fashion). And the creatives draw their inspiration from the land – the colours, textures and light – and from the customs of the Inuit.’
What Greenland’s future looks like remains to be seen. But for now, the glare of the international spotlight reveals the wonders it has to offer.
What are you waiting for?
Who controls Greenland?
Greenland has been autonomous since 2009, when the Danish parliament recognized the Greenlandic people as a nation in their own right. The law gave the country the right to become fully independent at any time.
As it stands, Greenland has its own flag, language and institutions, but the judiciary, defence, monetary policy and foreign affairs are all controlled by Denmark.
This sovereignty was declared in 1921 with support and recognition by the United States, which had a say due to its proximity to Greenland.
This article was originally published on January 9, 2026 and has been updated.
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