Preparing for departure

Greenland
Travel
My first blog post!
Published

October 30, 2025

The end of October is drawing near and with it, autumn seems to be making way for winter. In the first half of October, the ash tree otuside my office window turned from green to various shades of yellow and red, bathing my office with bright, warm light. Now I’m seeing a nearly bare tree - most of its leaves knocked off around a week ago when some gusty weather moved through the area. Although I had enjoyed the fall colors, I now take some joy in being able to more clearly see the blue sky beyond - normally obscured by leaves.

By this time of October, I’m usually highly focused on embracing “spooky season” for all it’s worth - horror movies, black metal, and Halloween decorations in abundance. And this year, Halloween falls on a Friday. Any other year, and I might be planning an evening costume party followed by a lazy “recovery” Saturday to ease into November’s more “warm and cozy” holiday vibe.

But this year, I’m more focused on an upcoming international trip - to Greenland! On the afternoon of Saturday, November 1, I will begin my journey with a ~7.5 hour flight from Denver International Airport (DIA) to Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport (KEF).

Great Circle path between DIA and KEF. The actual flight path will likely deviate quite a lot from this idealized shortest-distance path.1

I will have a ~3.5 hour layover in Iceland followed by a relatively short 2.5 hour flight to Nuuk - Greenland’s capital.

Approximate flight path between KEF and GOH. 2

If all goes according to plan, I will land in Nuuk around 10:00 AM local time on Sunday, Nov. 2nd and stay the day there. I do not have any specific plans for this first day in Greenland, but I look forward to walking around town and taking in the sights!

The next day, I will fly from Nuuk north of the Arctic Circle to Ilulissat, Greenland (with a couple of short stops along the way). I plan to stay in Ilulissat from Nov. 3-8.

Approximate flight path between Nuuk (GOH), Maniitsoq (JSU), Sisimiut (JHS), and Ilulissat (JAV). 3

Ilulissat is Greenland’s third largest city (there are about 5k people who live there), and one of Greenland’s most well-known tourist locations. Ilulissat translates to “icebergs” - and rightly so! The city sits next to the UNESCO World Heritage-designated Icefjord, where icebergs generated from the nearby Sermeq Kujalleq (AKA Jakobshavn Glacier) float out to sea.4

Satellite imagery of Ilulissat and environs circa 2019. The red-outlined area is the UNESCO World Heritage site. 5

Orthophoto mosaic from Sentinel-2 (10m), Spot (1.6m), and Asiaq (0.2m) showing Ilulissat and a portion of the Icefjord. 6

Needless to say - I am excited for the adventure to come! I visited Nuuk back in 2023 for the Mapping the Arctic conference, and it was an incredible experience. I have little doubt this trip will prove to be memorable as well.

I plan to post updates during my trip - so stay tuned for more!

Footnotes

  1. I took the same flight in September on the way to Europe and recall passing just south of Chicago at one point. I would guess that flying a slightly longer route to avoid the most remote parts of northern Canada is a tradeoff the airline felt worthwhile. Image create using matplotlib and cartopy. Background imagery provided by Natural Earth.↩︎

  2. Image created using QGreenland V3 with data from Natural Earth and the ASIAQ Greenland Survey.↩︎

  3. Image created using QGreenland V3 with data from Natural Earth and the ASIAQ Greenland Survey.↩︎

  4. Wikpedia: Ilulissat↩︎

  5. Image created using QGreenland V3 with data from MacGregor et al. (2020), NunaGIS, and the ASIAQ Greenland Survey.↩︎

  6. Image created using QGreenland V3 with data from Data Supply and Infrastructure Agency, Denmark and the ASIAQ Greenland Survey.↩︎