Ever traveled to the world’s largest island? Despite its geographic claim to fame and its stunning landscape of glaciers and fjords, Greenland traditionally hasn’t been a destination on many tourists’ radars. That’s largely due to difficulty of access — a lack of commercial airports with runways long enough to handle jets meant that the island has been effectively cut off from much of the rest of the world. Until now. In November 2024, Greenland finally debuted a new international airport in its capital, Nuuk, promising to open up this untapped destination to tourism. Here are all the details.
About Greenland
Greenland is by far the world’s largest island, with an area of 836,330 square miles. However, a permanent ice sheet covers 80% of the island, and its population is just under 57,000 people — about a tenth of the size of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. That makes Greenland one of the least densely populated territories on Earth.
Almost 90% of the population of Greenland are Indigenous Greenlandic Inuit peoples, who refer to themselves as Kalaallit. Much of the island’s population is clustered on the southwestern coast, where you’ll find the capital of Nuuk, home to about 18,000 people. Geographically, Greenland is considered part of North America, but geopolitically it’s part of Europe. The autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark was granted home rule in 1979 and has had its own parliament since then.
New Airport Is a “Game Changer”
With hopes of kick-starting its underdeveloped tourism industry, Greenland has spent the last five years building a new international airport in Nuuk with a passenger terminal and a 7,216-foot runway capable of accommodating larger jets that can fly to Europe and North America.
Previously, the airport’s runway was just 3,116 feet long, which meant that flights were restricted to turboprops on regional flights operated by Air Greenland, the country’s flag carrier. To fly to destinations further afield, passengers had to connect to Kangerlussuaq, which was previously the only airport in Greenland with a runway long enough to accommodate such flights.
To build the new runway, construction crews had to blast away approximately 200 million cubic feet of Greenland’s rocky landscape. The airport opened on November 28, 2024, with Air Greenland operating direct flights from Nuuk to Copenhagen for the first time. Air Greenland CEO Jacob Nitter Sorensen shared in an interview with the BBC that the new international airport in Nuuk is “going to be a big game changer for us,” telling the outlet that “it’s going to shorten the travel time, and it’s going to decrease the cost of producing the flight.”
The airport also features state-of-the-art passenger amenities, such as new security screening systems and automated bag drop-offs, along with technology that will keep operations running smoothly during the island’s notoriously bad weather.
The government hopes the new airport will also pave the way for economic growth in other areas beyond tourism, such as mining and seafood exports. “This airport is not just about travel; it’s about building an infrastructure that will drive economic growth, reduce travel costs, and open up new commercial opportunities,” Jens Lauridsen, CEO of Greenland Airports, shared in a statement with the website International Airport Review.
U.S. Flights to Greenland Coming Soon
Direct flights to Europe aren’t the only routes on the horizon for Nuuk’s new airport. In October 2024, United Airlines announced a new route from Newark International Airport in the New York City area, set to launch on June 14, 2025. The nonstop flights will take around four hours, opening up Greenland as a convenient getaway for travelers on the East Coast and beyond. Flights will operate twice weekly during the summer season, marking the first time a U.S. carrier has ever served Greenland.
Other New Airports on the Horizon
While the opening of the new runway and terminal at Nuuk International Airport marks a major step forward for Greenland’s tourism prospects, the country has also been hard at work at building and expanding two other airports. In 2026, a second international airport will open in Ilulissat, which is about 350 miles north of Nuuk and an appealing tourist destination for its glaciers and icebergs. That will be followed by a regional airport in Qaqartoq, the most populous town in southern Greenland, situated among a system of scenic fjords.
What To Do in Greenland
While nature enthusiasts and intrepid travelers will find no shortage of activities in Greenland, it’s not a destination for everyone, as the country’s own tourism website even tells you. Traveling here will require a hefty dose of planning, flexibility in dealing with unpredictable weather, and a willingness to truly unplug, as cell service is spotty and Wi-Fi access can be difficult and expensive.
But if that sounds right up your alley, there are plenty of reasons to visit this unspoiled paradise, beyond the lack of crowds. For starters, Greenland is home to the world’s largest national park, the impossibly vast Northeast Greenland National Park — which is almost as big as France and Spain combined. Its landscape is filled with fjords, glaciers, ice fields, mountains, and tundras that are home to wildlife such as arctic foxes, musk oxen, and polar bears.
Greenland is particularly famous for its glaciers. In Illuissat, you’ll find the Ilulissat Icefjord, which was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its ecological significance. One of the fastest-moving glaciers on the planet, it carves more ice each year than any other glacier outside of Antarctica. Take it straight from UNESCO: “The combination of a huge ice-sheet and the dramatic sounds of a fast-moving glacial ice-stream calving into a fjord covered by icebergs makes for a dramatic and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon.” Tours are available on foot, by boat, or by air.
When you’re not out exploring in nature, you can admire the colorful architecture in towns and cities such as Nuuk, which is also where you’ll find the National Museum of Greenland, which documents 4,500 years of the island’s history.
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