Never-Ending Nights in Nuuk
I can’t really tell you to visit Nuuk, Greenland. There isn’t anything special to brag about on Instagram. They don’t have the blue lagoons of Iceland that remind me of that one Gucci Mane video or serve as the backdrop of Game of Thrones. It lacks the allure of Antarctica where people head there to hit all the continents and see some penguins. Greenland has none of the above, but it does have an undeniable mystique.
The mystique is hard to explain, but it gave me great joy as I got to tour around for 14 hours in September 2025. Riding around with my favorite person on earth, my mother, we went on an adventure I won’t soon forget.
This blog will also serve as your reminder to travel with your parents. Getting older and enjoying each other's company in a new way brightens my life like nothing else. This blog is for you, mom, and cheers to the next adventure.
The Arrival
Finally landing in Nuuk immediately made me feel like I was on another planet. I've long looked out the window at the icy expanse for years criss-crossing the Atlantic, but now I was actually here.
Atop the peaks was snow, but at the base there were no trees, no vegetation and no life to speak of. It was surreal. Even on the clearest of days (which we had), I was confounded by the landscape. I was eager to explore, but also not certain I’d find anything.
Nuuk has always been the capital of Greenland, having been settled by Hans Egeda years ago in search of the “new world.” As usual, the new world types also wanted nothing more than to explore, lay claim, and ultimately: extinguish, enslave, convert, or (you know what) the natives. That’s exactly what happened. Even the locals in town didn’t speak well of him.
With every place’s checkered past and colonial origins aside. It was time to get into town. We waded through the customs line typical of a small airport with a few big flights a day. It took awhile, but the one bus into town waited for us all to finish before departing. There were even 5 locals waving flags as we arrived, welcoming us to Nuuk. With only 3 flights a week from the U.S., this made our arrival from Newark a special occasion.
In town, we changed, put on thermals and set off for the marina. We heard that there were some good food spots in town with the Thai place being the most popular. I love to hate Thai food, but in Nuuk, I was going to go for some fresh fish and local delicacies. They would have to wait, however, our Northern Lights Cruise was set to blast off in 40 minutes with a 30 minute walk ahead.
Cranes, cranes, and more cranes
If I saw an actual bird, this would have been perfect, but all I saw were cranes. Nuuk was expanding. New developments, housing, and everything going in looked sleek and modern. Later on we would learn that rent was still high in Nuuk - $2,500/month for a 1BD and 14 million for the nicest residence on overlooking the water. I thought Brooklyn was bad, gouging its residents for the shot of working in New York City, but this was highway robbery, who were these 18,000 residents paying $2,500/month to? It does make sense, however, that Nuuk being so isolated does keep rents and infrastructure costs high. My millennial brain always hurts. If you can’t even live in a remote town with only 4 hours of sunlight in the wintertime for less than a $1000/month, where can you?
Sidebar - students do receive some reprieve. The dorms are only $800 a month and if you study in Nuuk, it is apparently the only deal in town.
In the old days - each color house or building represented the services or professionals that lived there. Black - police, Yellow - hospital or residence of a doctor/nurse, etc. The colors bring you back to a simpler time where color coding helped the small and mostly illiterate community.
Further North We Go
My great grandmother came over from Jamaica almost 100 years ago and to think that her grand daughter and great-grandson were exploring Greenland made me chuckle as we set off for our cruise. You could stand outside as the boat raced along the bay, but most of us lasted mere minutes. The high was 45 degrees and as the sun set, it dropped precipitously. The wind chill felt just above freezing.
We stopped at some waterfalls that picturesque and got up close to some ice bergs. I don’t think either natural feature was remarkable in their own right, but more remarkable in what they represented. As we trudged further into the Fjords I remember distinctly thinking that only a couple hundred thousand people, ever, have witnessed these sights and stunning lack of sound. Some boats pulled up next to icebergs and their captains scooped freshwater from them, daring them to drink it. I would’ve tried it, I am not sure where I could get water that pure from again.
When we stopped, it was quiet, eerily so, like my Brooklyn brain just wanted a police siren to go off to break the tension. I could feel it in the air and in my soul. If we were to sink out here, no one would ever find us again, and that was the magic of the moment. I had no where to be, I could only sit there, freezing my ass off with cheap hot chocolate and biscuits looking at some of the craziest terrain id ever seen.
The Wait
The northern lights tours are easy enough to find. I actually used the Nuuk tourism website and just sent out a blast email - “Hey, I want to surprise my mom with a NL tour on this date. Let me know pricing and if that was possible.” Almost all got back to me. Some had closed for the season and some wanted me to rent out the whole boat for $800 - $1200. We settled on a group tour for $300 total.
It was time to wait for the lights to pop out. Half those on our flight joined us on the journey. One lady was praying Jesus would bring out the lights. Another was just happy her husband was there and not on his work phone (he sounded like a workaholic) and the rest were some kids that didn’t quite understand the moment.
The Show
I got some good shots from the night. My iPhone’s night mode really did some heavy lifting here. Unfortunately, the naked eye can only let so much light in and cannot do prolonged exposure so much of the NL was not actually visible to the naked eye. We all squinted and pretended to see them, right until the end when they were faint at best. More on this later.
We headed home for a midnight docking, a little disappointed, cold and hungry. We never ate as we rushed to the harbor. I wanted some whale, reindeer jerky, or whatever fish they had in Nuuk, but everything closes at 10. We took a taxi back to the hotel to find out the grocery store was open for another 35 minutes if we hurried.
We paid $7 for Doritos and some ramen, but it wasn’t a proper Greenland feast. All was not lost however, because the best thing we got was free:
Up above the northern lights danced as if they had grown up and gone to prom. These photos don’t do it justice. It was brilliant and emerald. I swear I could paint a car with the brush strokes that darced across the sky. They were just there, like I had never seen before. My mom and I were speechless. She was angry didn’t bring her camera on the food run, but grateful to have seen them with her own eyes. I was just happy to be with my mom on a special day seeing a natural phenomenon for the first time together.
The Return
So, like I said, I can’t recommend you visit Nuuk, Greenland for any special reason other than, you’ll never go somewhere like it. It felt like Iowa met an indigenous fishing village in all the right ways. Everyone was friendly and laid back. If you were there, you knew the harsh winter was coming and the sunlight would wane, but that’s Nuuk. The land of endless fishing, hiking, and peace.
Many locals I talked to cycled in and out from Denmark, living there for 1 - 5 years. They relished the experience as almost a work-abroad before they went back to the hustle of Copenhagen.
But then I talked to the natives who said visiting NYC was a dream, but they were content with Nuuk. It was their home and they knew no different. Where else could you be alone 15 minutes outside of town and hike for days. Where else could you go up north of the arctic circle and find towns of hundreds instead of millions. And finally, why was Nuuk getting all the spotlight now that they had this fancy new airport. As far as they were concerned, 18,000 people in town was enough.
As we hailed the cab back to the airport the next morning. I was so happy I went to Greenland. I will be back for a 4 day backpacking trip and some fishing, hopefully with my mother or some friends I want to enjoy before life gets too busy.
Greenland, stay peaceful and never change. In 4.5 hours I was back in the land of honking horns and passive aggressive assholes, but the bagels are good and every once in awhile, I get to escape to hidden gems like Nuuk.
AF
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