GREENLAND
Cruise along the West Coast
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Visiting Greenland is the most expensive travel in Europe at the moment.
Typically, such a trip rarely costs less than 5,000 euros for a week-long tour per person.
We will try to show you how independent travel can save you money. For this, we have worked out a possible option for visiting Greenland in August 2019.
Starting point: Kiev
Travel days : 11
Budget : 1997 euros (excluding the cost of food and souvenirs)
Required Visas : No visa is required for Ukrainian citizens with biometric passports
The travel route is depicted using the site: https://www.tripline.net/ (we recommend it as a convenient tool for visualizing your travels).
Greenland is shrouded in many myths: cold, huge ...
Perhaps it will surprise someone, but there (except for the northernmost tip) there are no severe frosts. Yes, it is constantly cool there, but the average temperature in winter rarely drops below 8-10 degrees below zero, and in summer the average temperature is 8-10 degrees. We attach a weather calendar to the route so that you understand what the temperature will be in different months in the largest city in Greenland, Nuuk.
Greenland is surprising with its size on the map, but in reality, in terms of area (if it were a separate country), it would take only 14th place in the world, yielding even to Algeria, Congo and Saudi Arabia. But the island of Greenland is the largest in the world. But since this is an overseas possession of Denmark, Greenland does not participate in the ratings of states, and even Denmark itself does not count the area of Greenland, and therefore the small Scandinavian country Denmark occupies only 130 place in the world in terms of area.
Interesting fact: "subordinate" Greenland is 50 times larger than "leading" Denmark ;-)
Returning to our route: the first action that we need to take is to get from Kiev to the capital of Denmark, the city of Copenhagen. To do this, we will use the Skyscanner ticket search site, which is located at the link: https://www.skyscanner.com.ua/
We chose the period in August from the 19th to the 29th, and here are the results he gave us: 130 euros for the flight Kiev - Copenhagen - Kiev. For the sake of fairness, I must say that sometimes Wizzair and UIA have cheaper tickets in this direction, but not this time ;-)
(By the way, we have collected the websites of all airlines that fly from Ukraine on one page for you .)
A short stop with a transfer in Riga, and in less than five hours, namely at 8:25 am, it's time to go to explore Copenhagen. If you do not know what to see and where to take a walk, we recommend using the Tripadvisor website , which compiles ratings according to tourist reviews in the categories: hotels, entertainment, restaurants, etc. We often use the Entertainment rating to choose the most interesting places, architectural works and parks. And after returning from the trip, be sure to leave reviews about the places we have visited in order to help other travelers. For the second year now, we are included in the 1% of the most active site authors. Come and subscribe to our Tripadvisor profile .
Now, what to see and try in Copenhagen, you know how to choose yourself.
And in order to settle in the city, we recommend the site we have repeatedly checked. For those who have not yet used it, our link will be a gift in the form of 10% of the booking cost. It is called " Booking ".
For the date we needed to spend the night, we found the following options: a separate room and breakfast, and almost walking distance to the airport (7.2-7.9 km). It may seem that for walking this is a long way, but we had an experience in the Azores , when we walked eight kilometers from the airport to the hotel, and this is still one of the most vivid impressions that we have brought from travel.
A night in Copenhagen near the airport will cost 58 euros .
The next step, of course, must be done in advance, when you have not yet flown to Copenhagen, but for the convenience of the story, we have placed it here. Purchase of tickets in the direction: Copenhagen - Nuuk - Copenhagen. This is one of the most expensive areas of aviation tourism, since there are few flights, and AirGreenland is practically a monopoly .
These are the options for the price offer we could find on their website: August 20-28 for 5880 DKK. At the exchange rate, this is 764 euros . Having scrolled through different dates throughout the year, we could not find prices cheaper than 670 euros in two directions. Therefore, 764 for the required dates and during the holiday season can be considered the minimum possible flight option.
The plane leaves in the morning, and the flight route has one stop for the whole day in the town of Kangerlussuaq , where as many as 556 people live, but reindeer and musk oxen are found. For the whole day, you will probably be able to see them, walk in places with fantastic landscapes near the town, and maybe even reach Lake Fergusson.
On Tuesday evening we fly from Kangerlussuaq to Nuuk and with the help of the same Booking we settle for three nights in the cheapest room in the city for 199 euros .
We found a good and detailed article about the capital of Greenland, Nuuk. We recommend reading before your trip. Link to article here .
Nuuk is also famous for whales, the northern lights and colorful Scandinavian-style houses.
But we came here for another interesting activity: after spending three days on land, we will go on a cruise along the West Coast of Greenland on a special ferry. In August, his schedule will be as follows: departure from Nuuk to Ilyulisaat on Friday, two days on a cruise with visits to each village, and on Sunday - return from Ilyulisaat to Nuuk during the same two days. (Total: four days on the cruise)
The company that organizes this cruise is called the Arctic Umiaq Line.
Tickets can be purchased from their website: www.aul.gl To save money , we have chosen not a separate cabin, but a bed in a cabin for 2-4 people. They took breakfast and dinner, since it is customary for us to do without lunch on trips. We also took a blanket, which must be purchased separately and costs 150 Danish kroner ( 19.5 euros !!!). The final check for a cruise in this configuration was 5645 kroons, or 734 euros for the entire four-day trip. There is a general entertainment system on board with screens in each cabin, you can choose movies and music, but the Internet is paid. By boat - it costs DKK 50 for 30 minutes of use, or € 6.5 .
Enjoying the large-scale views around, we will visit villages with difficult to pronounce names like Kangaamiut or Aasiaat and visit the town of Ilyulisaat, where icebergs often come to the coast, look at the photos ...
By Petr Kraumann, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54208072
We return to Nuuk on Tuesday 27 August at 7:00 am. Before the flight to Copenhagen, we still have a day to walk around the city, taste Eskimo food in a restaurant and buy local souvenirs. Just don't buy whalebone crafts - it is prohibited to export them.
For one night, for a change, we will book a hostel, the rooms of which are dormitories, that is, bedrooms for several people. But we are already accustomed to this format on a cruise ;-) and we know that in the dormitories you can meet travelers from all over the world, exchange impressions, and just make friends with new people. Night = 54 euros .
On August 28, we fly to Copenhagen, renting accommodation near the airport for one day. We already know that it costs 58 euros . We inspect in the Danish capital that we did not have time on the way there, we spend the night and return to Kiev on August 29, forever bringing warm memories of a distant cold island with such an unusual flag ...
Finishing the description of the route, let's try to calculate, and what would be the most economical option for this trip?
1. We will remove the cruise from the trip (-734 euros), replacing it with the cheapest accommodation in Nuuk.
2. We will replace the hotel in Nuuk with a dormitory (Instead of 253 euros for 4 days, it will be 432 for 8 days).
3. In Copenhagen, too, we replace the hotel with a hostel (two nights will cost not 116 euros, but 46).
4. A flight from Kiev to Copenhagen and back will cost 70 euros for the promotion (we caught this price).
5. Flight Copenhagen - Nuuk - Copenhagen will be at the lowest price of 670 euros.
Total: the cheapest travel from Ukraine to Greenland for 9 days, with two days in Denmark will cost: 70 + 670 + 432 + 46 = 1218 euros . Be sure to travel!
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