Fancy escaping it all? This cosy lodge in East Greenland could be just what you’re looking for.
Nestled in tiny Ittoqqortoormiit, a place where the population count runs to a mere 450 people, the Ittoqqortoormiit Guesthouse is the only lodging in Greenland's most isolated town.
Getting here is an adventure in itself, with ship access restricted for nine months of the year thanks to ice blocks that form in the surrounding Arctic Ocean. Instead, travellers need to fly to Iceland’s Reykjavik, then on to Akureyri in the north of the country where flights depart for Greenland's Constable Point just two days per week. From there, it’s another 15-minute ride by helicopter to finally reach the remotest inhabited settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
The town’s only wooden lodge has just seven bedrooms and lists a microwave and refrigerator as two of its main amenities. There are no restaurants, theatres or bars in Ittoqqortoormiit and only a solitary grocery store so entertainment comes in the form of cross-country skiing, snow sledding, sea-kayaking and polar- bear watching. Don’t expect to hail a cab, transport is sled and husky-driven only.
But what Ittoqqortoormiit lacks in the way of facilities, it more than makes up for when it comes to its neighbours. Nestled between the world’s biggest national park, Greenland National Park, and the towering fjords and glaciers of Scoresby Sund, it shares it's snow-drenched setting with polar bears, reindeer, walruses and the huskies of the Danish Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. Nightfall in this far-flung spot brings aurora borealis-spotting opportunities as long as you’re brave enough to tackle the weather where temperatures often creep towards the minus 20°C mark.
