5 Day Ilulissat Explorer | Disko Bay

Starting from Reykjavik domestic airport, you will fly all the way over the Great Greenland Ice Sheet to arrive in Ilulissat. It is 3 hours flight.

You will get a transfer to your accommodation and you will have a welcome meeting with your local guide.

Once you’ve settled into your accommodation, we will head out on a guided city walk. This is a great way to get your bearings in Ilulissat and identify places you may wish to return to during your free time. Continue to explore on your own for the rest of the afternoon, or pop into one of the many cafes for coffee and cake, before returning to the hotel for welcome dinner.

At around 22:00pm, we will board our boat for a ~2-hour sunset cruise through the world famous Ilulissat Icefjord. Enjoy a late nightcap with ancient ice-cubes as we explore the world’s largest ice sculpture exhibition.

(Note: The season for midnight sun is approx. May 22-Jul 24. Outside this season, the excursion is operated as an evening cruise with the beautiful sunset reflecting over the icebergs).

After breakfast at the hotel, we will hike to a lookout over the UNESCO World Heritage listed Ilulissat Icefjord through the Sermermiut valley.

Your guide will explain why several different Inuit cultures chose to live in this location throughout the past 4,000 years, and we will see the remnants of these ancient settlements as we walk. Following on from yesterday’s city walk, you will also hear more about the local history and customs before Europeans arrived in the area.

The rest of the day is yours to enjoy as you wish. Return to town and spend the afternoon visiting the museum and art gallery, or, if you enjoy hiking, explore more of the Icefjord along the Blue and Yellow trails.

Please wear proper boots or hiking boots. The hiking distance is about 3 km (1,9 mls) round-trip; hiking time is about 1 hour. Terrain: mainly track bridge and a bit of uneven nature and rocky trail. Tour duration: about 3 hours.

After the hike, we will visit a local family at their home. You will enjoy cup of coffee or tea with locals and learn about life in Ilulissat.

Keep an eye out for local fishermen amongst the enormous icebergs as we sail across the mouth of the Ilulissat Icefjord to arrive at the settlement of Ilimanaq. One of the highlights of this small village are the wooden houses of the old Danish trading station that date back to 1730. Your guide will explain more about the history and the current everyday life in Ilimanaq on a walk around town before we sit down for lunch at the small local restaurant that serves delicious food based on Greenlandic specialties.

In the afternoon we will board our boat and try to spot whales as we cruise around Disko Bay on our way back to Ilulissat. The tour will take about 6 hours. 

Today we will be up early for our full-day boat trip to Eqi - the calving glacier. It will take us a couple of hours to travel 80km North to reach the face of this impressive glacier and you should keep an eye out for whales along the way.

We will sail as close to the face of the glacier as possible while still maintaining a safe distance, and listen to the ice crack while waiting for a calving event. Although nothing is guaranteed, this glacier almost always delivers, and we may be lucky to witness a larger chunk of ice shear off the face of the glacier. You will spend around 2 hours in front of the glacier. 

The tour will take approximately 6-7 hours.

In the evening you will join a “farewell dinner” at the Hotel.

The morning is yours to spend as you wish - perhaps relaxing at the hotel, going for one last wander around Ilulissat, or purchasing last minute souvenirs for your family and friends.

At an agreed time, we will transfer you to the airport and say “goodbye for now” as you catch you flight back across the enormous island of Greenland to Iceland.