Are you tempted to travel to the frozen north?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Greenland, Iceland, Lapland – their names alone might make you shiver. Then there's the geological instability of Iceland (remember the volcano?) and the geopolitical instability of Greenland – the 51st state, if Donald Trump gets his way. But Clive Stacey, founder of specialist operator Discover the World, says there is a special appeal to the far north.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Tuesday the 17th of February. |
| 0:09.6 | You might recall, if you were kind enough to listen yesterday, that I was hearing some really good positive stuff from Philip Breckner, the founder of Discover Egypt. |
| 0:20.0 | Well, today I'm hearing from the founder of another |
| 0:23.7 | specialist company. This is Clive Stacey and he is the proprietor of Discover the world, |
| 0:31.6 | who have been sending people for decades to the northern reaches of the planet. But I have been talking to Clive about the |
| 0:41.2 | sorts of places that he chooses to try to send customers to and an awful lot going on, |
| 0:48.5 | both geologically and geopolitically. Here's our conversation. Let me take you through a few things. So, for example, |
| 0:56.7 | 2010, Eya Fiatid Yucal, the Icelandic volcano, COVID, and now Greenland, all of which, |
| 1:05.2 | has I imagined made you think, I don't know why I got into this tourism game, I think I'll quit. |
| 1:10.9 | Not quite like that. It's a little bit of a challenge sometimes, but there's always a good |
| 1:15.1 | news story, which comes from publicity about destinations. And Greenland is no exception. |
| 1:21.2 | Sorry, you made America. |
| 1:22.7 | Aha. Yeah, the United States of Greenland. It's fascinating because you see pictures of Greenland on television, |
| 1:29.9 | like you saw pictures of AF Etlioccal and, you know, fantastic Icelandic scenery. So it's giving |
| 1:35.8 | people a little bit of a context. It was something that was a blank space, is now somewhere |
| 1:42.0 | where they're actually quite intrigued with. |
| 1:45.0 | And President Trump has put it on the map, so I have to thank him for that. |
| 1:49.0 | Also, things happening in Greenland itself to do with travel, |
| 1:54.0 | in particular, the capital city now actually has an international airport. |
| 1:59.0 | Yes, it does, and it's possible now to operate flights |
| 2:02.8 | from the UK to direct to New, and it's something that maybe we'll do in the future if the demand |
| 2:09.3 | is there. But it's a little bit like the airport in St. Helena. It does have wind shear problems, |
... |
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