If you are a travel enthusiast like me what is the ultimate trip? What is the place you mostly want to see? My destinations are mostly remote with the most natural wonders/wildlife possible...and now the answer is easy.... Antarctica
I was able to visit Antarctica in 2018 during a 4 months trip around the world and it was the most incredible trip I've ever done. Expensive. Difficult to arrive. But the most incredible.
You have two options to get there, the most common is flying to Ushuaia from Buenos Aires: from there almost every ship departs to go to Antarctica. Maybe every ship. This is how my second trip started and finished after 23 days. The other option is flying from Punta Arenas (Chile) to King George Island in Antarctica. It is quite cool to say "I'm flying to Antarctica" but reality is different. We lost 2 days due to bad weather since the "airport" is just an air strip of gravel...but, there is a but... we did not cross the Drake Passage going down.
If you don't know the Drake Passage, please google it, and get prepare for it....there are two ways of crossing the Drake : The Drake Lake or The Drake Shake. do you get the joke? :P
Well it's part of the adventure and you can say I crossed the Drake
btw don't use see sickness drugs, use the bracelets, the drugs knocked me out for two days on the return the first time while we where crushing against 7-9m Waves.
In the second trip I just had the bracelets and I better ship (X-Bow) but we had Waves over 10m when coming back from the Falklands.
So when should you go? Well you don't have much option since the Antarctic season goes from circa November to very early March. And usually you have to book very very early, but If you have time and patience you can go to Ushuaia, and wait for last minute spots with incredible bargains. Just you know a trip to Antarctica is easily translated in around 1´000 USD dollars per day per person. So if you see a trip for 10+ days: VOILA´ you can do the maths.
You can spend even more if you want, depending on the cabin type, sharing triple beds or a double cabin with ensuite bathroom (yes many ships have bathrooms shared for the lower cabin class).
The Last trip was in the Greg Mortimer Ship, the new designed ship made in China
but engineered in Norway (I think if I don't remember wrong) with this revolutionary X-Bow. And the rooms where too luxurious for my taste, it has lost the taste of adventure like my trip before, but hey am I complaining about too much luxury? mhm kind of sorry ;)
So since we cleared what you have to spend, the decision to when to go depends on availability, kind of trips, duration etc... the more you go the better... early in the season means you still have a lot of Ice, and might don't get everywhere you want, but the scenery is incredible. Before December you see penguins with their eggs of hatching chicks, pretty cool, but later like in February the chicks are running all around and interest more with you since they are so curious. NEVER EVER TOUCH WILDLIFE, I know its difficult but DON´T DO IT.
February 2018
But the highlights of both trips are as follow, so maybe you can choose which you prefer:
Weddell Sea: One of the only places where you can see the massive tabular Icebergs, taller than buildings and 10-20 km wide...unbelievable.
Not many trips go that far south, because its a very harsh environment
I would go back tomorrow
Not good for wildlife, Landings are rare, we did on an Ice-shelf and walked around...also pretty cool
Antarctic Peninsula:
This is the where the majority of the trips go, and its full of landing opportunities and even activities like KAYAKING....yes it's amazing and Wildlife can get close to you if they want: I repeat Wildlife CAN get close to you, not the other way around, NEVER CHASE WILDLIFE.
A short video about my first time in Antarctica
And now it come to the second time I went to Antarctica, that was leaving on the 27th of December and coming back end of January. Why I went back, first of all I had the luck that a few guest in the first trip complaint a lot because we did lose two days of an 14 days trip and that's why we got a 50% discount on our next trip. So I decided to book the most expensive trip to make those 50% count.
We did the Antarctic peninsula of course, with maybe Neeko Harbour one of my favourites and the Lemair Channel. The wildlife was exploding this time, we had one day over 20 whales swimming and feeding around us, and while hiking a hill we could see them jumping.
Sorry I'm not a good whale photographer....this is the best I've got
But my super highlight was Elephant Island, the famous Island that saved Shackleton. and of course South Georgia....the most incredible explosion of wildlife! its overwhelming.
behind me is what 200 thousand breeding pairs of King Penguins look like.
nonetheless Antarctica and the sub Antarctic Islands will leave you memories that won't fade easily. Its not only for wildlife enthusiast like me, but every human being should see how wonderful this world is, maybe this could help us protect it!
There is no other place in the world that is so rich in Wildlife, and so harsh for it to survive. All creatures live in a extremely fragile balance, a food chain made to perfection to allow everyone to survive, but this fragile balance is in danger.
Going to such trips you are of course polluting, with enormous ships that use millions of litres of fuel to get there...I know I think about that every time, but if we don't go there, if there is no industry that makes profits with this regions, no-one will look and protect it, and we would leave it to the oil drilling companies, to the illegal fisheries and so on. It's a paradox but if wildlife is not creating profit, it wont be protected. This is why Sustainable tourism its maybe the only think in the world that can help natural places and it's indigenous and wildlife.
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