Vacation Destinations

A world of sea and ice awaits

Ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Massive, magnificent, and unforgiving, Antarctica is a continent of superlatives that will leave your mind searching for words to describe it. Each day presents a new discovery, whether you’re cruising through ice-choked waterways, trekking through chattering penguin rookeries, or catching minkes and humpbacks breaching in the pristine waters. The few travellers who are fortunate enough to explore Antarctica’s vast expanses return home forever changed by an experience so awe-inspiring that it reaches to their very core.

Subtle changes first appear as you cross the Drake Passage. The air turns cold: comforting, hardly bitter since it is the Antarctic summer. The horizon line draws itself the distance: a vast, jagged edge that reaches up and cradles the sky, displaying the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights). It's at this moment you have the revelation that you are about to discover the most remote, pristine spot on the planet - untouched by man.

Approaching the Antarctic Peninsula, the crystalline monoliths of ice and great tabular bergs of the Weddell Sea become clear. A Zodiac (motorized landing craft) takes you closer to the monumental walls of ice, making it all the more amazing to know these glaciers are constantly on the move to the speedy tune of 30 centimeters per day.

In the shadow of their grandeur, the local denizens frolic. Adelies, chinstrap and gentoo penguins by the hundreds, even thousands, will entertain you royally with their behavior - porpoising, tobogganing, parenting and nest maintenance, trundling wet and gleaming from the sea. You’ll be astounded by the spectacle of their massive rookeries. And endlessly amused by their antics.

You’ll search the ice floes for Antarctica’s six different species of seals, including the ultimate predator, the leopard seal. Sail through the incomparable Lemaire Channel, dwarfed by precipitous peaks and nicknamed Kodak Alley. And hold your breath as a 40-ton humpback whale surfaces right next to your ship.

In Antarctica, everything is in a state of permanent flux; a slow moving primordial symphony of shifting snow and creeping ice. With the promise that no two expeditions will be alike, your vacation will assuredly be one of the most unique and exclusive experiences of your lifetime. You’ll enter the ranks of the legendary explorers, and the relatively few to date who’ve journeyed there. And depending on where you’ve already traveled, you might even join another mythical society—the exclusive group of travelers who’ve actually set foot on all seven continent