Southern Explorations, an award-winning company known for their unique trips to South American destinations recently announced new itineraries to Antarctica that offer travelers a wide variety of ways to see one of the least visited destinations on the planet. Taking visitors to Antarctica via Argentina’s most southern city Ushuaia, Southern Explorations takes visitors to some of the places in Antarctica that are least touched by tourists for a truly off the beaten path wilderness experience. These trips offer travelers the ultimate in flexibility by offering several distinctive itineraries that include a variety of choices for method of transport, the length of the trip, the sites included, and types of excursions so that travelers can make their selection based on their personal interests.
Travelers can choose from five different types of Antarctic travel:
Classic Antarctic Cruises: These well-established Antarctic expedition cruises provide an ideal introduction to Antarctica, with a ten to twelve day itinerary that visits the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. These Antarctica cruise tours emphasize wildlife viewing and the breathtaking scenery of narrow waterways, glaciers, icebergs, and rugged mountains.
Antarctic Explorers Cruises: These Antarctica tours range from sixteen to twenty-four days and visit the Antarctic Peninsula as well as making more island stops than the Classic Antarctica cruises. Zodiac excursions ashore the Antarctic enable passengers to have close-up encounters with penguins, seals, and whales, as weather conditions permit. For adventurous travelers, some voyages offer sea kayaking and camping options as well as an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton on a three to five day traverse of South Georgia Island.
Weddell Sea Antarctic Cruises: On these eleven to thirteen day Antarctic cruises, passengers observe the wildlife and scenic highlights of the Antarctic Peninsula, cruising into the Weddell Sea as well as visiting the South Shetland Islands. Each cruise incorporates as much Antarctic wildlife viewing as possible, with plenty of time to enjoy the extraordinary Antarctica scenery and landscape. Antarctica tours that depart earlier in the season focus on Snow Hill Island’s Emperor Penguin rookery, a rarely visited site where as many as 4,000 pairs of Emperor Penguins have been observed.
Crossing the Antarctic Circle Cruises: Traveling deeper into Antarctica, these twelve to fourteen day adventure cruises are designed for passengers who enjoy active adventures and wish to travel south of the Antarctic Circle. The Antarctica cruise conducts a shipboard education program, and an average of three activities per day takes place off the cruise ship while in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula. Select ship departures offer optional camping and kayaking adventures.
Unique Antarctic Cruise Itineraries: The itineraries of these Antarctica tours have a particular focus and include additional days at selected sites to provide passengers in-depth exploration of certain Antarctica areas or topics. Please see each specific itinerary for details.
