I recently watched a Norwegian film about an explorer who wants to see the North Pole and ends up, first, traveling to Antarctica. What unknown, strange and distant places the poles were for so long!
Today they are no longer unknown or impossible to know and you don't have to be an explorer. We tell you how to travel to Antarctica.
Visit Antarctica
About 98% of those who visit Antarctica do so from the Antarctic Peninsula, via the tip of South America, mainly from the city of Ushuaia, in Argentina. From here it involves two days of cruising, very beautiful. You can also fly up Punta Arenas, in Chile, and take a sailing boat there.
So, as you might suppose, You have to start from either of these two countries. So, you can enter through Buenos Aires, you arrive by plane and take the cruise, or you arrive in Santiago. Other smaller options are sail from New Zealand to the Ross Sea or fly from South Africa.
My mother has gone to Antarctica twice from Buenos Aires and had a great time. The cruise departs from the port of Buenos Aires, touches some cities along the Patagonian coast and then heads towards the Antarctic Peninsula on a two-day trip crossing the Drake Passage between both continents.
The Drake Passage is the best moment of the trip and you are going to pray that the sea is calm. It can be very rough at times, there are strong currents and winds and everything comes together in this narrow passage. You will hear a lot about passing through here and you can have either experience: the calm or the unforgettably hectic experience.
There are many boat options. You can take a cruise with capacity less than one hundred passengers or more than 500, a multitude of types of cabins, simple to those with a balcony and luxury suites and varied entertainment on board.
And the journey doesn't end there. The same cruise you can combine other walks, for example visiting the South Georgia Islands, with its mountains and penguin colonies and thousands of birds, or visit the Falkland Islands, the destination chosen by the Argentines that you will find on board because they have the opportunity to visit the land usurped by the British in the 1982th century and that they lost later, in the XNUMX war.
Other cruises take you further east of the peninsula, towards the Welles Sea, with its enormous and tubular icebergs, or you can even go further still, further south, and get just below the Arctic Circle. And as we said at the beginning, there are also cruise ships, much fewer, thanThey go to Antarctica every year from Queensland, New Zealand., to explore the Ross Sea and follow the trail of explorers such as Amundsen, Scott or Schakleton.
What can we say about go by sailboat to Antarctica? Which is a beautiful experience too. These ships They depart from Punta Arena, in Chile, and include a two-hour charter flight to King Georgia Island, south of the Shetland Islands and at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. After arriving you are taken straight to the ship and yes, It's the quickest way to get there.
This option is best if you don't have much time or are an anxious boater or want to avoid crossing the Drake Passage. But you must keep in mind that These trips are more susceptible to being affected by polar weather conditions so here you have to be flexible with time. And you also have to have more money because they are more expensive trips.
Also there are a handful of flights that only the luckiest travelers enjoy: those that allow them to experience Antarctica like few others. Is about get to Union Glacier Campground, on the edge of the Ellsworth Mountains, by air from Punta Arenas, Chile, on a airplane specially equipped to land on an ice runway. Alternatively, you can also fly directly to the South Pole from both this Chilean city and Cape Town, in South Africa.
Considering that the readers of Actualidad Viajes are mostly from Europe, I tell you that the route is from Europe to Buenos Aires or Santiago, in Chile. From Buenos Aires you make a connection by air to Ushuaia and from Santiago to Punta Arenas. Or in the case of Buenso Aires, you take the cruise there and you're on vacation.
Visiting Antarctica does not require a visa, but yes passport and visa depending on your country of origin since you pass through Argentina or Chile. Cruises from Buenos AiresEg they touch Montevideo and Punta del Este, in Uruguay, Puerto Madryn on the Argentine Patagonian coast, Puerto Argentino in the Falkland Islands, Puerto Arenas, Ushuahia and Antarctica. It is about 15 days and there are simpler routes.
The cruise season to Antarctica is from October to March, the splendid southern summer. Between October and November penguins and other seabirds make their nests and care for the eggs. The ice begins to melt. Between December and January the babies begin to be born and it is a great landscape, with many hours of sun. In February and March it is season whale and seal watching.
Itineraries vary from a minimum of 10 days to a maximum of two weeks, either in large cruise ships, luxury vessels or sailing expedition ships.
Ushuaia, in Argentina, is the busiest port when it comes to cruises to Antarctica, among the five ports of entry in the world. It is a beautiful city that is only a thousand kilometers from the white continent, and it must be said that Argentina has had a presence there since 1904 when it installed a meteorological observatory and a post office in South Orkney. The country is also a consultative member of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.
Antarctic tourism is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty signed that year and the idea is that it does not cause any damage, which is why only the disembarkation of small groups is enabled at certain points. Take this great trip, don't miss the trip to the white container.