Antartica

Based in Australia for two years, and spending a good deal of time in the Qantas lounge, I spotted an advertisement for a tourist flight to Antarctica. The plan was a Qantas 747, and the trip was operated by Croydon Travel, who are based in Melbourne. Having always had a fascination for the world's highest, driest, coldest and windiest continent, I decided to find out more. I elected to book the trip on 14 February 1999; the last trip out of Sydney that year, any later and the weather is too bad to fly. I booked a seat in Premium Economy at a price of $1699. The exchange rate was $3 to the pound at the time, so I figured this wasn’t too-oo bad, and ...  Read the complete review

A couple of years ago I had the privilege of visiting Antartica. There are a bunch of operators in the UK that facilitate trips to the great white continent. I travelled on the Marco Polo cruise ship, operated by Orient Lines. It's a relatively comfortable way of travelling to what is a pretty inhospitable destination. There are a number of other more rustic vessels that travel south out of Ushuaia. Don't view this as a holiday - more of an adventure. Travelling south from Buenos Aires we visited the Falkland Islands. These were pretty bleak even in the height of their summer (Dec/Jan) but the birdlife and penguins were a great introduction to what we ...  Read the complete review

If you make it to Antartica then you are one cool traveller (no pun intended). This is one of the most remote and beautiful travel destination, and I would love to visit one day. I have done some research however, and it is possible to get there, if difficult and usually expensive. The cheapest way to get there is to make it to the southern tip of S America - either in Chile or Argentina. There you can negotiate passage on specialised vessels. I don't think the comfort or food will be anything to write home about, but from the research I have done, it will be worth all the effort. ...  Read the complete review

Having narrowly escaped Shackelton's Endurance expedition of 1918 and being the unknown survivor of Scotts fated foray into the chilly wastes I decided that this year might be a good time to head back 'south.' Ok so the year 2000 is not quite the heroic age but at least the planes are a bit more comfy. I was unsurprised to discover that the Antarctic remains one darn cold place with temperatures ranging between 'oh why didn't I go on holiday to Bermuda' to 'excuse me I need to pee but am scared!' I was a little surprised to learn that there has been little in terms of development on the 'island'. There were no nightclubs ...  Read the complete review