Compare Small Ship Cruises in Antarctica

Compare small ship cruises in Antarctica from Lindblad Expeditions, GeoEx, and More

While Antarctica is the planet’s coldest, driest, highest, and — some would say — loneliest continent, it is also the most out-of-this-world and not-as-it-seems beautiful. Until relatively recently the private reserve of scientists, hard-core explorers, and a very lucky few, it is now — thanks to comfortable icebreakers and aircraft — readily accessible to Adventure Collection travelers, from its theatrically mountainous peninsula to its storied pole.

On your Antarctica adventure tour, you’ll find that the White Continent is a trickster. The icecap, made of snowflakes that fell millions of years ago, hides deep basins far below sea level. Larger than Europe or Australia, Antarctica would be one of the Earth’s smallest continents if it did not have this icy disguise. The rugged coastal peaks camouflage volcanoes.

You’d think such a region would have little life. But the continent’s edges teem with fur and elephant seals, pods of orcas, and fleets of petrels, cormorants, skuas, and terns. Emperor, chinstrap, and Adélie penguins are awkward on land but transform into grace under water. Antarctica tricks you with having birds that fly — but thousands that don’t.

With almost twenty-four hours of daylight, your Antarctica activities won’t be cut short. You’ll visit such famous and dramatic settings as Paradise Bay, Anvers Island, King George Island, Port Lockroy, and Deception Island. You’ll go ashore by Zodiac, quietly motoring among the birds, whales, and seals that bring the skies and seas to life. You may choose a tour that stops at Elephant Island, the Falkland Islands, or South Georgia Island — a breath-stopping, 9,500-foot, rock massif, populated by enormous congeries of penguins and seals.

Don’t let this vast, mysterious continent fool you; its land is shifty. Ice near the ocean may move six hundred feet a year. Glaciers in narrow valleys travel even faster. You will be on uncertain ground here, which is fitting for an Antarctica adventure.

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