The trip to Antarctica is the most amazing travel experience I´ve ever had. From top to bottom, the untouched nature, combined with one almost-horror story I escaped from by miracle. A lot to share about this one! In this post, the focus is only on the amazing opportunity and experience this was!

Why Antarctica?

It all started with the initial investigation of things to do in Argentina, that led me to Ushuaia and then some mentions to Antarctica. When I saw the first picture and blogs about it I was shocked and decided I eventually wanted to do that.  It looked like the nature traveller dream, and certainly something less known from tourism perspective (which is a good thing..)

How´s going to Antarctica like?

I get this question many times because it´s still relative uncommon to go there. The industry is there and it keeps growing but still in comparison to the most famous tourist places in the world, the remote location, price and even anticipation needed to plan it makes it more difficult to reach.

You can reach the Antarctic peninsula with a cruise from Ushuauia, Argentina (as I did) or Punta Arenas, Chile. There is a second option to fly directly to the continent to avoid crossing the Drake Passage between South America´s Cape Horn and the South Shetland islands of Antarctica, and have a cruise already in Antarctica. The options to do this are even more limited, more expensive and you have to consider the risk of bad weather conditions that would delay or prevent flying completely so you need to be flexible with your days. However I believe the right way to have this experience is to cross the Drake, assuming the risk and realistic 2 very rough days on the sea 😉

My itineray

My cruise company was Quark Expeditions and it was absolutely perfect from the first minute until the last. The cruise sailed from Ushuaia and to be on the safe side I decided to arrive 2 nights in advance for my peace of mind. See more of Ushuaia in my blog Ushuaia – The end of the World

Day 1 Arrive in Ushuaia, Argentina

From the cruise perspective this starts the day before you sail. The accomodation in Ushuaia in included in the package and you can decide to extend it to more days, like I did.

Day 2 Embarkation Day

Embarkation day, yay!!! This happens until the late aftertoon so you still have enough time to walk around and explore Ushuaia. Obviously this day I did not leave the city and I stayed close to the city center and ship, anxiously waiting to board the ship. The first evening on board is all about the safety instructions, meeting the crew, get to know the other travellers, in my case meeting my roomie ;), getting the official parka that you get to keep.. and when you live in Finland at least this is something that I can easily wear again. First instructions to the kayak group that I was part of… obviously… .. the views of Beagle Channel that connects Ushuaia with the Drake Passage later in the evening, these are in theory your last hous of a peaceful sea 😉

Also the first of many official pressentations to come from the experts in each area being discussed. The crew has different biologists, photographers and experts in every thing you are going to see! This is much more than simple cruising or a simple trip, it is really an expedition and you can learn a lot in the process while you move from one place to another. The first meeting was more general about Antarctica and all practicalities for the next days.

Days 3 and 4 Crossing the Drake Passage

The Drake! I was a bit nervous but at the same time very excited about the Drake Passage. Thankfully for me, I got a very decent version of the Drake passage and for the record it was not exactly like a lake, when walking on the corridors it was easy to miss your balance and we locked our personal belongings as recommended, so it was rough still but it was considered relatively easy 😉 So no real crazy stories to report here. Also I took the recommended sea sickness medicine just in case and surely the drake behaved well with us.

These 2 days are mostly about presentations and enjoying the nature. As I mentioned, I booked the option with the kayak program so in addition I had even more meetings and get together with the small group I would be sharing this experience with the next couple of days. I had done kayaking but only during the summer, so getting familiar with the multiple layers and clothing for polar kayaking was actually fun!

See below for reference some of the screenshots from the presentations we had. They were super fun and entertaining and as I´m very much used to nature documentaries then this was business as usual except this was live! and even more exciting we were really close to actually see the wildlife and geology the expedition crew was explaining to us.

Days 5 – 8 South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula

THIS IS IT!

The next 4 days are fully in the destination! How it goes in practice is, there is a morning landing / kayaking and then again in the afternoon. The exact timings always depend on the place but the expedition crew always makes sure you are informed about the activities of the next day and during the same day as well.

The first morning I woke up actually in Antarctica was breathtaking. I remember looking at my window still in sleepy mode and this “travel energy” that I often refer to kicked me out of the bed, I put on my winter clothing and went out to take my first pictures of these beautiful glaciers, like a little girl on Christmas.

A couple of hours later we had our first kayaying session and landing. The picture of the kayak below was with my also rommie Amanda. We were both travelling solo and part of the kayak group so were in the same double room with ocean view 😉

Already on our first landing after kakaying for the first time, we saw some young penguins “practicing” carrying rocks. This is what they do when they are adults to build their nests, here they only playing

Day 5 Palaver Point and Kayak Bay

This was the first time seeing penguins, seals and HUGE icerbergs and glaciers. The kayaying experience in these locations was unforgettanble. To see more about the kayak experience , please see my next blog Kayaking in Antarctica dedicated to that 😉 but also sharing already here THE PHOTO!

Day 6 Danco Island and Fournier Bay

The day started with a sunrise zodiak tour (in addition to the normal 2 landings), since the conditions were pretty good and the crew suggested it. Wow, it was increible and also nice for us kayakers to prepare for it quite normally 😉 The light at that time of the day is exquisite.

Setting a foot on the Antarctic continent finally! We had done landings but they were officially still islands close to the continent, but here we reached to top of the continent 😉 It was symbolic but everyone has the official photo!

All days had something spectacular, and this is something we discussed among all travellers.. that it was really shocking how every day, every place we would be saying WOW again and again. Something more particular about this day is it was the furthest south we reached, that means the biggest icebergs, tallest mountains and more snow we would see. The next days we would still be in Antarctica but already returning north, so from the scale perspective this was the most impressive day of all, and that is something to say because the minute you are in the peninsula everything is so huge and immense. We barely saw any other ships and it felt this vastness was all to ourselves.

Evenings and sunsets… ohh these were a constant gift from heaven. For the majority of the cruise we were blessed with good weather, something that cannot be given from granted in Antarctica, not even in summer / beginning of autumn so definitely we were very lucky!

Day 7 Graham Passage, Portal Point and Wilhelmina Bay

Just like the day before was all about crazy and huge icebergs in combination with whales, this day I had an unbelievable encounter with hundreds of penguins. In the middle of the day they were very active, going up and down the hill, playing with each other, it was a place full of life.. totally their environment and we were just some guests that I can assure to you were not disturbing to them.

People on these tours tend to be aware of the natural environment, but just in case someone does not follow the rules and interfers with nature there would be a crew “police”, so to say.. checking. The rule was simple: if the penguins come to you that´s fine but you are not supposed to chase them around 😉 Many people would just sit around and watch them and they would come naturally just out of curiosity. I saw penguins chasing each other like little kids, some of them just chilling on the rocks, others going to the sea. It was VERY loud -and smelly, yes- and by far one of the best landinds which again it´s kind of unfair because every place was to cry for.

Day 8 Deception Island and Half Moon Island

This was the only day I did not kayak, in the morning it was due to the weather so we spent the full landing time in Deception Island, a volcanic place that had an eruption that destroyed everything there and you can feel the shore actually warm indeed.

We saw penguins and seals on land, some of them really really close. The location was rather historical and there were some remains of human activity (until the volcano did the job..). This is probably more interesting to others than it was to me, so here I would have loved to do the kayaking but again it was a matter of safety as the wind was very strong for the kayaks.

Getting to the island, and some parts of it do feel like another planet though. I loved the colours and the scenery itself never ever dissapoints in this continent.

In the second part of the day, it was my own choice not to do the kayak because I asked the guides if we would be visiting a big penguin colony, and if so I wanted to spend more time on land. Indeed there were thousands of them although in the afternoon the majority were on the top of the clifffs. We did see many penguins as well near to the shore and more intermediate locations but I´m just putting into perspective that a lot of them were visible but we could not get so close compared to Portal Point.

I spent a lot of time just watching the penguin colony, they were not active in the sense of going up and down but they were making a lot of noise and playing with each other. I got some videos of what seemed to be a penguin fight (still it looked funny to us), probably they were just playing.. and another video that at first looked more a penguin love scene 😉 however it turned out they were just practicing the position only but nothing was really happening! I stayed there for a long time, and it was funnyhow every new person coming to that specific place was like.. uhmm what´s happening here? and the guide was like.. nahh just practicing!

One more thing to notice is these were mainly Chinstrap penguins, there were just a few gentoos and funny enough ONE macaroni penguin! Easy to identify with the yellow feathers 😉 Super cool how these things happen in nature too and based on what I saw, he was just one of them! – says the Mexican in Finland- haaaa.. I feel you crazy Macaroni penguin in a chinstrap colony!

The last landing, the last official day in Antarctica.. a lot of emotions that the “heart” of the trip was coming to and end. I still remember that feeling when these pictures were taken, and they are here again when writing about it (MAGIC!)

Day 9-10 Crossing the Drake back to Argentina

The drake was less friendly this time but still nothing to report. A lot of time to enjoy with our new friends, more presentations, learnings, stories and happy hearts. Trust me, it never got boring.

Day 11 Good morning Argentina… except for you, COVID…

Well.. for the record I deliberately chose not to buy the internet package and really stayed offline for 10 days. I did not really understand how DRASTICALLY things were changing in just a matter of days, precisely my offline days in paradise.

To finalize THIS part of the trip, the good news is I had NO issue to disembark the cruise and looking back… I´m even glad I did not know what was going on because I truly never worried during the cruise. Even a day after we returned, I still did not fully realize things were not looking good in the world, buuuuuuuut retrospectively I thank God to the moon and back that I was able to disembark that cruise “normally” in the first place. Someone later in Buenos Aires told me they should not have allowed us according to the government (goosebumps!)

But more on my bumpy exit from Argentina…… later 😉 Let´s just say I did not return to Finland when I was supposed to..