Fly to Antarctica
| country: | Antarctica |
| departures: | 2009: 20 Nov |
| price: | From €32000 (10 days) excluding flights to Cape Town. Price includes flight from Cape town to Antarctica, all food, accommodation, activities, expert guides, some equipment and carbon off-setting |
| late availability: | We still have some availability on our 10 & 20 Nov departures. Enquire now for more details |
| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
the amazing things you'll be doing
It is landscape unlike anywhere else on the planet, so rarely visited, yet utterly beautiful.
We are the only company in the world that can take you into the interior of Antarctica in luxury and comfort. Our adventures are tailored to each individual client and run by a management team that have skied over 16,000kms in the Polar Regions. As such, we understand what it takes to travel to such a pristine environment and our guides are on hand to help with every aspect of your journey.
A luxurious and ecological camp, superb food, and experiences that are as unique as they are adventurous. You will see, touch and experience a world that is unlike anything else on the planet. A place that is as surreal as it is beautiful.
With our polar clothing, and very mild summer temperatures, to be able to join us, you only need to be in a normal physical condition. Then, once in Antarctica - what happens is up to you. The place is as big as your imagination.
Please note: The time spent in Antarctica is 10 days. We recommend that you get to Cape Town two days prior to departure and leave Cape Town 2 days after returning from Antarctica. The total number of days spent in South Africa and Antarctica is 14 days.
We go on gentle treks to the nearby oasis and explore ice caves and tunnels. You then reach the massive ice disturbances on the coast and trek across them. You do walks to see the little Adelie penguins that nest on an island near our camp. There are picnics and for the really brave, even the chance for an Antarctic swim! From enjoying a glass of GH Mumm Champagne on the crest of a mountain, to visiting one of the local science bases.
For those wanting more activity, our expert guides will teach you the skills of a polar explorer. We do technical rock and ice climbing on the nearby Nunatak mountain, along with abseils into open crevasses.
For the Emperor Penguin adventures, we fly two and a half hours along the coast to the immense Emperor Penguin colony. Over 6,000 birds leave the open water and waddle through the surreal ice formations on the frozen sea ice. At Ekstroem Shelf Ice, they huddle into an enormous colony. Passing the egg to the males for safekeeping, the females then head out to the open water to feed.
Without food or water for 4 months, the males undergo temperatures as low as minus 60 C and winds of over 140km/h, losing half their body weight in the process. As the Antarctic seasons change and spring arrives, the females return to hatch the eggs and we arrive shortly after this in mid-November.
We set up a small camp near the colony and spend 3 days (depending on the weather) engulfed by the sheer bedlam and excitement of the colony at its most busy time, photographing this phenomenon and witnessing it, as well as staying amongst it. The 2008 season is the first time anyone but scientists have visited the colony, and with our field guides by your side, you will experience one of the greatest and yet, most rarely seen wildlife events on the planet!
We are the only company in the world that can take you into the interior of Antarctica in luxury and comfort. Our adventures are tailored to each individual client and run by a management team that have skied over 16,000kms in the Polar Regions. As such, we understand what it takes to travel to such a pristine environment and our guides are on hand to help with every aspect of your journey.
A luxurious and ecological camp, superb food, and experiences that are as unique as they are adventurous. You will see, touch and experience a world that is unlike anything else on the planet. A place that is as surreal as it is beautiful.
With our polar clothing, and very mild summer temperatures, to be able to join us, you only need to be in a normal physical condition. Then, once in Antarctica - what happens is up to you. The place is as big as your imagination.
Please note: The time spent in Antarctica is 10 days. We recommend that you get to Cape Town two days prior to departure and leave Cape Town 2 days after returning from Antarctica. The total number of days spent in South Africa and Antarctica is 14 days.
itinerary
For the first part of the adventure, settle into our luxury camp and take in the awesome surroundings. Each day, our field guides will suggest a number of excursions and activities for you to do. We go on gentle treks to the nearby oasis and explore ice caves and tunnels. You then reach the massive ice disturbances on the coast and trek across them. You do walks to see the little Adelie penguins that nest on an island near our camp. There are picnics and for the really brave, even the chance for an Antarctic swim! From enjoying a glass of GH Mumm Champagne on the crest of a mountain, to visiting one of the local science bases.
For those wanting more activity, our expert guides will teach you the skills of a polar explorer. We do technical rock and ice climbing on the nearby Nunatak mountain, along with abseils into open crevasses.
For the Emperor Penguin adventures, we fly two and a half hours along the coast to the immense Emperor Penguin colony. Over 6,000 birds leave the open water and waddle through the surreal ice formations on the frozen sea ice. At Ekstroem Shelf Ice, they huddle into an enormous colony. Passing the egg to the males for safekeeping, the females then head out to the open water to feed.
Without food or water for 4 months, the males undergo temperatures as low as minus 60 C and winds of over 140km/h, losing half their body weight in the process. As the Antarctic seasons change and spring arrives, the females return to hatch the eggs and we arrive shortly after this in mid-November. We set up a small camp near the colony and spend 3 days (depending on the weather) engulfed by the sheer bedlam and excitement of the colony at its most busy time, photographing this phenomenon and witnessing it, as well as staying amongst it. The 2008 season is the first time anyone but scientists have visited the colony, and with our field guides by your side, you will experience one of the greatest and yet, most rarely seen wildlife events on the planet!
how this holiday makes a difference
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Drawing on our unparalleled expertise, we strive to offer genuinely unique adventures in one of the last, untouched wildernesses on the planet that are both bespoke and environmentally responsible.
Our staff are from a wide cross section of nations as we choose people due to very specific abilities. They are from: South Africa, Canada, Norway, England, Russia, France at this moment. This changes from season to season and we wanted to keep the camp very multi-national due to the fact that Antarctica is not owned by any single nation. In terms of staff training, we do conduct long induction courses prior and once out in Antarctica. Most of our staff are employed precisely because of their extensive polar knowledge and experience. As for payment, they are all paid high European standard wages that are commensurable with their area of expertise. Prior to arriving in Antarctica all our clients are briefed in detail regarding the environment they are about to enter. This includes detailed descriptions of the endemic wildlife and how not to interfere with it or affect its behavioral patterns in any way. We also brief them about how and where they can go to the toilet when we are camping and also how to minimize any impact they may have on the surrounding environment. Our company aim is that all clients are aware of the fact that all they should leave in Antarctica are their footprints. We understand and respect that Antarctica is a highly sensitive wilderness. As such, we operate in strict accordance to the environmental tourism guidelines laid out in the Antarctic Treaty. We also go further and operate our own zero impact policy. To achieve this, our temporary camp is dismantled each season, leaving no trace, while all human waste is transported out of Antarctica on regular flights and disposed of responsibly in South Africa. Prior to going to Antarctica almost all packaging is removed to save on weight and any packaging taken into Antarctica is put in recyclable bins and then flown out again at the end of the season and recycled responsibly in Cape Town. This is managed by our logistics company called ‘Antarctic Logistics Centre International’ Composite food waste is also segregated and disposed of in compost heaps in South Africa. Excess food items that are not used during the season, like canned foods etc, are donated to the CWD AIDS Orphan programme in the Western Cape. The entire camp is powered by renewable energy, using solar panels supplied by Cleversolar and a portable wind turbine, to take advantage of Antarctica’s abundant supply of natural power. We are an accredited CarbonNeutral® company and offset all emissions from our flights to Antarctica and the associated logistics once there, through a portfolio of Carbon projects. Currently, we are supporting woodland replanting projects in the UK. Using our accredited CarbonNeutral® flight calculator, we also pay to offset the carbon produced by all our clients flying to and from Cape Town International. With only 10 clients on each trip, members of our team will always personally speak to each client before going and ensure they are fully aware of the environment they are going into, the safety precautions we provide and the activities we offer. And with a high guide to client ratio (1 guide for every 2 clients) we can offer personalized and secure excursions each day. We have lectures most evenings at the camp about the importance of respecting the delicate environment in Antarctica and we often have visiting lectures from the nearby Russian and Indian science bases who talk about their important research projects. Through these lectures, we try to educate our clients about the environment to which they have come in the hope that they to can become Antarctic ambassadors when they return home after a journey into such a fragile place. Through our environmental policy and the education of tourists when they visit our camp in Antarctica we strive to make them ambassadors for the continent and thus protect it. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |