Antarctica, it wasn’t my 7th continent but it is the one that most people save for their 7th continent. It is the one that is the most remote and the hardest to get to. It is not accessible to tourist in the winter and even in the summer it is cold. Getting there and back usually involves the famous and treacherous Drake Passage. Some lucky few will get the option to fly to the continent and then join their tour but most of us have to brave the Drake. If you get lucky you will get the Drake Lake and if you are unlucky it will be the Drake Shake.
It has been a year since I set off for Antarctica. There were 11 nights on the ship and then we spent 1 night before the cruise and 5 night after the cruise in Buenos Aires, Argentina. My niece is actually currently in Argentina visiting her boyfriend’s family. I will see if I can get her to tell you about that incredible experience. I think we are all planning another trip to Argentina in the future.
Back to my trip to Antarctica. We chose to use Atlas Ocean Voyages for our expedition. Please I beg of you if you are going to Antarctica take an expedition trip. Do not spend all of that time, money and effort to do what the large ships, including the current Royal Caribbean World Cruise, do. You do not want to brave the Drake and then just sail by the continent do you? You want to actually set foot on Antarctica and if you are lucky camp. I am sure it is stunning to just sail by. We were constantly stunned by the views and the wildlife that we saw from the ship but not getting off the ship and cruising in a zodiac over to the actually see the research stations, the penguins and seals wouldn’t have been worth it for me.
Jenni and I never like to make things easy. We like to make things cost effective while still getting everything we want. If you are looking for the five star resorts and non-stop first class airfare, we just aren’t your girls. That usually means more than one flight to get where we are going. From Michigan, we chose to fly out of Canada because it is usually significantly cheaper. For this trip that meant flying from Windsor, ON, CA to Toronto, ON, CA to Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina on the way there. On the way back it was Buenos Aires, Argentina to Sao Paulo, Brazil to Montreal, QC, CA to Toronto, ON, CA to Windsor, ON, CA. or so we thought. More on that in another post. As I said, we stayed one night in Buenos Aires prior to beginning the Atlas portion of our trip. I think Atlas may include a one night hotel stay in Buenos Aires now on their trips. They didn’t on ours.
Traveling with Atlas does include the flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. This is one of the main reasons we chose them. That flight was surprisingly long. I believe it is about 4 hours which for someone from the US who is used to the idea that it takes a long time to go east to west but not usually as long to go north to south was a hard thing to wrap my mind around. Buenos Aires and Ushuaia are about 1473 miles or 2370 km apart. Roughly the same as Baltimore, MD to Denver, CO or 130 miles (200 km) further than Paris, France to St. Petersburg, Russia.
After you take your charter flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia you will be taken to the cruise ship. When we went we went directly to the ship. A lot of people had a problem with this as we were also taken directly back to the airport after the cruise. We got to explore nothing in Ushuaia. I do believe now that they take you around Ushuaia or to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. Your are welcome for this addition if you get it. This is the one thing I wish we had done differently. I wish we had planned to either go to Ushuaia prior or stay a couple days after. Oh well, I guess that means we have to take a whole separate trip to see Patagonia. Just add that to the list that never gets any shorter, only longer despite checking things off.
Atlas is seemingly always running a deal. We got buy one get one for this trip. We also got it for our upcoming trip to the Arctic with Atlas. Look for the deals. If you have the ability I have heard that if you are in Ushuaia you can sometimes catch an really good deal for various companies that are not fully sold on cruises leaving same day or in a few days.
Whatever you decided to do, know that is likely not ever going to be a cheap trip. I think Jenni and I spent 8-10k US dollars each. I’ll see if I can pull up the actual costs. The cruise and food, experiences and souvenirs in Buenos Aires are the only things we truly paid out of pocket for though. That flight that jumped all over was paid for by points Jenni had. The hotels in Buenos Aires I paid for with my points. Not a cheap trip but a trip that was worth every penny we spent. If we didn’t have so many other places to go we’d go again.
I will continue this series of post with the details of each day or maybe combining days when were were at sea and there wasn’t much to report.
TL;DR
For the love of everything book an expedition trip for Antarctica, not just a sail by.
Try to spend time in Ushuaia/Patagonia instead of going directly to the ship and back.
It is not a cheap trip but it is a trip that is worth it.