Antarctica

The Adventure Travel Company are one of the few true specialists in New Zealand in arranging trips to ‘The Ice’. Many of our team have been fortunate enough to experience "the ultimate travel destination" for themselves - all in the name of research you understand!

Antarctica has been described as the 'last great place on earth'. The stunning scenery, the incredibly abundant and inquisitive wildlife and the pristine nature of the vast ice-covered plateaus are simply indescribable. You will spend your days whale and seabird watching from the bridge or deck of your ice strengthened ship, ‘zodiac’ cruising amongst spectacular natural ice sculptures and walking ashore to within a few metres of penguins and seals. 

Today, there are numerous opportunities to explore the ‘Frozen South’, aboard a variety of comfortable ice-strengthened ships carrying anything from 45 to 350 passengers. Many visitors each year travel from South America across the short sea crossing of the Drake Passage to the South Shetland Islands and the waterways of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is jokingly dubbed the ‘banana belt’ of Antarctica because of its relatively mild weather! These cruises are typically 8-12 nights in duration, with some 13 nights travelling further south in an attempt to cross the Antarctic Circle itself. The longer 18-19 night cruises extend the experience to also include the history and tremendous concentration of wildlife in the Sub-Antarctic – the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. On all these trips you will have the opportunity to see Weddell & Elephant Seals, skuas, wandering albatrosses, giant petrels and rookeries of Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins. Whales seem to be everywhere!