Fin del Mundo - Antarctica / Bella Bathurst

By Globalista

Ushuaia, the town at the bottom of Argentina which serves as the departure point for most Antarctic expeditions, likes to style itself the Fin del Mundo - the End of the World. In 21st century terms, it is: once south and out of the Beagle Channel, all mobiles, all email, all internet, all connections and associations beyond the ship you're on and the people you're with are rendered completely meaningless. But in geographic terms, the end of the world is barely the beginning. Below Cape Horn are the great waters of the Southern Ocean, and beyond that is Antarctica.

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By any standards, Antarctica is enormous - 10% of the world's landmass, a place larger than North America or Europe, a shape-shifting continent which can double or halve itself every few months. It has no permanent human population, no voters, no currency, no passport control, no police force, no cities and no hotels - none of travelling's traditional compass-bearings. But for all that, it's far more than mere minuses. Those rare and privileged few who do visit often say they come back home altered. Only its far-off sister the Arctic has the same stark ability to remind you of exactly how much, and how very little, you count in the scheme of things.

Getting to Antarctica is not quite the six-month saga that it used to be in the days of Scott and Shackleton, but it does, and always should, retain something of the same ceremony. It is now possible to take flights from Australia over the continent during the austral summer or to fly to King George Island off the Peninsula. Even so, the majority of scientists and visitors to the continent arrive and leave by ship, either via the long scenic route (Falklands, South Georgia, Peninsula), or by the short seasick route (Drake Passage there and back).

At present, there are around 50 operators offering variations on the trip southwards. Be warned; all of them are expensive, and some are stratospheric. Crewing and staffing an ice-strengthened vessel for the length of the summer season is never going to be cheap. Add on specialist activities like skiing, kayaking or mountaineering, and second mortgages start looking sensible. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and for those in search of something deeper than the usual holiday experience, it is a thousand times worth it.

Almost all of the available trips go to the Peninsula, the long hind leg of land pointing up towards South America. The scientific stations at the South Pole and McMurdo Sound are tricky to reach and generally off-limits to all but specialists, but even in high summer (December through February), pack ice prevents many ships from venturing further south.

Inevitably with a continent of Antarctica's size, a ten-day trip taking in the Bransfield and Gerlache Straits gives you as much of a feel for this place as standing off Nantucket for a weekend might tell you about America. Much of the Peninsula is barely within the Antarctic Circle, and though there is history here, it's not the history of the Scott and Shackleton (the Edwardian explorers' bases were within the Ross Sea near McMurdo) nor even the great landmarks of Mt Erebus and Terror.

Instead, the Peninsula is a Best Of experience; mountains, bays, seals, penguins, snow. And ice. The wildlife may be diverting, but it's the ice which obsesses. There are, you discover, a thousand ways to name it and a thousand more to shape it, from the pure enchanted power of glaciers to the fantastical land-art of pack ice and bergs. Nipping about in zodiacs between bergs so blue they seem lit from inwards only makes you ache for more. Besides, those in search of Heroic Age flavour will find enough of it just by looking at a map. Each generation of explorers wrote their opinion of this place all over the landscape: Despair Rocks, Exasperation Inlet, Paradise Bay, Inexpressible Island, Stench Point.

Recent changes to fuel-oil regulations and to the numbers of passengers permitted to land have limited or eliminated all but the smaller vessels of 500 people and below. As each different operator gropes for a niche, the range of extras keeps on growing, from helicopter trips to Emperor penguin colonies to private yacht charters in support of film companies. Scientists thumbing a lift to work are picked up by some operators but not by others, the proviso being that they sing for their supper. And while conditions on-board can vary from swanky to Soviet, all good operators should make safety a priority.