Antarctica Ultimate: 20-Day Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctic Peninsula — Penguins, History & Ice

Tour Overview

Journey Overview

Days 1-2: Ushuaia & Embarkation

Arrive in Ushuaia. Board your expedition vessel — a purpose-built ice-strengthened ship with a maximum of 200 passengers (fewer than 200 means all passengers can land simultaneously, crucial for maximizing time ashore). Welcome dinner and departure through the Beagle Channel.

Days 3-4: Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)

The windswept, treeless Falklands are a peculiar outpost of British culture in the South Atlantic. Stanley, the capital, has red telephone boxes, pubs serving fish and chips, and Land Rovers everywhere. The islands are home to 700,000 pairs of penguins — five species: king, gentoo, magellanic, rockhopper, and the rare macaroni penguin. West Point Island and Saunders Island offer walking access to enormous albatross colonies (black-browed albatrosses nesting on cliff edges, unfazed by human observers within meters). Carcass Island: walk through tussac grass to sandy beaches patrolled by magellanic penguins, with elephant seals hauling out on the shore. The Falklands were the scene of the 1982 conflict; minefields still fenced off serve as unintended nature reserves where penguins thrive undisturbed.

Days 5-9: South Georgia — The Serengeti of the Southern Ocean

Two days at sea crossing the Scotia Sea, then the first sight of South Georgia’s mountains — a spine of peaks rising 2,900 meters directly from the sea, covered in glaciers and snow despite the relatively low latitude (54°S). South Georgia is one of the most wildlife-dense places on Earth — and one of the most beautiful. During breeding season, the island hosts 7 million penguins, 250,000 albatrosses, and half the world’s southern elephant seal population.

Salisbury Plain — the definitive South Georgia experience. The second-largest king penguin colony on the island: 100,000+ breeding pairs. The beach is a living carpet of penguins stretching from the water’s edge to the glacier behind — a sea of orange-yellow ear patches, sleek grey backs, and fuzzy brown chicks (called “oakum boys” by whalers, resembling balls of oakum — the tarred fiber used to caulk ship timbers). The noise is overwhelming — a constant chorus of trumpeting calls as parents and chicks locate each other by voice alone among the hundreds of thousands. Fur seals (Antarctic fur seals) patrol the beach — aggressive during breeding season, the expedition team forms a human wall to protect landing parties.

St. Andrews Bay — even more staggering: 150,000 breeding pairs of king penguins, plus a massive elephant seal haul-out. The combination of the penguin colony backed by the Heaney, Cook, and Buxton glaciers descending from the 2,935m Mount Paget creates one of the most spectacular wildlife landscapes on Earth. The wave of sound, the ammonia smell, and the sheer biomass of life in this one bay is so overwhelming it triggers a primal response — you are witnessing what most of the planet looked like before humans.

Grytviken — one of the abandoned whaling stations that once processed thousands of whales annually. The rusting boilers, blubber cookers, and harpoon guns are a sobering monument to humanity’s capacity for industrial-scale destruction. Visit the grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who died here on January 5, 1922, at age 47. His burial on South Georgia was his wife Emily’s decision — “I know that is where he would wish to be.” Raise a toast of whiskey at his grave (tradition dictates pouring a small libation onto the ground) to the greatest leader in exploration history — the man who saved all 28 men of the Endurance expedition against impossible odds, without loss of life. The Grytviken church (1913, the world’s southernmost Anglican church) still holds services, and the excellent South Georgia Museum in the former whaling manager’s villa tells the island’s history from sealing to science.

Days 10-11: Scotia Sea — Onward to Antarctica

Two days sailing southwest, crossing the Antarctic Convergence. The expedition team lectures on Antarctic history — the Heroic Age explorers (Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton, Mawson) whose stories of endurance, tragedy, and triumph define the human relationship with Antarctica. Iceberg watch: the first tabular bergs — flat-topped, kilometers wide, products of ice shelf calving — herald the approach to the continent.

Days 12-17: Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands

Six days exploring the Peninsula — the same landing sites as the Classic voyage (Neko Harbour, Paradise Bay, Lemaire Channel, Port Lockroy, Deception Island) plus the South Shetland Islands: Elephant Island, where Shackleton’s 22 men survived 137 days under two upturned lifeboats while he sailed 1,300 kilometers to South Georgia in the James Caird — arguably the greatest open-boat journey in history. The beach at Point Wild where they waited is barely 100 meters wide, backed by sheer cliffs — standing there, you understand just how desperate their situation was. Also: the Aitcho Islands for chinstrap and gentoo penguin colonies, Half Moon Island with its Argentine research station and breathtaking views of the South Shetlands, and the Weddell Sea approaches for tabular icebergs of cathedral dimensions and, with extraordinary luck, emperor penguins on the ice edge.

Days 18-20: Drake Passage Return & Ushuaia

Two days crossing the Drake, reflecting on the voyage. Antarctica changes people — no one returns unchanged from the experience of a continent dedicated to peace and science, ruled by the world’s first treaty that suspended territorial claims, a place where wildlife has no fear of humans because it has never been hunted on land, and the scale and silence rewire your sense of proportion. Arrive Ushuaia on Day 20 for disembarkation and transfer to the airport.

Included

• All accommodation aboard expedition vessel (twin cabin)
• All meals, snacks, coffee & tea aboard ship
• All Zodiac landings & shore excursions
• Expedition-grade waterproof parka (yours to keep)
• Rubber boots (loan)
• Expedition team lectures, guiding & citizen science programs
• Port taxes, landing fees & Antarctic Treaty fees