Antarctica, South Georgia, and the Falklands

Arrive in Santiago, the mountainous capital of Chile, and transfer to the Ritz-Carlton, Santiago, or similar.

Arrival Time: Arrive before 11:00 a.m. local

Take the recommended flight to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. Help with airport transfers and luggage will be provided. When you arrive, enjoy the beautiful views of the mountains and the Beagle Channel. Visit Tierra del Fuego National Park, then have lunch on a private boat while sailing through the channel. Keep an eye out for South American sea lions and seabirds like imperial cormorants.

This 500-mile-wide strait between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most famous bodies of water in the world. Sometimes ferocious, sometimes flat calm, the Drake is always a fascinating place in its own right. This part of the journey is your best opportunity to see gorgeous seabirds like the wandering albatross, and you might be lucky enough to encounter killer whales or rare species of dolphins. This is also a day to get to know the ship and prepare for the adventures ahead. Visit the Bridge (a great place to spot wildlife), have a relaxing massage; attend a talk about the biology of the penguins you’ll soon be seeing; or settle into a comfy chair in the observation lounge, look out over the waves and reflect on the incredible history of this fabled passage. If it does get a little rough, just take a couple of nice naps; you’ll be in Antarctica before you know it.

With long hours of daylight at this time of year, you'll have ample opportunities to explore. The schedule is flexible, allowing you to take advantage of the unexpected. You might set out by kayak to encounter towering icebergs at water level; embark on a Zodiac excursion in search of seals and blue-eyed shags; walk amid thousands of Adélie and gentoo penguins; or experience the thrill of the ship crunching through pack ice.

Everywhere you go in Antarctica you'll be surrounded by opportunities to capture uniquely beautiful images. Along the way your expert expedition team enriches your experiences.

Setting out from the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia, you'll follow in the wake of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s epic voyage in the James Caird across 800 miles of the wild and lonely Scotia Sea. But you won’t be lonely at all—these waters are home to a large and growing population of whales, including fin whales, southern right whales and even blue whales—the largest animal on Earth. Albatross and petrels wing past the ship, providing you with another wonderful challenge for photography, while presentations from the expedition team help to prepare you for the mind-bending wildlife spectacles of South Georgia.

Days at sea are not simply transits from one place to another; they are a very important part of this epic journey in their own right. The crossing from the Antarctic Peninsula to South Georgia gives you a chance to stop and breathe, to explore the amenities of the ship and to spend a little time contemplating all your new memories. Life-changing experiences tend to pile up on one another in the Antarctic, so slow down a bit and let it all settle in. This is a great time to catch up with your journal, enjoy a rejuvenating massage or download and review all those hundreds (or thousands!) of photos. Get some rest, too—when you get to South Georgia, it’s going to be go, go, go!

Simply put, there is nowhere else in the world like South Georgia. King penguins, the second largest penguin species in the world, are unquestionably the most iconic wildlife of South Georgia. Exact numbers are not known, but the largest single colony on the island may have as many as 500,000 of these amazing birds nesting together on a single two-mile-long beach.

Explore the spectacular coastline of South Georgia Island. In keeping with the nature of an expedition, the schedule is flexible with opportunities for walking, hiking, kayaking and Zodiac excursions. Sailing along the coast, you'll have a choice of activities every day including visits to Grytviken—the final resting place of Shackleton—and Stromness Harbour, where Ernest Shackleton, Tom Crean and Frank Worsley finally reached aid at a whaling station.

The island is also home to huge elephant seals and thousands of king penguins. South Georgia is sometimes called “the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean”, but even that description seems inadequate; this lonely island is unique in the world, so rich and so beautiful that it defies any comparison.

Your first day at sea on the way to the Falkland Islands is another opportunity to think back over the adventures of the past few days and make preparations for those soon to come. Spend some time chatting about your latest images with the National Geographic Photography Expert and learn to make them look their best in the digital darkroom. Put the finishing touches on your watercolor of that amazing iceberg or try to capture an albatross’s flight in a poem. Everyone needs to exhale a bit after a visit to South Georgia, so take a little time to explore the details of your own memories and share them with your shipmates.

The Bridge is the nerve center of the ship in more ways than one. There’s always a congenial atmosphere there, whether you’ve come to ask one of the officers about navigation or just to sit and watch the world go by with binoculars in hand. The waters close to the Falkland Islands are rich with marine wildlife, so this is a great time to hang out with the naturalists and keep watch for rare dolphins or another beautiful species of albatross. All new sightings go up on the white board for the day’s record!

All the best aspects of expedition travel seem to come together in the western Falkland Islands. Where else can you land on a beach tucked into a rocky cove, hike out across a rolling green pasture and suddenly find yourself at the crest of a sea cliff looking out over the South Atlantic surf? Just a few steps further and you’re standing at the edge of a breeding colony of black-browed albatross, so close that you can hear the wind on their wings as they swoop into land beside you. Check out the thousands of irresistible gentoo, rockhopper and Magellanic penguins that congregate here, along with fur seals.

Stanley, the bright, pretty capital of the Falkland Islands, is a wonderfully unexpected place: a charming outpost of British culture tucked into a small bay on the shore of these windswept islands in the far South Atlantic. Many Falkland Islanders still live in very traditional ways, and you’ll have a chance to visit a small farm to see some expert sheep shearing and learn about the best techniques for cutting blocks of peat for the fire. The rocky hills and white sand beaches outside town offer some excellent hikes, and afterward, a cup of tea or a pint at the local tavern goes down very nicely.

The final day of your expedition takes you across the shallow waters of the Falklands Shelf, back to your starting point in Ushuaia. Attend presentations from the expedition staff on topics that help to sum up all the wonderful details of your experiences in the far south, and spend some time on deck enjoying the seabirds and dolphins that make these seas their home.

This is a day for contemplation as well. The Antarctic stays with you. Sometime soon, at a moment in the midst of a stressful day, you’ll remember the feeling of the polar wind, the sight of waves crashing against the blue wall of an iceberg and the sound of the penguins calling to their chicks. It’s a little bit of peace that you’ll carry with you always.

Disembark in Ushuaia. Fly by private charter to Santiago and transfer to the airport for your flight home.